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by Rich Herschlag
We have a lot to be proud of in America. We are number one overall in mass murder aftermaths and consistently in the top five in numerous subcategories. We were ranked third worldwide last year in live camera shots outside the crime scene, behind only Mexico and France. We finished second in chalk outlines and a respectable fourth in recounting heartbreaking details of the victims' last day on earth. We finished second in thoughts, third in prayers, and took home the gold in the combined thoughts and prayers event. No one even came close in memorial quilts.
We were first again in the prestigious hovering-over-the-scene-of-carnage-with-a-helicopter award. We were ranked third quickest to locate and interview a grieving family member. We received an honorable mention for minimizing stating the assailant's name and came in fifth overall for motive speculation. Once again we brought home the silver for body count guessing. And this year for the first time, we’ve been nominated for top prize interviewing survivors of past mass shootings in the aftermath of new mass shootings.
When it comes to certified experts on gun violence, trauma, the legal history of Second Amendment rulings, and data collection relating to firearm fatalities, our bench is deep. With each new aftermath late on a slow news weekday, the assistant producer’s cell phone is reliably packed with contact information for the same photogenic, well spoken, perpetually on standby media guests who will Zoom in at a moment’s notice prepared to say almost exactly the same things they said last massacre.
This guest can reel off the bill number of the last six pieces of legislation that went to die in the Senate. That guest did a study on the effect upon total fatalities of the long since lapsed 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. This guest is a civil rights attorney suing the state of Florida. That guest has a new book. In a few minutes, they’ll all be Zooming back out and talking to their publicists.
What a fabulous cable news special report we can slap together on a mass shooting in about the time it takes to reload an AR-15. The gang’s all here. Okay, remind me which massacre this is again? Is this the bowling alley in Akron or the Starbucks in Covington? You know what, it doesn’t even matter. I have my notes from last time. Roll ‘em.
Of course, no one does aftermaths quite like Fox News, where Tucker Carlson squints and decries the latest liberal attack on gun rights before the blood on the mall parking lot pavement is dry. If you listen to Laura Ingraham, sometimes it’s hard to tell whether the victim was a bunch of third graders from Topeka or that sterling human being known as Wayne LaPierre. But nothing beats a motley panel of red hat apologists like Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt debating the real cause of the bloodbath—rap music, Black Lives Matter, or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Take your pick.
This level of excellence is not an accident. After extensive trial and error, corporate media has developed a precise aftermath schedule which must be adhered to like a 12-Step program. Day one is an aftermath coverage carpet bomb, with 24 straight hours of flashing red lights, yellow tape, and talking heads making somber pronouncements. Day two is a series of cuts to the crime scene being mopped up and cuts back to the studio for the latest on Donald Trump’s tax woes. Day three is a listing of victims’ names and hobbies and a few dissembling words from the NRA. Day four is a brief visit from one of the Parkland parents interrupted by an update on the tornados in Texas.
If you happen to be reading this essay on or after day seven of the most recent American gun massacre, it’s like it never even happened. Where was it again? Somewhere in Colorado, I think. Though after a few years all these massacres are a more or less a blur, the important thing is if eight or more are killed it gets its own Wikipedia article.
We as a nation are so efficient at this drill It is entirely possible that while watching cable news coverage of the aftermath du jour we are watching a rerun. Of course, the networks can’t reach back as far as they might like into the archives and hope to get away with it. Lapels widen. Cell phones fatten. Geraldo Rivera loses lines on his face. But when a couple of interns have called in sick on a busy Tuesday and you can’t seem to get the live feed from the chaos in Tallahassee, it’s reassuring to know that American slaughter looks pretty much the same year to year from a drone.
Warts and all, the American aftermath machine nonetheless continues to put more distance between itself and the nearest competition. Not content to mention a fact once and forget it, the aftermath machine provides an unparalleled opportunity to reprise some of the most basic talking points. That in the United States there are more guns than people. That someone is killed by firearms roughly every 15 minutes. That gun deaths in a given country are directly proportional to the number of guns in that country. That no one has ever hunted anything other than crowds of pedestrians with an AK-47. In educating and reeducating the public ad infinitum about the hazards of gun culture to the point of being an adult version of Hooked on Phonics, the American aftermath machine is unrivaled the world over, and that alone is reason to hold our heads high and stick out our chests at least until shots ring out.
A brief footnote. This past year in performing background checks, keeping assault weapons off the streets, addressing mental health issues, pushing back against the gun lobby, and protecting the lives of our children and adults, we finished last, last, last, last, and last. But hey, no one's perfect.
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Is It Time To Reconcile With The MAGAs In Your Life?
It depends on whether they subscribe to the GOP's new intellectual justification for rabid fascism.
Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images
by Justin Rosario
It has been three months since the terrorist attack on the Capitol and you have likely come across people wondering whether we should move on as a country. Should they reach out to MAGAs and try to heal the divide?
Granted, I may not be the best person to weigh in on this. I am not easy to offend but when you cross that threshold, good luck getting back across it. I am not very forgiving and I generally don’t allow toxic people back into my circle.
Can you think of anyone, short of a serial killer, more toxic than a MAGA?
Forgiveness Is Divine. But…No
I’d love to be able to forgive and forget easily, but I don’t have that luxury — and frankly, neither do you even if you think otherwise.
I do not have this luxury because I’m Jewish. Although if I’m being honest, I’m not a very good Jew. I eat ham. I don’t observe the Sabbath. The only reason I know which Jewish holiday it is is because my non-Jewish friends post about it on Facebook. But despite being The World’s Worst Jew, I am keenly aware of the dangers of right wing extremism because it always always puts Jews in harm’s way.
You can imagine how I’ve viewed the right’s descent into open white nationalism over the last several years. There were a lot of people taken completely by surprise at the tidal wave of antisemitism, particularly the explicit antisemitism, surging from the right and the GOP. I was not one of those people.
Once a movement has become fully enthralled with the idea of genocide, which the right has whether you want to admit it or not, the only thing left is the intellectual justification. That’s the part we’re up to now. As Vox reports, conservative intellectuals are openly engaging in “strikingly dehumanizing” language that has historically been a precursor to mass murder:…
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One of Herschlag's finest pieces of writing. Incisive humor that poignantly underscores the magnitude of absurdity and destruction wrought by gun culture.
Anyone else ever noticed that the only modern use of the middle name is for the media to identify the shooter? "Wayne" is a popular middle name for mass murderers. of course, for Moslem shooters "Muhammed" and "Mohammad" are already taken as the first name. Haven't seen any mass murderer with pansy middle names like "Gail" or "Robin." Guys with middle names like that have psychological damage from birth, but not the kind that makes them want to take out random victims in public places.