Thug life. It was 3AM or so a few weeks back when Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old working with the Social Security Administration in Washington D.C., walked Emily Bryant back to her car after a party, and a small mob attacked them — around ten people, according to police who witnessed the assault. Edward shoved Emily in the driver’s seat, slammed it shut, and squared off against the assailants. A couple got around him, opened the door, and Edward slammed it shut again. This time, Emily managed to lock the car. Frustrated, the gang tried punching through the windows, Edward threw himself between them one more time, and then, finally, they focused on him. But Emily was safe. By now, most of you have seen the aftermath, as a photo of Edward shirtless and bloodied, with a concussion and a broken nose, went massively viral after President Trump shared it on Truth Social and threatened to take federal control of the nation’s capital due to runaway violent crime. And I recognized the kid at once.

You probably know Edward by another name, a nickname given to him by his friends, which was amplified around the world when earlier this year he took a job with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE): “Big Balls,” they call him. I call him. We all call him. A legend of a young man who already, entirely against his will, loomed large in our minds by the time of the attack. From here, the discourse could only be chaos.

There is no crime in Washington. Or, there’s never been so little crime. But on the other hand, there’s never been so much. I mean holy shit, it’s Fallujah out here, in fact it’s literally worse than Fallujah — at least, depending on the politics of your chosen talking head. The same is true of course of how we’re all responding to the crime that is or isn’t real, and how the White House has addressed this crime. Donald Trump’s a fascist. Donald Trump dissolved the D.C. government! He seized the police. He is presently putting innocent kids in concentration camps. But actually, he’s following the law, to the letter. And actually, a lot of residents have noticed things are kind of nice without the gunshots overhead, and the roving mobs of pillaging, plundering, straight-up Clockwork Orange kinda teenaged lunatics.

But actually, but actually, but actually.

Our national conversation will carry on like this at least through Trump’s presidency, and in all likelihood forever. Chaos is the nature of the internet, and of our president who was born inside the internet like Bane was born inside the darkness. But today I’d like to focus on the living breathing human in our actual reality, who was actually brutally attacked by a mob, and became the early focal point of our most recent never-ending media circus freak show: an actually good person, doing actually good things, and not just depending on your favorite talking head, because none of them have actually talked to him. But I have.