Writing and talking about mass shootings has become a ghastly part of the job description in recent years for those of us in political media. The horrific specifics change, but the basic pattern is demoralizingly familiar, nearly every time. First the gut-punch news breaks. Instantaneously, a furious political blame game erupts on social media -- often before the details are confirmed, and certainly before anyone has genuinely grieved. The very worst things that are said by anyone on either 'side' of our growing cultural divide rocket around the internet, wrongly being held up as representative of the other tribe, deepening partisans' self-righteousness. With battle stations manned, the same arguments are lobbed back and forth, prompting the same counterpoints, followed by the same counter-counter points. Sometimes, if the event is heinous enough, some politicians from both parties will get together and try to do something, which is typically assailed as insufficient or a sellout by the loudest people in our virtual spaces.
Oftentimes, the ritualized horror and anger fades rather quickly. If the particulars of the atrocity don't fit certain approved media narratives -- as many in the the news business openly side with their tribe in such circumstances -- it fades even more quickly. Collective mourning has been partially, if not largely, replaced with collective anger. Anger directed not at the assailants, necessarily, but at each other. We emerge more entrenched, more embittered, more furious. Our online and media-driven political discourse is broken and unhealthy. Sometimes it feels irreparable. In a screen-addicted society, what happens on our devices inevitably, inexorably infects real life. America's crisis of confidence and purpose and identity and fulfillment and values may be overblown in some respects, but it's not a figment of pessimists' catastrophizing imaginations. It's real.
So what is there to say about the Nashville massacre, beyond offering thoughts and prayers to those affected, knowing full well that such expressions of concern and care will be ridiculed and rejected by the people who've made doing so an official tribal signal? Because the shooter in this case (whom I won't name, as usual, for sound reasons that represent a small contribution I can make to not worsening the mass shooting contagion) was trans, one of the hottest culture war issues has been injected into the already-toxic 'mass shooting' discourse. The results have been predictably awful. According to police, the afflicted Christian school was deliberately targeted. Some on the Right have used the incident to blame LGBT activists and the trans community, citing the heated and cataclysmic rhetoric that is often employed to denounce any social or political words or actions deemed "anti-trans" (with fringe activists, media in tow, abusing that term to apply to anything that deviates even slightly from their capricious orthodoxy).
As the argument goes, if you keep telling people that half the country is actively wanting to kill them through trans "genocide," or "erasure," resulting in demands for "vengeance," someone who is deeply unstable might eventually take those words deadly seriously and take up arms. I agree that if our media and political class held consistent standards, we would be in for a wrenching week or more of "national conversations" about harmful left-wing rhetoric. I don't expect to see that happen, as it didn't happen after a rage-filled leftist, brimming with anti-GOP slogans, attempted a mass-assassination against members of Congress. Coverage of that unhelpful murderous outburst was perfunctory and fleeting. Inconvenient fact pattern -- move on. The FBI even got in on the act, bizarrely pretending that the blatantly obvious political motive was somehow an unsolved mystery. This was so shameless, they eventually reversed that insulting assessment, under pressure. By contrast, when an apolitical lunatic shot and nearly killed a Democratic Congresswoman, the Right's "culture of hate" was widely blamed, despite zero evidence of any political motive. It went on for weeks.
Individual bogeymen were baselessly smeared. After high-decibel hand-wringing about 'dangerous' rhetoric and 'civility', seating arrangements for the State of the Union Address were altered, in furtherance of an evidence-free narrative. This double standard is undeniable and infuriating. Indeed, after Nashville, we've seen some of the people who instinctively attack conservative rhetoric in these settings at every opportunity, irrespective of the facts, not only not playing the same game with left-wing rhetoric -- but actually hinting or even outright stating (with preceded by requisite disavowals of violence) that perhaps Christian conservatives' "anti-trans" views invited the violence from a marginalized person. Those unwilling to stoop as low as victim-blaming instead retreated to the more prosaic smear of attacking Republican politicians on guns, with the Washington Post and other outlets wondering whether one Congressman's expression of horror over the murders could be genuine, considering that he and his family have posed for photos with their guns. You see, gun enthusiasts aren't allowed to be upset about murdered children because of their belief that law-abiding citizens shouldn't have their constitutional rights infringed.
The White House Press Secretary cravenly criticized Republicans, amid scant details, while the bodies of the slain were still warm. She hasn't stopped since. CNN, suddenly not interested in the 'rhetoric' panic, chased Republicans around the Hill to challenge them on guns. This may be a slight exaggeration of Left-media playbook, but it's not much of one:
If I understand this correctly: If a shooter has right-wing views, then the right's rhetoric is responsible. if the shooter has left-wing views, then the right's policies are responsible.
— AG (@AGHamilton29) March 27, 2023
Very convenient.
Political violence is always the Right's fault in some way, even when it's carried out by the Left. What a neat trick. This represents a manifestation of many journalists' and activists' ideological comfort zone, which they labor to maintain even when certain outside factors make things rather complicated (including a trans shooter and a barrage of 'misgendering,' inducing mocking scorn on the Right, and raising hackles on the Left). As tempting as it can be to pillory 'progressive' journalists and activists with their own ghoulish standards when it comes to assigning blame, it's still wrong. I've been extremely consistent on this point, and strive to continue to maintain that consistency:
I refuse to blame an entire community or ideological movement for the heinous actions of an individual. It's demagogic, divisive, and unfair. And it's precisely what far too many on the Left do, instantly, whenever an atrocity occurs, irrespective of the facts. Toxic.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 28, 2023
Individuals are responsible for their own actions, period -- the selective claims of the glaringly inconsistent rhetoric police notwithstanding. Some people's brains are so warped by tribalism that they genuinely believe that the other tribe is to blame when 'one of theirs' does something evil, whereas it's grotesque whenever the opposing tribe engages in collective blame to score cheap political points. And yes, some leftists are hypocritically aghast that people are doing to trans activists what they themselves eagerly do to Republicans on a regular basis. A number of conservatives believe that because the Left routinely leaps to these smears, it's fair game to bludgeon them with their own demagoguery when the facts allow. I just maintain that it's fundamentally unjust to go down this path. Do unto others as they do unto you is turning the Golden Rule on its head. Adhering to my stance, however, doesn't require me to ignore the double standard or sit silently by as ideological opponents make bad or lazy arguments.
For example, I quoted a report that the Nashville shooter allegedly passed on attacking another intended target, due to a visible security presence. This prompted the usual counterpoint against turning schools into 'fortresses' (I agree that heavily-armed guards at every door of every school is unworkable, but I don't agree that armed officers protecting defenseless targets is inherently problematic, or should be ruled out as an element of potential solutions to a complex societal challenge). Would opponents of enhanced security really prefer a longer response time to a violent intrusion? Wouldn't that cost lives? A man who lists himself as a community activist and a youth pastor twisted my tweet into something I didn't say, so I called out the mendacity and highlighted how destructive certain accusations can be:
Nowhere did I argue that police or guards solve "all problems." I quoted a report that the shooter passed on another targeted location due to a security presence. I think this is *part* of a solution to a difficult challenge... https://t.co/QUNPxrVcdR
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 28, 2023
...much like your mischaracterization of my tweet, which I'm not sure does a great job of modeling honesty for kids, Mr. Youth Pastor.
— Guy Benson (@guypbenson) March 28, 2023
Disagree with a proposed solution? You must be comfortable with kids ravaged by bullet holes. If that strikes you as a disgusting attack on critics of increased school security, perhaps don't deploy it against someone who may object to your ideas on gun restrictions. I understand that slaughtered children will make people emotional. That doesn't excuse the orgy of blame and recrimination that we go through every time something like this happens. We don't even give each other space or time to grieve or process what's happened. It's always straight to the barricades for some renewed ideological warfare. Doing the same thing repeatedly, and expecting different results, is a commonly-cited definition of insanity. And yet we go through this same sequence, virtually every time. Which seems darkly fitting. Our political and online dialogue is, in many ways, completely broken. Again, I'm not sure what there is left to do or say beyond praying for God's comfort for the victims' loved ones -- and for some elusive healing of a nation that too often feels shattered and at war with itself.
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