The comments section beneath Maureen Callahan’s latest Daily Mail article on Prince Harry is not merely a reflection of public opinion—it is the final act in a theater of cruelty deliberately staged by the British tabloid press. While Callahan’s column trades in innuendo and moral scolding dressed up as concern for “the monarchy,” it is in the responses that her true legacy unfolds: readers salivating at the idea of Prince Harry’s death, Meghan Markle’s downfall, and imagined custody battles over their children.

What we are witnessing is not discourse. It is dehumanization.

The comments, numbering in the hundreds, are a litany of abuse. They call Meghan Markle “the manipulative witch,” Harry “a thick puppet,” and together “grifters,” “frauds,” and “parasites.” Users casually suggest he be “locked up in a white padded room” or express regret that British intelligence didn’t do a better job “removing” Diana. Others mock Harry’s mental health, call for his deportation, and refer to Meghan’s pregnancies as fake. A few even accuse the couple of burying “fake babies” under trees.

This is not tabloid entertainment. It is a hate campaign so normalized that readers feel entitled—obligated, even—to speculate about a father’s funeral, accuse a widow of faking motherhood, and imply that interracial children are props. And it’s all under the guise of “royal analysis.”

When Meghan gave a podcast interview last week describing a nightly ritual where she emails her children snapshots of her day, intending to gift them a lifetime of memories when they’re older, the media twisted this simple maternal gesture into narcissism. Callahan and her cohort imply it’s all performative. But what could be more ordinary than a mother archiving love letters for her children? They even criticize her normal day routine.

No matter. The public flogging must continue.

The Daily Mail’s comments section is a masterclass in manufactured consent. Commenters act like a jury already in deliberation, convinced that Harry deserves exile and Meghan humiliation. The same phrases repeat like mantras: “She ruined him,” “She’s not even Black,” “He betrayed his family,” “They wanted privacy but won’t shut up.” None of it is fact. It is folklore formed by repetition.

But what makes it especially pernicious is the selective moralizing. When King Charles admitted to affairs, when Prince Andrew settled a sex trafficking lawsuit, when Camilla was caught in extramarital scandal—these sins are washed away by the tide of royal nostalgia. Yet Meghan is pilloried for existing. For speaking. For crying. For emailing her kids.

If this were any other family, or any other institution, this would be called bullying. But because it is the monarchy—cloaked in tradition, legitimized by pageantry—the abuse is labeled tradition, and the press brands it public interest.

That is the most cynical twist of all.

The press created the spectacle and then monetized the backlash. Meghan and Harry are not being judged for what they’ve done; they are being punished for refusing to be silent while others profited off their silence. Meghan committed the cardinal sin of not knowing her place. Harry, of loving her anyway.

Every abusive comment is an indictment not of the Sussexes, but of the industry that sustains itself on their dehumanization. This is not journalism—it is propaganda, weaponized by the commentariat to uphold a social order that punishes independence, Blackness, and the refusal to conform.

The people who write “nobody cares about them” under every article are the same ones refreshing for updates, raging into the void, and ensuring that Maureen Callahan gets another byline. The mob isn’t angry because Meghan and Harry won’t go away. The mob is angry because they left—and made it clear they were never coming back.

And that is unforgivable.

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