New York Times fever dream

Perhaps now John Oliver said it best, though he was discussing compromises in vaccinations at the time. "The problem is that it’s the middle ground between sense and nonsense,” Oliver said. “It’s like saying, ‘It would be crazy to eat that entire bar of soap, so I’ll just eat half of it.'”

Here's how I imagine the tragedy unfolding:

Three Alt-Right friends with a history of far right Internet trolling shoot their way into The New York Times. One of the three is killed breaching security, but the others shoot people indiscriminately with military grade weapons before setting a bomb off that kills themselves and dozens of others. In total 93 people are tragically killed, and The New York Times, America's newspaper of record, is shut down for 32 hours.

The President of The United States tweets "Maybe if they didn't write fake news this terrible tragedy never would have happened! My prayers go out to the victims." Less than an hour later the tone changes slightly as he tweets "Our deepest condolences to the victims of this terrible, horrible event! Violence is not the answer!"

The New York Times reels in horror, grief, and chaos, missing a day's paper for the first time in 168 years. But the community and the nation's presses rally to help them. They publish their paper again after a brutally painful day and a half with the following headline:

Non Centrist Politics Spur Mass Shooting at New York Times 

Dead now number 93

Some Say President's Condolences Show Signs of Hope

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Or maybe really it was Bernie Sanders who said it best, though he was talking about climate change. "...when the future of the Planet is at stake there is no middle ground."