I had other things on the docket today, but I’d be remiss if we don’t at least address WTF happened yesterday.
TL;DR Someone tried to assassinate Former President Trump at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, grazing his ear instead, killing a spectator, and wounding a few others. The suspect is now dead.
I’m not a reporter and I don’t play on one TV so if you’d like to go deeper or find yourself some conspiracy rabbit holes, be my guest, just go do it elsewhere. The above is what I know.
The woman sitting next to me when the news came in, blurted out, “I’m surprised someone hasn’t tried to kill him sooner,” followed by, “They should assassinate him.”
We’ll return to why this is an absolute bat 💩 problematic position in a moment.
Others shared shock and horror. Sadness and grief.
Mostly there’s been a lot of speculative, “How can this happen?!” and “Are we going backward!? Assassinations, really?”
[pauses to take a deep breath]
Ok, let’s dive in.
I would like, first, to call our attention to the left, which has been defending rape, violence, and terrorism as legitimate positions. Then, I’d like to call our attention to the right which has been screaming, “Guns!! YAY! GUNS! Don’t you take my guns! I need guns everywhere all the time!” for a few decades now, but louder.
These extremist and frankly insane positions people take, the ones we think are on the “fringe,” are the mainstream now.
We can (and should) blame social media, traditional media, and every single factor historians have been warning us about for decades [see: On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder, anything Anne Applebaum has written (her convos with Sam Harris are excellent), and of course, as always, anything James Baldwin, Kurt Vonnegut, or Audre Lorde who have been saying all this over and over and over in different ways. TBH even Hemingway and Camus had some wisdom here.]. But the damage is done.
If you’re calling for inciting violence “for your side” or believe that violence is a justified position when X conditions are in place, this is a problem.
There is a direct, clear, straight line between these positions (“Look at who you’re dealing with! Violence is the only language they understand!” “Everyone needs guns!”) and people showing up to a rally with guns to kill a person they don’t like.
Let’s be generous and say, ok it’s not that this assassin “didn’t like” Trump; let’s say, he has some grandiose motivation that is ideologically defensible (It’s not but this is a thought exercise, ok?). The boy chooses a public forum where others can be harmed. Where media is present. De facto this isn’t about an assassination.
What we witnessed yesterday was political performance art. And we are feeding it. With our shocked and horrified responses, which are appropriate but also – and I say this sincerely and with love:
REALLY??
Really you’re shocked? Really you’re horrified? REALLY you didn’t think that would happen here? REALLY you did not see this coming??
I have little compassion for this stance.
The feigned ignorance we continue to display in America infuriates me. The only intellectually honest position to take here is, “Fu$%. It’s here. It happened.” The beginning of the end.
Why did you not expect this? (*asks into ether).
I did. Every honest person did.
Here’s where it all links together, for me:
100x/100x when Jews are targeted, it marks the decline of democracy. This is a known historical fact, consult your local Deborah Lipstadt and history books. It can be a 20-year decline or a 5-year decline or a 100-year slow burn, but when they come for the Jews, they come for everyone next. So that’s one salient issue that we’ve been screaming from the rooftops while the left, universities, and “mainstream media” have been willing puppets to the Islamic regime (good job, guys).
Antisemitism exists in equal measure on the right. No side “hates Jews more,” we are equal opportunity disliked. If anything we could be a unifying factor! (kidding) This debate that the Right likes to wage is a silly waste of time that distracts from the real issue which is: which antisemitic position poses the most danger right now. And TBH I don’t know. It’s easy to point a finger at those misinformed about what’s happening in the Middle East, but it’s also easy for me to point a finger at white supremacists who still think I’m the devil (I mean, God gave me red hair for a reason, right?) (the reason is genetics. or maybe I am Lilith here to stoke the demons. Who can know. either way it’s 🦇 💩).
If you’re wondering how I went from assassination attempt to antisemitism the through line is extremist, unmitigated hate, and the historical relevance that once Jews start being targeted, democracy goes down along with it.
And what we just saw yesterday is that trust in our systems, built to protect us, is gonezo.
The outrage machine is in full force, we haven’t disassembled the ad model, we’ve made zero regulatory progress on this front, and your amygdala is still being hijacked by sensationalism and dangerous ideas.
We’ve not moved an inch since I wrote about this in 2020. and again in October last year. And again here. and here. and here. I even snuck my position inside an article on Inc. I wrote that no one edited or corrected to this day.
We are not learning from our mistakes because many stand to benefit from the status quo staying where it is. We like being outraged and using that as social capital at dinner parties. Viewership isn’t going down, it’s going up. but I digress.
Speaking for myself, I don’t feel compelled to action.
I’m sitting back and grabbing some popcorn while the Confederacy of Dunces dukes it out over defending their fragile egos tied to indefensible belief systems and bad ideas and I’m going to go read a book.
That’s not very hopeful, but it’s where I’m at.
If you believe in democracy, which you should, then work to defend it not upend it.
Once I’m done reading a book and watching democracy crumble, I’d like to invite us to ACT this bitch and examine our own behavior. How are you talking about this in front of children? What are you reading? What has changed about how you approach your life now since 2020 and since Oct 7th and since George Floyd and since…no really, what do you DO differently?
Because if the answer is nothing, or you doubled down in your position (which is what most people IMO did), then we’re more than #$%&@.
I’m asking myself all these same questions, I don’t have a good answer for you. I just know that what happened yesterday should not have come as a surprise. This troubles me.
And if anyone, right left up down center middle, thinks killing is justified – no matter how much you disagree with that person or can reasonably agree they’re a dangerous idiot – we have a huge problem.
YUGE.
(Please laugh.) (That was funny.) (And if you don’t laugh you’ll cry.)
Keep independent thought alive. Keep dissent. Keep the basic fundamental democratic ideas in place (debate, disagreement, power changing hands, separation of church and state, equality).
If we can’t do that at the dinner table then how the $#@ do we think we’re going to be able to do this on a larger scale?
I can’t honestly tell you to have hope things will be ok. I don’t know that they will. My haunch is it’s going to get way worse before it gets better, if it gets better at all.
What I can tell you is you will be ok.
There are many ways to choose hope and choose change and choose better, even within the worst of circumstances and corrupt institutions. ACT reminds us that we can look around at the injustices in the world and say, “ok. That happened. It’s not ok. It’s not right. It’s not fair. It’s profoundly #$%ed up. It’s not changing. [feel your rage.] [then ask] So. Now what?”
That’s the question we need to be asking.
Now what?
M
PS: I was reading Time is a Mother last night and Ocean Vuong had a stanza that captured everything I have to say about all this (the spacing will be off, my apologies):
my people my people
I thought
the fall would
kill me
but it only
made me real
Choose to live in real. Choose to be real. Let the idiots fighting for their delusions and illusions fight with each other and don’t for a single second act surprised when stupid does what stupid does. It’s a pattern. Expect it. Plan accordingly.
Keep fighting the good fight – which you can only do if you are grounded in reality. Spend your time there (it’s not pleasant, but it is necessary).
xo
