Mourning with rage about Colorado Springs
Republicans have been calling for this.
I don’t know how to react to the murders in Colorado Springs. This newsletter has had more politics than I’d like lately, but what else can I do? As long as political shootings like this keep happening, I can’t just ignore them.
I’ve said it before. When Republicans realized that Americans were fine with gay marriage, they invented trans bathroom bills. When they lost abortion as a rallying cry, they needed new imaginary children to fight for. They conflated being queer with pedophilia to fill a specific political vacuum.
In the words of Philip Gourevitch, “Genocide, after all, is an exercise in community building. …The specter of an absolute menace that requires absolute eradication binds leader and people in a hermetic utopian embrace, and the individual—always an annoyance to totality—ceases to exist.”
Considering the recent scandal about *actual* widespread pedophilia in the Baptist church, on the heels of the Catholic church, maybe conservatives don’t mind blurring the meaning of the word.
Hate speech drove these murders. Period. And in the immediate aftermath, the handful of propagandists who loudly declare that trans people are a threat to our children did not mourn. They redoubled their efforts. Tucker Carlson’s guest last night, from “Gays Against Groomers,” said, “the tragedy that happened in Colorado Springs was expected and predictable….Sadly, I don’t think it’s going to stop until we end this evil agenda.” It’s a classic terrorist demand: more people will die unless you change.
Do you need more examples? Tim Pool, a genuinely stupid person with 1.4 million Twitter followers, also went with the “stop hitting yourself” approach, claiming “we shouldn’t tolerate pedophiles grooming kids, Club Q had a grooming event,” [sic] and plenty worse, which is not worth the energy to put into context.
Jenna Ellis, a Trump lawyer trained in Colorado Springs in the Focus on the Family world, rather than mourn, tweeted a snarky remark about the victims’ preferred pronouns. On her podcast, she said the murder victims, “are now reaping the consequences of eternal damnation.”
This is a new reaction to mass murder. The people who encouraged this say the victims deserved it. They follow up with their constant refrain: children are under threat, and people need to take matters into their own hands.
We know where this rhetoric comes from. Vice News reports that Republican candidates “spent at least $50 million on anti-LGBTQ attack ads that primarily target trans youth.” Youtubers are still getting rich calling for violence. Podcasters are still finding millionaires to fund hatred. Tucker Carlson is still talking about trans people more than anyone else in broadcasting.
Children’s hospitals are still getting bomb threats.
Members of the crowd stopped the shooter. A veteran of 4 combat tours to the Middle East pistol tackled him by his body armor, disarmed him, and pistol-whipped the shooter with his own sidearm. A trans woman kicked the killer in the face with her heels. They illustrate another truth about America these days. You can’t expect the law to come and save you. Americans have to protect each other.
I’m not here to bombard you with depressing and unsurprising facts. I simply want to say that every ad executive who decided to buy airtime on Fox News is culpable for these murders. Propagandists like Tucker Carlson and Matt Walsh are responsible for these murders. Organizations like Focus on the Family are responsible for these murders. And until they lose their money, face prosecution, or experience some magical change of heart, the murders will not stop. They’ve said so themselves.
