Murder and attempted murder are wrong, period. Terrorism is wrong. Hodgkinson terrorized people yesterday, some of whom were just walking their fucking dog and minding their own business. Fuck him. I'm glad nobody died apart from him.
The fact that Hodgkinson was a Sanders supporter just shows that, while the right wing is *much* more violent than the left in its rhetoric and actions, white male violence transcends politics. It comes from the left, right, and center. It comes in many forms, from this attempted murder of other white men to the murder of and assault on the people of Flint by Rick Snyder and company. It is, without a doubt, the greatest threat to the safety of people across the US.
Yesterday, a GOP representative said, without apparent irony, “I can only hope that the Democrats do tone down the rhetoric. The rhetoric has been outrageous – the finger-pointing, just the tone and the angst and the anger directed at Donald Trump, his supporters. Really, then, you know, some people react to things like that. They get angry as well. And then you fuel the fires."
Earlier this year, Steve Scalise said, of the Muslim ban, "It’s very prudent to say, 'Let’s be careful about who comes into our country to make sure that they’re not terrorists.'"
Those two are part of a machine that relies on racist fearmongering and incitement to violence as a core part of its political strategy, and that has the disenfranchisement and impoverishment of many people as policy goals.
And GOP politicians, including Scalise with his A+ NRA rating, deliberately make assaults like this likelier. It's ironic that yesterday's shooting fell just after the one-year anniversary of the Pulse attack. In the aftermath of that horror, Scalise tweeted about his prayers going out to the families of the victims, and I replied that his prayers were as empty as the barrel of a gun that's been unloaded into the bodies of innocent people. Some random person found my tweet and liked it yesterday. It's still true, even now that someone put a bullet in his hip.
So it's hard not to blame these particular victims, in part. Being brought face-to-face with the consequences of their policies seems a bit like comeuppance. Seems like the fear they must have felt was, in some way, well-earned. This is what happens when you steal and steal and steal from people and also make it easier to buy a gun than to get birth control.
The fact that Hodgkinson was a Sanders supporter just shows that, while the right wing is *much* more violent than the left in its rhetoric and actions, white male violence transcends politics. It comes from the left, right, and center. It comes in many forms, from this attempted murder of other white men to the murder of and assault on the people of Flint by Rick Snyder and company. It is, without a doubt, the greatest threat to the safety of people across the US.
Yesterday, a GOP representative said, without apparent irony, “I can only hope that the Democrats do tone down the rhetoric. The rhetoric has been outrageous – the finger-pointing, just the tone and the angst and the anger directed at Donald Trump, his supporters. Really, then, you know, some people react to things like that. They get angry as well. And then you fuel the fires."
Earlier this year, Steve Scalise said, of the Muslim ban, "It’s very prudent to say, 'Let’s be careful about who comes into our country to make sure that they’re not terrorists.'"
Those two are part of a machine that relies on racist fearmongering and incitement to violence as a core part of its political strategy, and that has the disenfranchisement and impoverishment of many people as policy goals.
And GOP politicians, including Scalise with his A+ NRA rating, deliberately make assaults like this likelier. It's ironic that yesterday's shooting fell just after the one-year anniversary of the Pulse attack. In the aftermath of that horror, Scalise tweeted about his prayers going out to the families of the victims, and I replied that his prayers were as empty as the barrel of a gun that's been unloaded into the bodies of innocent people. Some random person found my tweet and liked it yesterday. It's still true, even now that someone put a bullet in his hip.
So it's hard not to blame these particular victims, in part. Being brought face-to-face with the consequences of their policies seems a bit like comeuppance. Seems like the fear they must have felt was, in some way, well-earned. This is what happens when you steal and steal and steal from people and also make it easier to buy a gun than to get birth control.
