Where Is That “Well-regulated Militia” Now?

You really have to give a shout-out to the Founding Fathers. Yes, they were hypocritical slave owners who stole land from the Native Americans, and they routinely drank toilet water and thought mastodons roamed the Pacific Northwest. But they still had some pretty good ideas.

For example, they gave us the First Amendment (a definite highlight). And they also gave us the Second Amendment, a bizarrely worded clause that has defied simple interpretation for almost three centuries now, and which makes the United States the only industrialized nation in the world where it’s easier to get an assault rifle than preventative healthcare.

Now you might ask, “What’s so great about that?”

Well, the whole point of the Second Amendment, according to hardcore advocates of gun rights, is that it is bulwark against government tyranny. Americans are constantly told that if it weren’t for citizens packing heat, the U.S. government would herd us all into labor camps at gunpoint… although it’s unclear who would be doing the rounding up, or why, or how rednecks with shotguns could prevent that from happening, or why the citizens of Japan or Great Britain or Canada don’t require this kind of protection.

Yeah, the details are a little fuzzy. But the point is that we have to guard against tyranny. 

Well, I have good news for all those militia types who have spent their lives hoarding AR-15s and shrieking about government oppression.

This is your chance. The tyranny is here.

You see, we now have a president who is in office only through a constitutional fluke and who has never been the American people’s choice. And this president has spent his entire term undermining our democratic norms and using the White House for personal gain. He has sold out to foreign dictators, ignored the murder of our troops, and dismissed any calls for accountability or transparency. And to top it off, his incompetence and hubris in the face of a pandemic has led to needless death and economic turmoil.

Doesn’t all that send a chill down your freedom-lovin’ spine? It should. But ok, maybe you gun-toting patriots out there believe that this is not enough to take up arms against the government. 

Well, how about the fact that, just last week, the president deployed federal law enforcement officers in “unmarked vehicles to drive around downtown Portland and detain protesters”? These government shock troops are “driving up to people, detaining individuals with no explanation about why they are being arrested, and driving off.”

I mean, heavily armed government agents with no ID are grabbing citizens and shoving them into cars, with no respect for law and order. These brazen violations of civil rights “are more reflective of tactics of a government led by a dictator, not from the government of our constitutional democratic republic.”

Come on, all you Clive Bundy clones. There are literally jackbooted thugs marching around Portland! Unarmed moms are putting up more of a fight than you are! What are you waiting for?

OK, maybe I’m a little confused.

You showed up, armed and ready, when governors asked you wear a mask. But you don’t issue a peep when unidentifiable storm troopers are breaking the bones of veterans.

And perhaps you missed our president’s latest executive order, which is in direct violation of the Constitution? Or maybe you didn’t notice when he implied that he might ignore the results of an election and stay in office illegally?

I mean, all that is Despotism 101. And yet you do nothing.

Do you really want to prove that liberals are right when they say that threatening to fight your own government is paranoid delusion? Do you actually want progressives to point out that despite your tough talk, you are happy to fall into line behind a wannabe fascist prone to Orwellian doublespeak?

If so, maybe you can go ahead now and admit that your problem isn’t “government oppression.” It’s the fear of change, of an evolving country, of people who don’t look like you gaining more respect and power.

So the next time you feel the urge to issue a manifesto or proclaim your supposed principles, do the rest of us a favor.

As you stand there clutching your gun, just consider, for a moment, that nobody believes you. Because it’s all nothing but lies.

Full of Beans

To be honest, I’ve been boycotting Goya for years. Not for political reasons, but because their canned salty slop sucks.

Regardless of motive or rationale, however, I appear to be one of those unhinged progressives who want to cancel everyone and everything for the slightest digression.

Yes, as you know, “cancel culture” is the direct heir to “political correctness.” 

Of course, PC was always overblown nonsense — an imaginary threat and convenient scapegoat. Many of the ideas that conservatives labeled as “political correct” were just basic decency. And many of the people who proudly proclaimed that they were “not PC” were just belligerent assholes. And it didn’t help that the individuals shrieking the most about snowflakes and being oversensitive were themselves the most easily triggered Americans alive.

However, right-wing culture warriors are not idiots. They’re dangerous, hate-filled lunatics, but not idiots.

So they have been working hard on replacing the antiquated “political correctness” with the new, hip “cancel culture.” In both cases, it refers to the right of conservatives (usually white men) to say or do whatever they want without the fear of consequences, or even criticism.

But in truth, “the right and the left both cancel; it’s just that today’s right is too weak to do it effectively.”

Indeed, our old friend Ted Cruz recently proved this point by ranting about cancel culture. Cruz mocked all these outraged Latinos who are sickened by the Goya CEO’s grotesque praising of Trump.

This, of course, is the same Ted Cruz who called for people to boycott the NFL when players started taking a knee. But attempting to get Colin Kaepernick fired or shouting for Nike boycotts was apparently not canceling someone.

Aren’t you happy to have that cleared up?

In any case, our scattershot president has railed against cancel culture at times. Naturally, this is hilarious coming from a guy who wants to cancel anything that even mildly displeases him.

But he’s old, so he keeps coming back to the original term: “politically correct.”

And what, exactly, has Trump identified as PC outrages?

Well, he believes that removing the Confederate flag or tearing down Confederate monuments is PC, as is changing the name of the Washington Redskins. And just a few years ago, most Americans agreed with him on both counts. But now, weirdly enough, they do not, which proves that much of what was considered politically correct in the 1990s is now regarded as goddamn common sense. So all that screaming and yelling in defense of antebellum symbolism and racist monikers was totally worth it. I’m sure there are no regrets there — nope.

But the biggest symbol of the insidious reach of political correctness — in the conservative mind, at least —- is the facemask.

No doubt you’ve seen or heard of brave patriots across the nation who shriek about freedom and refuse to wear the mark of the weak-willed lemming (i.e., a facemask). They often seem to do this while spewing insults and threats at minimum-wage workers, or throwing tantrums so crazed that even toddlers might say, “Wow, time out.” But that’s another story.

It’s no surprise that our president long refused to listen to scientists, doctors, epidemiologists, economists, and a majority of the American people by insisting that he would not wear a facemask. Yes, it is the most effective, simplest way to limit the infection rate. And there is no real constitutional issue with asking people to mask up. And no other country in the world has our bizarre, obstinate, illogical, sociopathic opposition to facemasks.

The point is that wearing a mask is something wimpy liberals do, so donning a mask or practicing social distancing is clearly politically correct.

And then this past weekend, Trump finally wore a fucking mask.

His capitulation means that all the bellowing and fury directed at facemasks was complete idiocy on a homicidal level, and that we have lost a chance to make real progress against coronavirus. Or maybe the president just caved to PC pressure and cancel culture because it’s so, you know, all-powerful. Who can tell which is true?

(Hint: It’s the former, not the latter.)

There can be no doubt that the conservative hatred of facemasks has directly lead to the proliferation of Covid-19. Right-wingers despise imaginary enemies — political correctness or cancel culture — more than they fear a lethal virus.

Keep in mind that liberalism in the form of PC, at its very worst, is annoying and self-righteous. But to my knowledge, cancel culture has never killed anyone.

In contrast, hardcore conservatism — whether through intentional attack or misguided hubris — has now killed thousands of people.

Can anyone blame Americans if they want to cancel it?

Come On Get Happy

Good news!

America is once more open for business, with a thriving economy, a healthy populace, and a vibrant culture that is spilling out onto the streets of every city in our bounteous, invincible nation. Nonstop laughter threatens to deafen us. Our happiness and joy is at maximum exhilaration. Truly, these are the best of times.

Wait, you say that you’re looking out your window, and you don’t see any of that?

OK, it’s true that the coronavirus is rampaging anew across the country, with spiking infection rates in multiple states. It’s true also that the federal government has basically given up fighting the virus, and is now urging Americans “to plow headfirst into a deadly crisis that is racking up horrific numbers of dead in an unprecedented abdication of presidential leadership.”

And yes, every industrialized nation in the world is staring at us, collective mouths agog, shocked at our floundering inability to protect our citizens and our apparent zeal for societal suicide.

But those are the only negative things going on, so don’t get all pessimistic.

Oh wait — there is also the fact that our economy is still near Great Depression levels, and the insistence that we needed to reopen our states has only backfired spectacularly, causing more damage than if we had simply behaved like responsible adults instead of spoiled children, and myriad experts predicted that this exact horrific situation would occur.

Sure, if you look at it that way, it’s a little frustrating.

However, it’s not as if the president of the United States ignored a hostile power placing cash bounties on the heads of our nation’s soldiers, possibly leading to the murders of many troops. And then that chief executive, who has exhibited nothing but disdain and contempt for the military that his party supposedly reveres, then lied about being informed of the Russian plot, and followed up by kowtowing (yet again) to a malevolent dictator for his own unknown, incomprehensible reasons.

Well, maybe that kind of, sort of… actually happened. 

But hey, at least everyone is rallying around the need for cultural change. I mean, nobody is still denying that racism is a major crisis, and it’s not as if furious, frazzled white people are panicking that their unquestioned dominance is now actually being questioned, and responding by shrieking and vandalizing and freaking out, even drawing guns on black people over the slightest provocation.

OK, maybe a little.

However, it’s a tribute to the American spirit that our nation’s citizens are still displaying that upbeat, can-to attitude that…

Hmmm, it seems that in truth, Americans have not been this unhappy in at least a half-century. And “an overwhelming 89 percent of Americans say they are dissatisfied with the way things are going in the country.”

Well… fuck it. I got nothing.

Except for this little tidbit:

“Black and Latino Americans are significantly more optimistic than they were last year that life will be better for future generations than it is now.” 

Yes, the percentage of African Americans who believe in a brighter tomorrow has doubled over the past year, and the percentage of Hispanics who agree with that sentiment has also increased to the point that white people — specifically white Republicans — are now the least optimistic about the future.

And here you thought Trump was going to make life better for his followers.

In any case, why are African Americans and Latinos cautiously optimistic about the future?

Perhaps it is because Latinos, in particular, tend to maintain positive attitudes. Or maybe it’s because ethnic minorities have a lot of experience dealing with calamity and dark days, so we roll with the horror better than most. Or perhaps it’s because many of us believe that the nation is finally addressing its long-simmering, long-ignored racial issues, with the possibility that real change will finally occur. Or maybe we just figure the country bottomed out when Trump got elected, leading to today’s inevitable quagmire of disaster, and things can only get better from here out.

Regardless of cause or rationality, it’s hope. And it’s about all we have going for us.

Let Me Tell You How You Really Feel

For most of my lifetime, a vocal mixture of liberals, African Americans, and historians have insisted that the Confederate flag is a racist symbol. Until recently, conservatives always responded that this was PC nonsense, and that the flag merely indicated Southern pride.

Of course, within the last few weeks, everyone from NASCAR drivers to Mississippi state legislators have said, “You know what? It is a racist symbol. Let’s get rid of it.” They behave as if they never noticed the overt bigotry before, like they had to squint to see it behind all those stars and bars.

Now, this is the exact same emblem, long championed by the exact same people who are now denouncing it. All of this begs the question of why we have to fight with conservatives over and over again, sometimes sparring for years in heated debate, only to have them eventually discard their supposedly principled arguments, shrug, and say, “Oh yeah, everybody knows that. Old news.”

Nothing exemplifies this abrupt switch from loathing to loving as much as Black Lives Matter. As we all know, until recently it was perfectly acceptable to call BLM a mob of racial agitators or even a terrorist group.

But today, majorities across multiple racial and ethnic groups express support for BLM. In fact, “two-thirds of U.S. adults say they support the movement, with 38% saying they strongly support it.” Not surprisingly, this sentiment is “particularly strong among black Americans, although majorities of Hispanic (77%), Asian (75%) and white (60%), Americans express at least some support.”

Yes, it seems like everybody now supports Black Lives Matter.

Well, maybe not everybody (certainly not these two).

In any case, studies show that the percentage of Americans who consider racism and discrimination a “big problem” has skyrocketed since Trump oozed his way onto the political scene. Currently, three-quarters of Americans think bigotry is a national crisis, but as recently as 2015, barely half of Americans believed that. Furthermore, 57% of voters say that the anger behind the George Floyd demonstrations “is fully justified, while a further 21 percent call it somewhat justified.”

So only about one-quarter of Americans look at the protests and say, “I don’t see what they’re complaining about.” I am sure you will be shocked to know that the people who are most likely to dismiss BLM are white Republicans.

Keep in mind that the GOP “might want government to be ‘smaller’ when it comes to providing essential services, but it wants the violent authority of the state to be a constant intrusion into the day-to-day lives of many Americans, particular the lives of people of color, women and/or poor people.”

This attitude lines up with their standard bearer, old Mr. Racial Reconciliation himself. As we know, Trump is fine with ethnic minorities… as long as they never, ever disagree with him or question his authority in even the slightest way.

However, it is not enough to point out the hypocrisy of Republican attitudes, nor is it sufficient to state that they are woefully out of touch with mainstream American thought (i.e., the Silent Majority is as real as Pizzagate).

It is worth considering what, exactly, the conservative opposition to BLM is based upon.

After all, it is easy to pinpoint what Black Lives Matter protesters stand for (i.e., racial justice and an end to police brutality). 

It is more difficult to ascertain what BLM opponents want. The most generous interpretation is that they believe cops are being unfairly maligned and even endangered. This viewpoint, of course, doesn’t line up with statistics that show how the police disproportionally target ethnic minorities. Nor does it sync with the images we have seen over the past few months (unless you think an unarmed septuagenarian hypnotized a good cop into pushing him down and cracking his skull, brainwashed all the other good cops into walking away without offering help, then convinced all of them to lie about it).

So at its best, opposing BLM’s goals requires a strange suspension of disbelief. As we climb the ladder of probable motivations, we encounter familiar unpleasantries such as denial, delusion, fear, weaponized privilege, subconscious racism, and overt hatred.

In case you’re wondering, none of these are good.

All of the white conservatives who insist that racism is not an issue are basically saying that they understand the lives of ethnic minorities better than African Americans and Latinos do themselves. They are saying that we are imagining hostile interactions with cops and racial epitaphs casually tossed our way and smirking slights that can have only one origin. 

The white conservative believes that he alone is plugged into the happenings of the urban cities that he avoids as much as possible. The GOP stalwart insists that the 84% of African Americans who say they “contend with discrimination a lot or a great deal” are clearly wrong. And according to Republican guys with their fingers on the pulse of the nation, the one-third of Latinos who say that they have been slurred are just making it up for attention.

No, systematic racism is just your imagination. We know this because conservative suburbanites have told us so.

By the way, statistics show that African American men receive prison sentences nearly 20% longer “than those of white men convicted for the same crimes.”

Be sure to ask some white Republicans if that’s actually true. After all, they are the final authority.

The Left Can't Do Marketing

If you are a progressive, you’ve likely had some variation of the following conversation:

“Global warming is real.”

“Oh, yeah? Then why was it so cold last Christmas?”

“Um, there’s a fundamental difference between climate and weather. Furthermore, your personal experience is—”

“Snow! There was lots of snow!”

“To hell with it. I’m just going to shoot both of us.”

Yes, all conservatives had to do to undermine the concept of global warming was to latch upon the word “warm,” and then demand that liberals explain how winter still existed. And in politics — as in business, love, and comedy — if you’re explaining, you’re losing.

We see this in other progressive concepts. We say, “white privilege,” and an irate white man launches into a diatribe about how he grew up poor and he never got a handout and who are you calling privileged anyway So then the liberal stumbles around trying to explain what “privilege” means and how it exists even if you don’t see it and so on and so on until the angry white man stomps off, more pissed off than ever that some tree-hugger implied that he had it easy. 

And of course, even mentioning Black Lives Matter unleashes a furious retort of “all lives matter!” Once again liberals respond by employing metaphors and memes to explain what should be a pretty basic fucking idea (i.e., it’s not good for a society to murder black people at will).

It’s in this spirit of pointing out the poor marketing decisions of the left that I bring up the latest disastrous political catchphrase:

Defund the police. 

This is quite possible the worst slogan for a good idea ever.

You see, when presenting proposals on how to reform law enforcement in this country, and end the militarization of our police departments, all while preserving the safety of our nation’s residents, it is not helpful to spend all our time saying, “No, don’t worry, someone will still respond if a man with a gun is breaking into your house.”

But that’s exactly what we are doing.

This should be a time for discussing new techniques, like that Scottish de-escalation method that’s catching on. Or we should be talking about the fundamental role of cops in America. Or we should be debating what public safety actually looks like. All of these ideas have public support.

Instead, right-wingers are sending out tweets and status updates that more or less consist of “Liberals want to allow criminals to run rampant over you.”

And then progressives get all defensive, like we always do, and explain that the phrase we’ve chosen does not actually mean what it appears to mean, like we always do.

And if you’re explaining, you’re losing.

Hey, I recently received an angry email from a reader who shrieked how terrifying it is that Minneapolis wants to abolish its police department. And indeed, it sounds scary — like our cities are going to descend into The Purge. 

Or maybe it will be like that scene in RoboCop where the police abandon the city, and the bad guys start setting off rocket launchers (bonus points if you read that sentence and shouted, “I like it!” and made an explosion sound).

In any case, this guy did not want to even hear about defunding the police, let alone abolishing them. Much of this, of course, can be chalked up to willful ignorance or woeful stupidity. But there are many jittery moderates who can be persuaded by simplistic answers to complex issues. And there are determined reactionaries who know they can suck all the oxygen out of the room by forcing progressives to defend “crazy” ideas and explain nuances and tiptoe around details.

Speaking of conservatives, give them credit where it is due. This is a crowd that knows how to sell shit. For example, they convinced Americans that they wanted a war in Iraq but that they didn’t want health care. They persuade poor Americans, year after year, that objecting to wealth inequality is “class warfare.” And they have weaponized the most inoffensive, effective way to combat coronavirus — wearing a damn mask — and turned it into a battle for “freedom.”

Conservatives know the power of symbolism and straightforward mottos. For example, they have claimed both the American flag and the Christian cross, and all the powerful emotions that they invoke, while liberals have basically said, “Sure, go ahead and take them,” thereby guaranteeing that both “faith” and “patriotism” get turned into clear, concise virtues that only Republicans could possibly ever have.

Meanwhile, progressives are the “mob” and “snowflakes” and Antifa fanatics.

Those labels don’t track well, as the marketing experts would say.

What’s the solution? Well, if I knew anything about branding, I would have sold nine million books by now and be riding out this pandemic in my New Zealand compound. So I don’t know the answer. I do know, however, that progressives have a problem. And feeling proud of ourselves for shouting, “Defund the police” is not a smooth path forward.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go explain to some conservatives that taking a knee during the National Anthem is not insulting the flag per se, but an indictment of a racist system that… never mind, I’ve already lost them.