A Michigan County Commissioner grabbed and displayed a military grade rifle in response to a local woman’s request that board members denounce the Proud Boys. Lawmakers in nine states are moving to allow concealed carry of guns without a permit. Record gun sales have lead to ammunition shortages in Lincoln, Nebraska and elsewhere in recent days.
In the aftermath of the Capital Insurrection, public blowback against the violence seemed like it might be sufficient to cool the right’s embrace of violence. But three weeks after that day’s shocking events, MAGA and its congressional enablers are doubling down on violence as a potential solution to their problems.
As a consequence, one of the biggest truths of the Trumps presidency is now coming into focus. The true danger may never have been from the man himself, but from the fact that one-fifth to as much as four-tenths of the nation is and always has been every bit as much of a sore loser as he displayed himself to be post-election.
Every black man knows that there is a certain percentage of the white population that simply will not accept, under any circumstance, the right of the black man, or the brown man, or the woman, or the gay person to be his God-ordained equal. For the more well-to-do white man, that disdain often extends even to the working, white poor.
One of the reasons trickle down economics has long been such a popular notion on the right is its ready suggestion that there are less worthy people for whom trickle-down equality is all they deserve. Trickle-down voting rights, while the real rights go to real Americans. Trickle-down wages, while the bulk of earnings go the upper ten, five and one percent of white men. Trickle down gun laws that guarantee a full measure of freedom of armed expression for whites, while a person of color would be a fool to try and open carry a gun in a public space.
This is the the socially defined law and order many conservatives -— not all or even most, but at least a critical ten percent — have always preferred: White law and a socially stratified white order. Violent, Old Testament embracing law and a presupposed, God-ordained social order. Patriarchal law and the toxic order such violence would preserve.
Historically, like night follows day, like empty cartridge follows pulled trigger, every time minorities of almost any type near the possibility of parity with whites locally or nationally, violence has ensued. The failure to widely admit this truth puts the nation in grave danger at this point in time. The danger is not that the nation’s declared aspiration of equality and liberty for all will ultimately fail. It is that a wide swath of peace-loving Americans may be about to get caught in the crossfire of those who no longer even want to pay lip-service to the concept.
Eight years ago, I remember reading that ten percent of people at the polar ends of any issue are the ones that ultimately decide the fate of the larger group. The research stated that whichever ten percent was more committed to seeing their ideals through was the one that would ultimately win the outcome and the right to shape society in their image. Watching the events of the past three weeks unfold, I think it’s fair to ask each of us to consider how committed we and our neighbors are to the idea of “one nation, with liberty and justice for ALL.” Whether we ask it of ourselves or not, History seems like it may again be ready to make its own inquiries.