Why US diplomats tweet from the hip in response to Henry Nowak murder

Key points

• In the state department of past administrations, how to respond to an incendiary event such as the murder of the British student Henry Nowak would have required deliberations, memos and meetings.
• Given how it has roiled the UK and inflamed tensions over migration and race, the cautious diplomats at Foggy Bottom likely would have said nothing at all.
• Now they tweet from the hip.
• “Ideological conditioning and two-tiered policing are glaring symptoms of civilizational decline,” the department’s official account posted on Thursday.
• “They must be rejected across the West.” This is, after all, the state department that hosted the far-right provocateur Tommy Robinson for a tour earlier this year, has crowdsourced targets for deportation on X, and portrayed the UK – as well as much of Europe – as an ideological prison that celebrates censorship.