Targets
Up front: there’s never an excuse to “gun down” anyone. The two National Guard soldiers shot in Washington on Wednesday were not “legitimate” targets for any kind of protest. They were American young people, doing the job they signed up for. I’ve got friends in the National Guard. They joined with a sense of duty, to be a part of something bigger than just themselves, a little adventure, and maybe some advantage in training for future employment. Those West Virginia soldiers didn’t in any way, shape or form, “deserve” this.
We live in a society where madness happens. There are more guns in America than people. (Check that, more guns in America than people, statistically, one and a half guns per person). And, I know, my “Second Amendment” friends will say that “guns don’t kill people, people do”. That trite phrase is true on the surface. But it’s unreasoning. We also live in a nation polarized to an historic extreme. Not since the late 1850’s have Americans been so against each other. Into that sea of division we stir in an overwhelming amount of deadly weapons. So why is it any surprise that those who are on the edge of mental breakdown, “fall off” and use guns to show it?
Action/Reaction
It’s hard not to think that these kinds of horrific events aren’t exactly what the Trump Administration is looking for. They have turned up the heat on the “pot” of unrest. Armed troops, ICE, are skirting or ignoring American legal protections, rounding up individuals based on the color of their skin or the sound of their accent. Their randomness, and the “pride” ICE takes in its own inhumanity, is stoking the fire of discontent. We don’t know why an Afghan who fought bravely with American troops in his homeland, decided to drive across our country and target two kids from West Virginia. But we can see the inevitability of it happening, somewhere, sometime.
So what is the Trump Administration response. Add more fuel to the fire. Send five hundred more troops to Washington, five hundred more “targets” of discontent. Instead of reducing the causes of division, they are doubling down; using the results of their own actions to make things worse. Because, in the end, the Trump strategy is to show Americans how bad things are. And if they aren’t really that “bad” (see Portland), it seems they are creating situations where it will be. They are offering this choice: troops in the streets, anonymous forces disappearing neighbors, mass detention facilities, or civil unrest and violence. But the unrest and violence is, in large part, a result of the Administration’s own actions.
Better Angels
I don’t blame the National Guardsmen, doing the job they signed up for. And I don’t excuse the madman with a gun. He should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. But I do blame Donald Trump and the people around him for acting in an inhumane and unamerican ways. They are acting to provoke violence. And they got what they wished for.
So I worry, about the fate of the remaining National Guardsman still alive, and about the extent of the reaction of the Trump Administration. And I truly worry about the future of our Nation. If we cannot find a way to step away from this division, that it will ultimately consume the American Democracy. We are losing our values, our ideals. America is giving away freedoms to gain “protection” from forces that the White House itself is creating and aggravating. We are in a circle of increasing authoritarianism, with each action creating an even greater reaction, and less freedom.
We need leadership back to our “better angels” of law, democracy, and freedom. But we’ve got a long way to go to get there.
