thenation.com – There are no words regarding the emotional whiplash I feel, having attended Muhammad Ali’s funeral on Friday and now, on Sunday, attending a vigil in Washington, DC, for the 50—and counting—slaughtered at the Pulse in Orlando on Saturday. Was this really all the same weekend? The juxtaposition is beyond tragic.

To hear about the remorseless killing of predominantly Latino LGBT people during Pride month is shattering enough. To then see Donald Trump and a collection of the worst anti-gay bigots be boastful, almost gleeful, about it because the shooter was Muslim is all the worse. Muhammad Ali, as eulogist Billy Crystal said, truly devoted the last half of his life to building bridges. These bridges are fragile; that’s what makes them matter. It is so much easier to just burn them down, and that is exactly what one shooter aimed to do, and now in death he is being assisted by an entire right-wing apparatus, which despises bridges about as much as it detests irony.