The Invisible Visible
Yesterday, a white-supremacist murdered 50 people in cold blood while they were praying in a New Zealand mosque. As usual — per such atrocities - people rush to find the motive. Sweaty hands wringing, shaking fingers pointing in every direction, the culprits are decided on and mob justice delivered depending on one’s political affiliation. People have lost the ability to connect simple cause and effect, instead taking the circuitous route that leads them to their comfort zone. They needlessly muddy the waters of an otherwise clear image in order to be outraged at the pre-approved targets chosen by their bubble communities.
People spent yesterday and today blaming everyone from right-wing empty-headed mouthpiece Candace Owens, to a YouTube personality named Pewdiepie, both of whom were targets inserted into the attack to stoke their harassment (rightly or wrongly, the killer included their names in his rantings). As though a nit-wit, pay-to-spew-bullshitter like Owens could inspire anything other than incel masturbation is a bizarre notion.
More serious minded people looked to the dark places of the Internet, the shit-hole where all ugly, hateful, violent things among us go to find comfort with their kindred spirits. Such places as 4chan and the 8chanl cesspool - to which the killer live-streamed his murder spree.
And yet despite finding the road, most people lose the map entirely once they get there. Places like 4chan and 8chan do not exist in a vacuum. Visit them and you will find a cornucopia of Trumpism and by definition, a collective of failed and aimless human souls, poured into the skin of white men. Despite every birth-given opportunity that comes with being born white, male and American, they see themselves as the exquisite victim, the perfect victim. Such a victim needs no offense or injury, just the power and ability to punish someone for their own failures.
Clarity
The rise of Trumpism is the rise of white-supremacy. That is the clarity and that is the problem. Consider that the President of the United States is viewed as the leader of the free world. What happens when that leader outlines the enemies of Western society as follows:
What happens when he blames those groups for the problems of the failed and/or the ignorant?
What happens when the president compliments and deifies killers, human- rights abusers, dictators and despots and celebrates their forms of governance? What happens when the president demands violence in order to protect himself from justice or any Constitutional check on his powers?
If we are to believe that the US is the leader of the Western world and its president as the voice of the free world, then we cannot ignore the rise in hate- crimes and white-supremacy in parallel to his rhetoric and policies.
We don’t even have to dig too deeply to make this connection. In each of the recent mass murders, the killers told us exactly what their motive was, who inspired them and what they hoped to achieve. There is the cause and there is the effect, writ large and in neon colors showing us the incestuous hate mongering relationship between a white-supremacist president and his base of the like-minded.
Two massacres, worlds apart, are listed below to illustrate both the reach of Trumpism and the visible line from rhetoric to action. The names of the killers are not included. They deserve no attention.
Synagogue Shooter
Leading up to the mid-term elections of 2018, President Trump and his various propaganda arms — from Breitbart to Fox News — villainized Central- American immigrants seeking asylum in the US. Moreover, they spun a dark conspiracy that this thousands-strong (and ever growing number depending on who is selling this hate fantasy) mob of criminals, rapists and terrorists were being funded by globalists and George Soros (code for Jews). This conspiracy theory became hysteria thanks to the president of the United States using his social media to promote it on a daily basis.
Many of us were rightfully concerned that this scapegoating for naked political gain would lead to violence. Yet Trump and his conspirators continued to spread this falsehood endlessly in order to turn out their base for the election. One has to wonder what type of candidates can only win an election by exploiting the fears of the most decayed and dangerous members of our society.
And then, just as predicted, a man walked into the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh and murdered 11 people. His motive -as he himself outlined — was to stop Jews from funding the caravan invasion. The cause is visible, measurable, even foreseen ahead of the deadly effect. Yet people fail to find the obvious connection. Why?
New Zealand
A man walked into a mosque in New Zealand yesterday and murdered 50 people. He told us why he did it, what motivated him and what he hoped to gain from it. There is no need to riddle out any alternative meaning or hidden causes. We can see a direct connection to Trump, whom the killer called “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose. ” The motive was immigration. The killer is Australian. The victims were murdered in New Zealand. The inspiration is the president of the United States — proving that far and wide, his rhetoric and policies are inspiring cold-blooded murder.
Edicts (Causes), Consequences (Effects)
People argue that the president and his conspirators cannot be held accountable for what other people do. It is mere coincidence, they say. Or if they are truly disconnected from even a pretense of honesty, they delve into the worst argument: the perverted free-speech argument. According to this twisted viewpoint, Trump is merely using his free speech rights to express himself.
The irony of course being that free speech rights are enshrined to protect the populace from the government, not to protect the leader of the government from the consequences of his words. And his words have the most significant of consequences. Do they not?
If you or I were to yell fire in a theater and cause a panic, someone might get hurt in the stampede to safety. But the leader of the free world yelling fire on a platform visible from every corner of the planet and pointing to some random person or group as the arsonist behind that fire can start wars. These are not mere words. For someone in that position and with that authority, these are edicts.
When the president often paints immigrants as animals or an infestation, he is telling the world that human-rights protections or even basic civil respect no longer apply to to that group of people. Animals can be hunted. If immigrants are animals, then they too can be hunted. Trump, of course, prefers to cage the children of the “animals” as a deterrent to the parents. If immigrants are animals, then their children are animals. Animals can be caged.
Trump’s pattern of recklessly saying whatever he thinks will fulfill his immediate need — be it to rile up his base or cover up his own questionable activities — is creating fires in multiple theaters the world over and the casualties are invariably the most powerless among us.
The victims are the people he singles who cannot fight back or protect themselves. When he declares that African-Americans are terrorists because they are rightfully protesting the way they are treated by law enforcement, he is using his power against those already under siege by the powerful.
When he targets immigrants fleeing from violence and starvation, often as a result of US policies and interventions, he is attacking the most disadvantaged and unprotected among us. He dehumanizes the very victims who are later murdered. The most heinous of his vicious verbal assaults are aimed at Muslims from countries the US has destroyed. As though not having been victimized enough, they deserve to be invisible so their assailants, like Trump, don’t have to be reminded of their crimes. Trump is as invisible to justice as refugees are from it.
From the safety of his gilded throne-room, behind his praetorian guard of Secret Service protectors he wages verbal war on the world stage, telegraphing directly to the creatures of his base. They in turn process his anger and rhetoric, some even act on those dark signals, massacring people in inspiration or out of the fear he has stoked. The public sees no cause and effect or if they do, they dismiss it after a cursory examination as something of mere coincidence.
Then, when ‘thoughts and prayers’ are being rhythmically delivered by the Stepford denizens of the United States government, Trump — a consummate coward who lacks the courage of his convictions — delivers the final insult in the form of cheaply perfumed condolences.
How many?
How many more people have to die before the hate and fear mongering of Trumpism is thrown into the dust-heap of history? Is the murder of Heather Heyer enough? What about the shooting of an immigrant bar owner in Kansas? What about the 11 souls slaughtered at the Tree of Life Synagogue? What about the the planned deadly massacre of Somali immigrants? Is that enough yet? What about the pipe bombs sent by rabid Trump supporter to media outlets and Trump’s “enemies?” What about the homeless man attacked for being a suspected illegal immigrant? What about the six dead and 19 wounded in the Quebec Islamic Center attack? Is this enough yet? No? What about the 22 death threats sent to Trump’s “enemy of the people” CNN? What about the bombing of the Islamic Center in Minnesota in an attack “meant to scare Muslims” to leave the country? How about the 17 murdered children at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland? Is that fucking enough yet? No? How about another 50 murdered yesterday across the world on a continent so far away that their day is our night? How many is enough? How many dead, assaulted, terrorized, vandalized is enough? How many victims across the world is enough for the public to stand up against Trumpism? Is just one not enough?