I… OK… but… um…
Kind of a day we’re having in America, isn’t it.
Let’s start with the obvious.
- Don’t shoot people
- Starting violence against political candidates and electeds is Not OK, Ever
Someone: “But, Andan, the American Revolution!”
Me: 
There’s a discussion there about revolutions that lead to better governments, or worse ones, and how they can have noble aims and yet produce tragedies along the way, etc. But we’re not talking about that. Yet. Never again in America, I hope. But we’re not talking about that now. Because this isn’t that.
We’re talking about things like JFK , RFK , Reagan , Giffords , where in the course of normal political campaigns/office holding, someone shot the candidate/elected.
These events are not OK. We should settle our political differences at the ballot box. And right there, is A Reason I have a big problem with Trump, someone who has expressly stated that they will use the power of the Presidency to arrest and punish political opponents, and it’s clear that he would do that solely because they are political opponents and they criticized him. And that’s super not fucking OK.
And it’s less not OK than shooting a candidate or elected. Why? Because discourse on the point of convincing arguments is the order of the day in campaigns and elections. Whatever the outcome of an American election at any level, what’s supposed to be the outcome is that some people feel like a better approach is being taken toward a solution of a problem everyone of any party acknowledges is there, and some people people feel like it’s not the better approach which would have been pursued by their preferred candidate if elected.
Before you yell at me about my ivory tower zip code, let me say, I know that regularly this isn’t how it comes out. For example, the consequence of the election of Trump in 2016 is a country where some states can decide that women aren’t fully people under the law, which should be, like, inconceivable, and yet here we are post Dobbs where women have less rights to bodily autonomy than men in some states. And, no, an embryo or a fetus isn’t a person and doesn’t have rights. And no “late term abortion” isn’t murder. It’s the result of tragic news being given to almost entirely folks who very much welcome the coming birth of their child that their options are abortion or a DOA or soon to be child or the death of the parent carrying that child.
That’s not a digression. The previous graph is about how I get that folks can get he’t up about the candidacy of a certain person to the point where they have the thought, “You know I could just… kill them.”
And even to prevent a Dobbs, taking action on that thought is immoral. Reasons:
- Someone is murdered.
- It encourages others to commit more murders.
The first one is a gimme. Of course that’s bad. And don’t @ me with “well in some cases it’s justified like in self defense” because that’s obviously not the case we’re talking about here. The second one is something we should all fear. Who runs for office when the % of murdered elected and candidates is on the rise? Some very brave folks and some egotistical assholes so divorced from reality that you don’t want them in office.
To bring it home to today, Trump was already in the second camp and now even more so. That fucking picture of him (“A powerful photograph that could change America forever”; Philip Kennicott, Washington Post 2024-07-15) is going to win a Pulitzer, and going to haunt us for a long time.
Let me be clear; I’m on Team Aneurysm or whatever. I wish Trump were dead, which is a kind of wishing harm on him, but I absolutely do not advocate violence done against him by a third party. He can court all the heart attacks he wants and please do eat that third cheeseburger of the day, sir, but no, no, no to someone shooting at him.
This is a terrible day in American politics. Please encourage everyone to vote their conscience as their patriotic duty. Please remind everyone that murder is bad.
I don’t know what else to say.
[Light editing 2024-07-14T20:46:17-0700]