Proud Boys, Patriot Prayer, American Front, Crew 38, and, Alas, Numerous Others

Today, exactly one week after two larger than usual mass murders, downtown Eugene will simultaneously become the site of a God, Guns, and Trump Rally, a gay pride parade, and a large crafts fair. The Trumpers (who created the above illustration) have promised to bring their AR-15s. They can do this because Oregon is an "open carry" state. Antifa has vowed to confront the Trumpers, and while its members aren't known for using guns, they are known for using their fists. Next weekend, the right-wing demonstrators and their left-wing counterparts will move 110 miles up the road to Portland. 

Since Trump was elected, the local papers have become peppered with hate crime incidents. In the worst one yet, a self-described white nationalist stabbed two people to death and injured a third on a Portland commuter train in 2017. Hate crimes in the nation as a whole rose under Obama only to take off like a rocket under Trump. When asked this week if his rhetoric was partially responsibility for last week's El Paso murders, Trump said that his words don't push people apart but bring them together (he had previously said it's the "America-hater Democrats" who push people apart). Conservative talk radio agrees, and while it and Trump seldom deign to mention right-wing hate crimes, they both argue that Antifa should be singled out for a domestic terrorism designation, although the group's members have yet to kill anyone.

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists fifteen--nearly all of them conservative--hate groups in Oregon*, which are two more than in my historically racist home state of Mississippi. Liberal Eugene  has seen a 380% increase in hate crimes in four years,** although when I came here in 1986, it was an alternative-minded hippie town that many dubbed "The Berkeley of the North," because of its left-wing radicalism. Some of the notorious Weathermen were from here, and the town's Selective Service office was broken into and its files burned. The Grateful Dead hit town every summer; Ken Kesey wrote books and created scandals; nudists enjoyed a publicly-owned beach on the Willamette; and both drug use and nudity were common at the Oregon Country Fair. Then came the bomb-making anarchists who, like many, believed that violence is the threshold to utopia. Now it's right-wing hate groups and--barely noticeable by comparison--Antifa.

I've learned over the years that few things are as bad as our fears make them out to be, yet they can be even worse. I still haven't decided whether to join the protest, which starts in an hour. This might well prove to be yet another day when America demonstrates that it loves guns the way addicts love meth. I am afraid that if I go, I might become one of the dead people whose names scroll across the evening news, yet I'm somehow more afraid of staying home. I need to be a part of this.


*https://www.splcenter.org/hate-map

** https://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/2019/07/oregon-had-the-6th-biggest-rise-in-reported-hate-crimes-in-the-nation-over-a-4-year-period-study-says.html

An interesting article about the Portland Antifa: https://www.wweek.com/news/2019/08/07/portlands-antifascists-punch-white-supremacists-are-they-also-helping-trump/

More Mass Shootings than Days in the Year

As of August 5, which was the 217th day of the year, American has seen 255 mass shootings. In the past nine days, there was:

• A shooting in a historic district of Dayton, Ohio, with nine killed and 27 injured.

• A shooting at Walmart in El Paso, Texas, with 22 killed and at least 24 wounded.

• A shooting at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in the San Francisco Bay Area, with three killed and 15 injured.

• A shooting at a Brooklyn block party, with one killed and 11 injured.

• A shooting at a Walmart in Southaven, Mississippi, with two killed and two injured.*

Trump blames the problem on insanity and the Internet, but not on guns and certainly not on his White Supremacist rhetoric. As his supporters are fond of saying,

"Guns don't kill people; people kill people;" and 

"If you take away their guns, killers will just find some other weapon;" and

"The world is a dangerous place, and I need a gun to protect myself and my family;" and

"The problem isn't too many guns; it's too few guns;" and

"Gun ownership is my Constitutional right;" and 

"Mass murder is the price of freedom;" and

"These killings are God's punishment because America legalized gay marriage;"and

"Reports of mass shootings are just one more example of fake news."

There is now hope. It comes from the fact that America's powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association,  has been greatly weakened by internal scandals, combined with the fact that every mass killing is noticeably bringing the country that much closer to effective measures. Unfortunately, these measures will likely happen at the speed of women's equality in Saudi Arabia, and, of course, the people affected all have guns. How many guns? 393 million compared to a mere 133-million for all the armies on earth.**

*https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-2019-more-mass-shootings-than-days-so-far-this-year/ 

**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership

Untitled

 
I know few bloggers who post about Trump, and I know some who do their utmost to avoid the news. After all, when a president does or says several things a week that would have amounted to major scandals under another administration, what's the point in trying to keep up with them all? I know that I can't keep up with them all because they come at me so fast and furiously that they run together, giving last week's scandals the feel of events that happened years ago.

If there's one thing about which all Americans can agree, Trump is different, most presidents being two-dimensional figures who do their mediocre best to run the country while upholding the dignity and honor of the office. By contrast, Trump treats the country as "The Donald Trump Show," and he either has no use for dignity and honor, or, more likely, doesn't know what they mean. For instance, he just spent the better part of a week writing racist Tweets about the city of Baltimore, Maryland, and its black Congressman because he's mad at the Congressman. Prior to that, he Tweeted that four minority-group Congresswomen should "go back to the crime infested places from which they came," although three of the four were born in America, and the fourth was brought here as a child. All are U.S. citizens.

Lying and pettiness are not what Trump does; they are who Trump is, but the fact that he's pathological isn't the worst of it. The worst of it is that 43% of Americans believe his lies; and of that 43%, 90% are Republicans; and of that 90%, nearly all are Christians. While I know that people of intelligence and integrity can disagree about abortion, immigrant rights, and so on, my jaundiced attitude toward Trump supporters isn't based upon disagreement but upon indecency and hypocrisy. They elect a man whom Democrats and Independents loathe--not just dislike or disagree with--but loathe, and they imagine that something good will come of it. Republican leader Mitch McConnell expressed this sentiment well when he said, "Winners make policy; losers go home," his implication being that Americans should expect their elected officials to take turns remaking America. It wasn't always like this, and I see nothing but ruin coming of it.

I know a Texas blogger who avoids talking to anyone about politics, because if she discovers that a person supports Trump, she writes that person out of her life. Trump has split families and made enemies of lifelong friends. I've lost long-time blog buddies because of my anger toward Trump supporters. When Peggy's Trump-supporting father dies, our disillusionment toward him for his abandonment of the noble ideals that we once imagined him to hold dear will forevermore poison our memories. Americans are more divided now than they've been at any time since the Civil War, a war that ended 154-years ago. It's one thing to shun the friendship of a person who is in a minority, but what is the effect of turning against 43% of the nation? I just know that it's beyond sad to truly believe that when it comes to supporting Trump, a person's politics doesn't just make them wrong, it makes them evil.