Violence

 

President Trump has ordered all federal buildings to lower flags to half mast to honor and mourn Charlie Kirk, a Trump supporter and conservative influencer Mad Dog had never heard of until he was shot.

Minnesota At Half Mast

Trump blamed the assassination on the "radical left," although no one has been arrested for the murder. It may have been Hunter Biden, for all we know. Or maybe Obama, who was born in Kenya. Or maybe Hillary is up to shooting people again, like Vince Foster. But definitely not Jeffrey Epstein, who, you know, committed suicide while in custody.

When the Democratic Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives was murdered along with her husband and another Democratic legislator and his wife wounded by the same gunman, who carried with him a victim list of other Democrats, nothing emanated from the White House decrying political violence.

When Trump was asked if he had called Minnesota governor after the murders to express condolences he said, "I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out. I'm not calling him. Why would I call him? I could calla and say, "Hi, how you doing?' Uh, the guy doesn't have a clue. He's a mess. I could be nice and call, but why waste the time?"

So Trump wastes no tears on people who probably would never vote for him.  He doesn't like guys who got captured and became prisoners of war, because Trump is a tough guy with heel spurs. He would never get captured because he would never actually enlist in the cause of defending America by arms. 

When a gunman attacked the CDC offices in Atlanta and shot dead a defending policeman, flags were not flown at half mast honoring a government employee defending other government employees.

When fifteen Nazis were shot dead as they attacked police in the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, which failed to put Hitler in power, Hitler established monuments, established an annual march re-enacting the failed coup and established a commemorative flag, the Blood Flag in their honor.

During the Weimar years, more than 500 political assassinations bloodied the streets and buildings, all but 10 were directed by Nazis at more liberal politicians.

This is no surprise, because part of the appeal of right winger is machismo, masculinity, strength, the threat of violence. That's why torch light parades are a right wing thing--they are meant to evoke not love, but fear.

"For all those who draw the sword, will die by the sword," Jesus told Peter (Matthew 26.52.) This can be understood to extend beyond swords to guns but also to simple exhortation toward physical force ("rough him up") and street thugs in masks manhandling men for speaking Spanish and looking Hispanic, for looking like an "alien" to White cops,  without warrant, without ceremony, without restraint, without process.

People in cities should not be afraid to walk outside, Mr. Trump has said, the criminals should fear Mr. Trump and his supporters. I am strong. Fear me! I will do violence to you, or my fans will. Just try heckling me at one of my rallies and see what happens: you will be "roughed up."

Nothing is yet certain about the motivation of whoever shot Mr. Kirk. The assumption on the right has been he was murdered as a martyr to the cause of right wing righteousness. 

Or, we may never know. Mr. Trump, of course, already knows.

But whatever the reason, Mr. Trump and the MAGA mob have provided one: Violence, they will claim is the exclusive weapon of the radical left, while the MAGA mob, which delights in pummeling hecklers at Trump rallies, which delights in the images of a cowboy hat wearing sheriff on a horse whipping a Haitian man at a border crossing, that's not violent; the right can only be the victim of violence, never the perpetrator.  

Of course, no side has a monopoly on political violence.

But one side invokes the threat of violence to get its way, to stimulate its followers into a mob. 

 

ADDENDUM:

Great Minds Think Alike Dept:

(Actually, this is not Great Minds thinking alike, so much as mediocre mind stumbles toward the same conclusion a great mind reached in more expeditious fashion: The day after Mad Dog posted, Paul Krugman showed why he's widely read and celebrated by posting on the same topic.)

Krugman: "Waving the Bloody Shirt"

At this point what do we know about who killed Charlie Kirk, and why?

Nothing. And we may never know anything. In part that’s because there appears to have been a rapid degradation in the FBI’s effectiveness since Trump appointees took over and prioritized political loyalty over competence.

The fact that Kirk was a right-winger doesn’t mean that the shooter was a left-winger. There are many possible stories you can invent about what may have motivated the assassination. What we do know is that no prominent Democrat has called for violence against Republicans, and no prominent Democrat has celebrated Kirk’s death.

Whoever did this, there’s just no rational way you can blame this on “the left.”

Also, whatever motivated this murder, it’s simply a fact that over the past decade right-wing extremists have killed many more people than left-wing extremists:

And Trump — who has repeatedly incited mob violence since his first campaign — clearly wants to use the Kirk killing as an excuse for more violence and intimidation. “We have radical left lunatics out there,” declared Trump, “and we just have to beat the hell out of them.” An utterly malign appeal to mob violence from a sitting president, particularly outrageous since no one knows who killed Kirk and why.

And let’s be clear: everyone — Republicans, business leaders, and more — who decided, in effect, to forget about Jan. 6 helped set the stage for this malignancy.

So while we want to know what lay behind Kirk’s assassination, the important story right now is Trump’s intent to use the killing to incite violence against anyone who stands in his way.

--Mad Dog