GUNS & POSES – The Destructive Pretense of Fear

Apologists for the worst president in U.S. history may act tough, posturing with their monster trucks, survival stashes and MAGA caps. But anger and hate are proxy emotions; what really motivates these poor SOBs is fear. How do I know this?

Guns.

IN GOD WE...TRUMP?
The tsunami of proof keeps building. Record numbers of FBI background checks, and soaring gun sales since the Trump-denied COVID 19 pandemic took hold—over 2,000,000 purchased in the U.S. in March alone.

Make no mistake; these paranoid gun people are by and large Trump people. Motivated by the same fear and intolerance that dumped this blob of toxic waste in the White House.

This feeble mindset is pure Trump. It’s what he won on, the lie ladled out by him and lapped up so obediently by his gullible base. Seems the God they so ardently trust to judge the quick and the dead, to justify their claiming public resources as their own and then loving them to death, to decide the fate of the planet in some sick vision of Armageddon, is the same God they won’t trust to save themselves from the rest of us. For that they need guns…lots of guns.

                  Great societies, great nations
                  are not built on fear.

It’s as if they had no power of their own. Oh, yeah, that’s right, they’re caught under the oppressive boot of those bleeding-heart liberal elites. You know, those holier-than-thou snobs with the gall to be educated and willing to work for a smarter, kinder, more generous future. Suddenly Trumpies are rendered helpless by ideological bullies like ideas and creativity, like the radical idea that the USA is destined to lead, not isolate, and...well, those pesky facts.

Selling their country’s true promise short, they’re deathly afraid someone will take something from them—freedoms they figure some folks shouldn’t share, rights to do whatever they please—even if it represents a theft from their own kids and grandkids—and, perhaps the most zealously guarded possession of all, their hard-won homogeneity.

The saddest part—and the most troubling—is that their fear, and the hapless, kissy-mouth little prick they’ve hired as their hit man, are all they have. Oh, and all those firearms.
Make America great again? Great societies, great nations are not built on fear. History teems with examples of states which have failed due to corruption, democratic collapse and, ultimately, cultures of fear: Egypt, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Nigeria, Venezuela…the list goes on.

EYES ON THE PRIZE
Corona virus or not, there's an election coming up. It would be no exaggeration to call it the most important election in the nation's history. And one thing's for sure; this president and those who have prostituted themselves to his whim will lie, cheat and throw this great democracy's values and institutions under the bus to consolidate their power.

We must not let this happen. We've got to be smarter, more committed and harder working than they. So, if you're not already doing something—donating to Democrat campaign coffers, signing up to go door-knocking, hosting fund-raisers, promoting registration and voting...whatever—PLEASE, PLEASE research the possibilities, pick one or more and jump in.

And keep your eyes on the prize. Have a vision of a United States of America that's no longer defined not by walls, guns, oligarchy and the fear that drives them, but by our cherished and widely admired founding values: truth, honor, generosity, equality, optimism and, yes, courage.

The gun-toting right would have you believe that fear disguised as outrage somehow justifies putting those ideals on hold. It does not. And it's up to us to prove it.

ACT YOUR RAGE! – Stand Up to the NRA

In a poignant expression of what a vast majority of Americans are feeling, a member of the other day’s audience at the vigil remembering victims of the Dayton massacre interrupted Ohio governor Mike DeWine’s comments, blurting out, “Do something!” As DeWine continued, others added their voices, building to a chant no one could claim not to hear.

Do something? Do anything constructive to control the use of firearms designed for nothing but killing large numbers of people quickly? They will not.

Not as long as not a single republican member of Congress dares face the wrath of the National Rifle Association.

And here’s the most incredible part. These gun-totin’ cavemen insist that their right to bear arms is so they can defend themselves against a tyrannical government.* And yet right under their noses the very government they’ve so fervently been praying for—the regime a sworn enemy of our country has helped deliver for them—has them armed to the teeth, defending their front doors from immigrants, queers, and any number of other contrived bogeymen, while robbing them blind from the back door.

A ruthless, morally dead oligarchy runs rough-shod over them and over one timeless American value and virtue after another in favor of the rich and powerful’s insatiable lust for control, and they claim not to notice it. It is textbook tyranny, the kind any fool should recognize…even with his head up his ass.

     They are high on their taste of power,
     motivated and energized. They are
     counting on our complacency.

A CYBER-9/11
So, our supreme leader, this gutless, draft-dodging, spiritually empty joke of a president, continues his trademark politics of division. Three times now, right after mass shootings, the liar in chief has read scripted words from the teleprompter promising to do something, hoping to placate the ninety percent of Americans who support common-sense gun control measures, only to renege on those words days later.

He is clearly empowering not just the growing list of this country’s enemies around the world, but the real perpetrators of most of these recent mass murders: red-white-and-blue, all-American Billy Bobs who, goaded by his hateful rhetoric, are emboldened to act out their rage.

Meanwhile, Trump’s self-declared soul-mate, Russian megalomaniac Vladimir Putin, and the president's other despotic role models around the world wring their hands in delight. How could an assault on American democracy possibly be delivered to them any more spectacularly? It is nothing less than a cyber-9/11.

What can be done? One can use whatever platform is available to them to speak up. One can hope the NRA will implode on its own depravity. Or one can get involved in supporting political candidates with the cojones to defy this cowardly, thoroughly corrupt republican party and its gun-toting partner-in-crime.

These are the real enemies of our country. They are high on their taste of power, motivated and energized. They are counting on our complacency. We must show them they are wrong.

* Actually, the second amendment of U.S. Constitution says the right to “keep and bear arms.” exists in order to maintain “a well-regulated militia,” not so every Billy Bob out there can be a bad-ass.