These are terrible times.
The mass murder in Pittsburg, the attempted assassinations of Democratic leaders, and the racist slaughter of two innocent people as they shopped because their skin contained too much melanin. These are terrible times and Trump’s inciting conspiracy filled rants fuel these evil deeds far too much.
It would be wrong to hold Trump solely responsible. These cowardly murderous individuals are no passive actors without agency. They took up the arms, they sought out their innocent victims, and they committed the slaughter. They did not do this in a vacuum however. Like the witched in Macbeth, Trump has ignited passions that end in murder after murder.
Let me be clear I am not conflating typical political imagery and hyperbole with the racist, anti-Semitic, conspiracy fevers that Trump and his allies have used to poison our political processes. As Trump rose through the field of political midgets that comprised the GOP’s presidential hopefuls there were plenty on the right that spoke out about this man, his vile views, and the threat he represented to our system of governance. After he secured the nomination and that electoral misfire gave him the presidency conservatism cravenly collapsed.
Why the collapse? That’s easy to answer, because the Grand Old Party has no spine. While Trump has an overall approval rating of the low 40 percent range among Republicans his number climbs into the area of 85-88 and among those who identify as ‘strongly Republican’ his approval exceeds 90 percent. Elected Republicans, ever fearful of getting a primary challenger from the right, surrendered the party. They will exert no pressure on Trump to moderate his language, his attacks, his lies, because their own political survival far outweighs any quaint notions of propriety or principal.
What is ironic is that I recall shortly after Trump won the presidency a conservative friend of mine suggested that the intense rhetoric and emotions of the resistance to Trump and his administration might put Trump in greater danger from assassination, and while there have been some instances of violence against conservatives, let us not forget about the shooting of Republicans as they practiced for a softball game, the number and intensity of the violence against liberals and liberal allies has been greater. Normally you would see this sort of violence exercised by the disenfranchised, by ideologies they have given up on achieving their goals through the normal political processes, consider the leftist groups of the 70s as an example, and yet while the conservatives have control of the entire government their rhetoric and hyperbole plays them as impotent victims.
That brings me to the only silver lining in the dark, dangerous times. I believe that we are witnessing the death throes of an ideology. Not conservatism in general, but rather of that strain of thought that is racist, homophobic, transphobic, and clingingly bitterly to a worldview that is passing into the ashbin of history.
That does not mean we need do nothing and just await the better times ahead. To bring about a future with greater equality and greater respect for humanity’s incredible diversity will require all our effort.
This is part of the reason I cannot be silent on such things, even as I chase professional publications. It is easier to stay silent and protect possible future earnings but they would mean abandoning my core ideals and surrendering the concerns of loved ones to the mob. That I cannot do. There are many aspects of conservatism that appeals to me and that I find morally just but as long as they lash themselves to hateful ideologies there can be no rescuing them. They will share the fate of the allies that they have chosen.
