CSotD: Weapons of Mass Destruction
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Anderson nails our current situation well in his latest piece, and addresses a matter that has bothered me for several years.
As you can see from his sig, Ratt introduced the concept six years ago. I liked it then, but I couldn’t take the warning literally.
It’s an oversimplification to say our Civil War was fought between northerners and southerners, because there were partisans for the other side living in both regions. However, because it was sparked by the slavery debate, the armies were directed by slave-holding and non-slave-holding states, which effectively divided it into South versus North.
It couldn’t be that simple a second time, so Ratt’s cartoon had to be taken as a metaphor, and that a clash of standing armies didn’t seem likely. Yet I still felt civil war was distinctly possible.
My analysis of the threat was informed by research I’d done on an earlier conflagration, the Revolution. In our history textbooks, we learned that Loyalists were tarred and feathered and ridden out of town on a rail. It sounded like a prank.
If the process of drenching someone in boiling tar had been explained, we’d have realized it was a ghastly punishment, and that the victims occasionally died. But when I dug into actual histories, I found that Tories and Patriots throughout the colonies were shooting and lynching each other, poisoning wells, and burning down houses, and so I envisioned Ratt’s prophecy more in that way.
And I’m not giving up that vision.
But Anderson’s take shows how things have coalesced in the years since Ratt drew his cartoon. Despite the confrontations between demonstrators and police in the 60s, I had not envisioned a war of the government against the people.
Kent State seemed an anomaly: bad leadership, not deliberate policy. Everyone was very sorry as soon as the dust settled, though the National Guard was exonerated at a trial afterwards.
That’s not what we’re seeing today.
Bramhall isn’t the first to capitalize on the “I was only following orders” excuse that failed Nazi guards at the Nuremberg trials.
But the hat is the satire, given that the words match the excuse Noem offered for her lack of leadership and for having let loose armed bullies — with little training and few restrictions — on the civilian population of Minneapolis and saddling them with quotas that made it inevitable that they would go well beyond the “dangerous criminals” Dear Leader claimed they were rounding up.
And, boy, would I like to see some stats on the people ICE has taken into custody, to see what percentage have committed violent felonies, and what percent only had traffic tickets, or no offenses beyond the misdemeanor of entering the country illegally. And what percentage had entered legally but were abducted anyway?
Loyalists persist in bringing up the case of Laken Riley as if every undocumented alien were guilty of similar crimes, and as if nobody is ever attacked by a citizen of this country, but then who did Liam Ramos murder?
Kristi Noem’s career is very much on the line at this moment, though Trump seems barely willing to rein her in, much less ask for her resignation. Slyngstad, however, does a nice job of capturing her ridiculous affection for cosplay, the vengeance-obsessed slogan her department displays, and the toxic, blatant lie with which she smeared Alex Pretti.
And he tops it off with a visual showing the weapon these bullies fear most.
Brodner is a bit less direct, but no less militant in showing the victory of Alex Pretti over Dear Leader, achieved not by taking his gun from its holster but by showing up and being a persistent, non-violent presence witnessing against the violence in the streets.
There are those who echo the administration’s blaming of the victim. Kelley offers a reference to a line from “The Untouchables,” a movie about law enforcement’s fight against “the late, great Alfonse Capone,” to use Trump’s inexplicably flattering descriptor.
Balancing the rhythm of the quote with his caption requires that he specify what sort of protest you’re not supposed to bring a gun to, which is good, because several people have noted the praise showered upon Kyle Rittenhouse and the J6 “patriots” who were armed at other protests.
But he’s not inventing the qualifier. FBI Director Kash Patel told Fox News “You cannot bring a firearm, loaded, with multiple magazines, to any sort of protest that you want.”
So, Kenosha, yes. The Capitol Building, yes. Minneapolis? No. Got it?
Well, we’ve had the Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, and so Chappatte explains the Trump Corollary to the Second Amendment.
All you need to amend an amendment is a Magic Marker and a supreme feeling of privilege.
This appears to be one of those times Dear Leader says something regrettable and has cause to regret it. His statement that “You can’t have guns. You can’t walk in with guns,” should force him to choose between unringing the bell and putting the toothpaste back in the tube.
And as Ohman notes, the MAGA folks surely did hear him say it.
I like Sheneman’s approach, which is total honesty: The Republicans have dibs on packing heat.
And to circle back up to Anderson and Ratt, the debate comes down to what kind of Civil War you were hoping for. It’s understandable to hope only your side will be armed in the final showdown, and, as the elephant says, they were already armed.
The other weapon we have a constitutional right to is the ballot, and it’s becoming apparent that people aren’t afraid to use it: Minnesota’s State House is now tied, after two Democrats won in a special election, one by 97.5% to the Republican’s 2.5%, while the other squeaked by 95.3% to 4.4%.
However, while Minnesota has refused to turn its voter rolls over to Pam Bondi, the FBI has secured Georgia’s data. (UPDATE: Just Fulton County’s ballots, not the whole state’s.)
Which could be scarier in the long run than battalions of armed goons.
But here’s a treat for the five or six people who haven’t seen postings of the Boss’s latest tune on social media, their outpouring of free publicity potentially signaling an energized resistance in the land:
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