Running on Murder and Mayhem

 

My first day in middle school I met a girl named Diana, who even at age 12 I could see was gentry, aristocracy in our suburban community. 

Clear skin, shiny, bouncy hair, she was also clear eyed and saw the world with a merciless clarity borne of someone born to privilege who had seen the less appetizing aspects of the country club set.

Years later, she organized our high school class reunion, and she still had that capacity to see the world with merciless clarity. 

I asked her how the response had been, now 40 years after graduation and she said, "Well, there's 30% I've heard back from who are really pleased and eager to see everyone again. And then there's 30% who are just sort of somnolent, apathetic or maybe semi comatose, like, 'Oh? Is it that time again? Yeah, well, maybe I will come. But, really, who's coming? Yeah, let me get back to you. When is it, again?' And then,"  and Diana paused a beat, "And then the last 40% is just flat out insane."

I don't think there was anything  special about our high school class; it pretty much reflects what most of our country is like, if not demographically, at least psychologically. There's always been, at least since I've been around, just that 40% flat out insane in this berserk country of ours.

And, of course, it's that 40% who are MAGA and who elected Trump with a little help from that apathetic crowd.

But now the MAGA mob faces the prospect of running in the next election on murder and mayhem.

The murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti aren't mentioned much in the newsfeeds and papers so much any more, but it's hard to fathom that these deaths will be just another evanescent news cycle.

Murder is not a news cycle. Murder is forever. There is no statue of limitations on murder for a reason. Eternity is a long long time.

Even the most semi-comatose had to see these ICE and BCP agents were sent there to do exactly what they did: commit murder and mayhem.

It wasn't just some unfortunate accident they shot Pretti. They intended to shoot Pretti. They were there to shoot find a  Pretti to murder, to establish who is boss. As a warning to others. 

This is the Project 2025 plan, in execution. 

Rick Scott, the Republican Senator from Florida said it was unfortunate, but that's what happens when you do not bend the knee to the police, and that's what J.D. Vance and Pam Bondi said. That was the party line. It used to be, "if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear." Now it's, "If you just mind your business, keep your mouth shut, you have nothing to fear."

Stephen Miller said Pretti was a domestic terrorist intent on killing ICE, and so did Secretary Noem, but even some MAGAt's had trouble seeing any indication of that in the videos, shot from six different angles, all showing Pretti covering up a woman on the ground, who CBP agents had put there and then being shot in the back 10 times.

The 40% may think this is what Law and Order is. Murder is what Law and Order looks like.

They may have trouble selling that to the other 60%.

But that's the platform, that's where machismo leads you.

When Pete Hegseth, the MAGA macho man, renames the Department of Defense as the Department of War, that's what he's selling: murder and mayhem. 

That kind of axe throwing masculinity is phony as a three dollar bill, of course. Hegseth wants to be a "warrior," and you can see him giving that talk in front of actual warriors who did not so much as smile.  Hegseth looked like that little 7 year old Black kid on the NFL Superbowl ad, exhorting his stuffed animals, "I'm a beast! I'm a monster!"

Yup, that's what we got now, in Trump, in his cabinet from Bondi, to Hegseth, to Noem, to RFKJR to Bessent to Gabbard to Lutnick, not true warriors but true monsters.