Anyone who knows me knows that I am a partisan. I truly believe that the ideas of the Democratic party are better for the country as a whole than the Republican party. That is not to say I would never vote for a Republican. In fact I have. If the candidate is Republican they have a higher bar with me, but there are times that the GOP candidate is a better fit, mostly in local elections. That said there are things that shouldn't be partisan in our approach. So last weekend the country failed that test miserably and this weekend we did it again. Or at least some of us are.
When the horrific news of the El Paso shooting and over 20 dead started coming across the internet, it didn't take long until there was a response from the lunatic fringe of the right wing noise machine to try to make the shooter into a Democrat. Like clockwork, these fringe websites posted false information like they had in every major shooting event in the last decade. But we soon learned that the shooter was a person who was inspired by the language of a Mexican invasion that is championed by the President and others in the Republican party. The shooter was a White Nationalist wannabe. That uncomfortable notion was quickly mitigated by the fact that in a few hours another shooter killed 9 people in Dayton, Ohio. It didn't take long until it was learned the Dayton shooter had retweeted posts by Elizabeth Warren, Antifa related people and liberals across the spectrum. For some the whataboutism was a relief. Even the New York Times ran a piece suggesting that if we are to hold the President's rhetoric as partly responsible for the El Paso shooter that we must hold the left responsible for Dayton. That of course is nonsense but it sells papers and promotes clicks. The bottom line is that we shouldn't immediately look to see if the shooter in a case like this agrees or disagrees with our political positions. In fact if that is your first reaction, there is an issue that needs to be addressed. But if the political rhetoric drives an act of violence, we must acknowledge it and move to end it. We must think in a way that ends violence, not look for excuses to ignore the reality. For many they see the shooting up of a synagogue, a Wal-Mart or where ever the putting into the actions the words of the President. That cannot be ignored and shouldn't be. The rise of White Nationalism needs to be met head on and those who can must point out the President that his angry rhetoric feeds their desire for action. But just because someone likes a politician doesn't mean that their actions are inspired. The Dayton shooters actions are still a bit of a mystery but he had a history of misogyny, which is not usually associated with progressive politics, but they are not mutually exclusive. So if in the end there are voices on the left that helped drive him then we must clearly repudiate them as we do Trump's. But as of this writing it doesn't look like the Dayton shooter had a political agenda.
Looking for an angle to stories can bring out so much anger and thus feed further acts of violence. But sometimes it seems like just a cheap attempt to score points. Jerry Epstein's suicide clearly is an example of this. Epstein, being held before trial for sex trafficking, including of under-age girls, was found dead in his cell. This came less than 24 hours after the release of documents in one of the cases against him that named famous political figures as having sex with under-age girls. Epstein was linked over the last few decades to political and celebrity figures that crossed many ideological lines. Like Harvey Weinstein, there are pictures of him with many and varied people. So conspiracy theories are bouncing around the net. People have revived the long debunked Clinton kill list, others say Trump's justice department had him killed, still others say he isn't dead just being help somewhere and this is all a hoax for some nefarious reason. False information for political gain has been spread all over the net and even the President retweeted a crazy conspiracy theory about the Clintons. This is a problem. Until there is evidence to the contrary I can only believe that a man who lived the life of royalty, faced with being alone and in a drab cell for the rest of his life, facing potential inmate justice, and losing all his political support chose the easy way out. He wasn't on suicide watch, he had material to form a noose, and he is not hard to kill yourself even in custody. But it seemed that the body was still warm when the partisan extreme made so many accusations.
Partisanship is not evil in an of itself. It helps define the parameters of your political world. Being a partisan is not a straight jacket. But if your partisanship has you manipulating reality and promoting nonsense because it fits your political positions then you are not really just partisan, you are a propagandists. Rethink before you retweet.
When the horrific news of the El Paso shooting and over 20 dead started coming across the internet, it didn't take long until there was a response from the lunatic fringe of the right wing noise machine to try to make the shooter into a Democrat. Like clockwork, these fringe websites posted false information like they had in every major shooting event in the last decade. But we soon learned that the shooter was a person who was inspired by the language of a Mexican invasion that is championed by the President and others in the Republican party. The shooter was a White Nationalist wannabe. That uncomfortable notion was quickly mitigated by the fact that in a few hours another shooter killed 9 people in Dayton, Ohio. It didn't take long until it was learned the Dayton shooter had retweeted posts by Elizabeth Warren, Antifa related people and liberals across the spectrum. For some the whataboutism was a relief. Even the New York Times ran a piece suggesting that if we are to hold the President's rhetoric as partly responsible for the El Paso shooter that we must hold the left responsible for Dayton. That of course is nonsense but it sells papers and promotes clicks. The bottom line is that we shouldn't immediately look to see if the shooter in a case like this agrees or disagrees with our political positions. In fact if that is your first reaction, there is an issue that needs to be addressed. But if the political rhetoric drives an act of violence, we must acknowledge it and move to end it. We must think in a way that ends violence, not look for excuses to ignore the reality. For many they see the shooting up of a synagogue, a Wal-Mart or where ever the putting into the actions the words of the President. That cannot be ignored and shouldn't be. The rise of White Nationalism needs to be met head on and those who can must point out the President that his angry rhetoric feeds their desire for action. But just because someone likes a politician doesn't mean that their actions are inspired. The Dayton shooters actions are still a bit of a mystery but he had a history of misogyny, which is not usually associated with progressive politics, but they are not mutually exclusive. So if in the end there are voices on the left that helped drive him then we must clearly repudiate them as we do Trump's. But as of this writing it doesn't look like the Dayton shooter had a political agenda.
Looking for an angle to stories can bring out so much anger and thus feed further acts of violence. But sometimes it seems like just a cheap attempt to score points. Jerry Epstein's suicide clearly is an example of this. Epstein, being held before trial for sex trafficking, including of under-age girls, was found dead in his cell. This came less than 24 hours after the release of documents in one of the cases against him that named famous political figures as having sex with under-age girls. Epstein was linked over the last few decades to political and celebrity figures that crossed many ideological lines. Like Harvey Weinstein, there are pictures of him with many and varied people. So conspiracy theories are bouncing around the net. People have revived the long debunked Clinton kill list, others say Trump's justice department had him killed, still others say he isn't dead just being help somewhere and this is all a hoax for some nefarious reason. False information for political gain has been spread all over the net and even the President retweeted a crazy conspiracy theory about the Clintons. This is a problem. Until there is evidence to the contrary I can only believe that a man who lived the life of royalty, faced with being alone and in a drab cell for the rest of his life, facing potential inmate justice, and losing all his political support chose the easy way out. He wasn't on suicide watch, he had material to form a noose, and he is not hard to kill yourself even in custody. But it seemed that the body was still warm when the partisan extreme made so many accusations.
Partisanship is not evil in an of itself. It helps define the parameters of your political world. Being a partisan is not a straight jacket. But if your partisanship has you manipulating reality and promoting nonsense because it fits your political positions then you are not really just partisan, you are a propagandists. Rethink before you retweet.
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