We Are Living in the Age of Stupidity and Cowardice

Here we are again. Three mass shootings in the course of a week, 251 in the last year. We are no longer entitled to feel shocked. We should feel shocked when a week passes without one.

If the murder of over 20 six-year-olds at Sandy Hook did not change the course of the country, we are foolish to think recent events will be any different. That was almost nine years ago. The shooting up of a Walmart or a night club district or a food festival is scarcely more shocking than Sandy Hook.

Thoughts and prayers. Wash, rinse, repeat.

We believe what we want to believe and damn the facts. And some of our beliefs are so outlandishly stupid that they approach comedy.

Ohio Repressive Candice Keller posted on social media just after the Dayton attack that the fault lay with drag queens, open borders and even Obama. She then went on to accuse liberals of playing the blame game. Really.

And there is the Lt. Governor of Texas who said these events are the result of not allowing students to pray in schools. Really.

I could fill this post with hundreds of pages of politicians and their cowardly deflections–playing to the stupidity of the people who keep electing them. It’s mental illness. It’s video games. It’s open borders. It’s gun-free zones. It’s Obama. It’s drag queens. It’s preventing students from praying in schools. (Note: there will be prayer in schools as long as there is algebra.)

But you know what it’s not? It’s not the rise of white nationalism/supremacy/terrorism. It’s not easy access to lethality that the Founders could not even imagine in the late 18^th century when they drafted Amendment Number Two. It’s not racism. It’s not unbridled and irrational fear of “the other”.

And it’s certainly not the rancid elephant in the room…Donald J. Trump.

There is no need in this post to go into his long history of racism (1973 Consent Decree, Central Park Five, birtherism, etc.). That record is clear and thoroughly documented. What is also clear, for those supporters who have the intelligence and courage to look, is his record as President:

• Encourages violence at his rallies
• Gives a wink and a nod to right wing violent extremists after Charlottesville
• Labels asylum seekers as “invaders”
• Incites hateful and un-American chants of “lock her up” and “send her back”
• Tells duly elected members of Congress to “go back to the countries from which they came” (all citizens, all women of color, and three of which were born here)
• Cancels, by executive order, an Obama era regulation making it difficult for  mentally ill to buy a firearms
• Makes a joke of a supporter’s shout of “shoot them” (immigrants, that is) at a
  MAGA rally

And for those who need to be convinced of Trump’s complicity—read the El Paso shooter’s manifesto. See if you can tell the difference between that and one of Trump’s rally speeches.

Teleprompter Trump lumbers out to the microphone–looking like someone who has a gun to his head–and attempts to say something Presidential. He says:

“In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy.

These sinister ideologies must be defeated. Hate has no place in America. Hatred warps the mind, ravages the heart and devours the soul…”

To which I say—you first, Mr. President. How about some personal responsibility? Responsibility for your divisiveness, your hatred, your racism. Your intentional playing to the fears and bigotry of the stupid.

This is not leadership. This is cowardice. We will see how Twitter Trump aligns with Teleprompter Trump. We will see how your next MAGA rally goes. We will watch what you do, not what you say.

And to the supporters who get ramped up by this behavior…that’s not intelligence. That’s stupidity. And to the supporters of these antics: you are not just complicit in the problem. You are the problem.