Crickets From the Right

On Sunday, news broke out of Michigan that a lone gunman crashed his vehicle into a Mormon church, opened fire, and set the building ablaze—another horrific act of violence in a country where such scenes have become all too common. Almost immediately, speculation swirled on Twitter, with far-right voices rushing to blame a Muslim or a “transgender leftist,” their favored scapegoats after mass shootings. But early images told a different story: the truck rammed into the church flew two large American flags and bore an Iraq War veteran plate. The shooter was no Muslim, no trans person. He was a Trump-supporting combat veteran—a cisgender white man who fit the profile of so many American mass shooters.

Just like that, the story faded from the political radar. There were no calls in the aftermath to investigate Trump supporters as potential terrorists. No national conversations about the violent capacity of cisgender men. No discussions about whether white people who fly massive American flags on the backs of their trucks should have their guns taken away. No presidential proclamations casting suspicion on the identity of this mass shooter. Cisgender combat veterans will not spend the days after this tragedy fearing that their rights will be stripped away because of the actions of one man.

Meanwhile, in North Carolina, another mass shooting by a combat vet. No calls from the Trump Administration to declare white male combat veterans as being mentally ill or some other machination to strip them of their rights.

The far Right is a hate group. They always have been, since they began lynching former slaves 160 years ago.