Cheering for dead American soldiers at a Philly protest is indefensible and I’m not going to pretend otherwise

There’s a protest happening down at city hall in Philly where some disgusting, mask-wearing dumbass with a microphone decided to share their applause line with the crowd. For every US soldier who comes back in a casket, they cheer.

Seriously. That was said out loud, in public, in this city and people clapped.

Applause Line in Philly: “For every US soldier who comes back in casket, we cheer!”

Applause line at protest in Philly: "For every US soldier who comes back in casket, we cheer!"
pic.twitter.com/Kloa4Poodu

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) March 25, 2026

Okay so here’s the obvious reaction: Fuck those people.

Look, I do not want to be at war with Iran either. I have friends who have served overseas and I have never once believed that the men and women in uniform are responsible for the decisions made by the politicians who send them there.

Those soldiers signed up to serve their country. They do not write foreign policy. They execute orders handed down by people in Washington who will never set foot anywhere near a battlefield. Directing anger at them for the decisions of elected officials is not a political statement. It is just ignorance dressed up as one.

The First Amendment protects the right to protest. It protects the right to assemble. It protects speech that most people find deeply offensive and it should. That is the whole point of it, obviously, but constitutional protection does not mean freedom from criticism and it does not make what was said acceptable in any human sense.

You can oppose every war this country has ever fought and still have the basic decency to not cheer when a soldier dies. Those are not mutually exclusive positions.

Every American who has come home in a flag-draped coffin gave everything they had. The freedom to stand in a public square and say vile things about them exists in part because people like that died protecting it. The irony is apparently lost on the people hiding their faces behind masks while delivering their applause lines.

Speaking of the masks. The same crowd that cheers for dead soldiers and covers their faces to avoid accountability is often the first to complain when federal agents cover their faces for the same reason. I have my doubts that any of these cowards are actually from Philly to begin with but regardless, the selective outrage is exhausting.

You can hate the war. You can hate the policy. You can show up and protest every single day if that is how you want to spend your time. Cheering for dead soldiers does not advance any cause. It just reveals a level of contempt for other human beings that no political framework can justify.

That is not activism. That is a disgrace.

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