An ideology that lends itself naturally to murderous tendencies

In a report from last Friday Charles Jay of the Daily Kos community wrote that the last Ukrainian fighters have left the Azovstal factory in Mariupol. Their fate in the hands of Russian soldiers is unknown, though Russians now have a reputation for brutality. Mariupol was under siege since March 1. At the end of April the factory was surrounded. President Zelenskyy has declared them to be heroes. Kos of Kos wrote again about the tankies in an update from Monday. These are the people who demand peace and allow Putin to save face even though that means Ukraine concedes territory. The tankies include the New York Times editorial board. Strange they say little of what Ukraine thinks of that demand. Strange they get to decide for Biden and Congress what kind of aid to send and to decide for Ukraine how much destruction they should be able to tolerate to preserve their own country. M. Podolyak of Ukraine was rather diplomatic in response:

Today, any concession to Russia is not a path to peace, but a war postponed for several years. Ukraine trades neither its sovereignty, nor territories and Ukrainians living on them. It's a pity that we have to explain such simple things to such reputable media as @nytimes.

Kos quoted Hillel Neuer who tweeted:

Russia’s Counsellor to the United Nations in Geneva has resigned. Boris Bondarev: “Never have I been so ashamed of my country.” UN Watch is now calling on all other Russian diplomats at the United Nations—and worldwide—to follow his moral example and resign.

Part of what Bondarev wrote:

Those who conceived this war want only one thing - to remain in power forever, live in pompous tasteless palaces, sail on yachts comparable in tonnage and cost to the entire Russian Navy, enjoying unlimited power and complete impunity. To achieve that they are willing to sacrifice as many lives as it takes. Thousands of Russians and Ukrainians have already died just for this.

Kos also quoted a tweet from the Lithuanian government that said they are now totally independent from Russian gas, oil, and electricity. Kos included a video posted by Igor Sushko of a bunch of Ukrainian soldiers doing a bit of song and dance in praise of the Bayraktar drones that have been so helpful to their cause. It is good to see them have fun, though the way some of those guns hang is mighty suggestive. By the time I got around to writing about one mass shooting anther has happened (and wasn’t there a smaller one in between?). Laura Clawson of Kos wrote about the shooting at the Tops grocery in Buffalo. She then compared some of the writings of the shooter to things Tucker Carlson of Fox News said back in 2018. Both questioned how does diversity increase strength? Both Carlson and the shooter posed the question to imply diversity does not increase strength. I’ll give that question a moment of serious consideration, meaning what I can come up with in a moment. (1) Diversity encourages the input of multiple points of view so that more points can be considered when shaping a solution. (2) Diversity helps in shaping a solution that is beneficial to all people rather then beneficial to a few and oppressive to others. (3) Diversity demonstrates that all are welcome, which welcomes more people and more diverse people, which lessens the chance of one group trying to declare they should hold a social status higher than others. As a result all are safer. Michael Harriot tweeted:

It’s easy to point to a mass murdering racist and call him a white supremacist. But can we acknowledge that these restrictive voting laws, anti-CRT legislation and gerrymandered maps are also based on the Great Replacement Theory? Probably not.

Georgia Logothetis, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quotes several that I think are worth quoting. Many are talking about the Great Replacement Theory that influenced the Buffalo shooter. This theory claims that liberals are working actively to replace white people with immigrants (definitely meaning black and brown immigrants) so that white people lose political power. Yes, white people in this country are becoming a smaller percentage of the population and about 20 years from now will drop below 50%. But liberals are not actively working to make that happen. Jonathan Chait of the New York Magazine:

Carlson’s allies on the right wish to exculpate him of any blame for the violence committed by his adherents. Their defenses amount to lawyerly haggling, collapsing important distinctions in service of avoiding the obvious: Carlson explicitly advocates “great-replacement theory,” a belief system that has inspired a string of mass murders. [...] Carlson is not directing his audience to commit murder. But he is spreading an ideology that lends itself naturally to murderous tendencies and has accordingly spawned a violent wing. White nationalists see Carlson as their champion, and so too does the vast majority of the conservative movement. ... The defenses of Carlson will ensure that the power of white nationalism continues to grow, along with its body count.

From an NYT editorial:

Replacement theory is an attack on democracy. It privileges the purported interests of some Americans over those of others, asserting, in effect, that the will of the people means the will of white people. It rekindles fears and resentments among white Americans that cynical practitioners of American politics have stoked throughout the nation’s history. It also provides a disturbing rationalization for people inclined to resort to violence when the political process does not deliver what they want or protect what they see as their place in society.

Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post:

What we need to talk about is how politicians and thought leaders on the right are using the vile poison of replacement theory to further their own selfish ends — garnering campaign donations and votes, boosting television ratings, achieving fame. And we need to talk about how most of this demagoguery is coming from people who should know, and probably do know, that what they are telling potential killers, such as Payton Gendron, the man in custody after the Buffalo shooting, is complete fiction.

Michelle Norris at WaPo who noted a poll that found nearly half of Republicans believe in a deliberate attempt to decrease white voter influence.

GRT is like the fertilizer that feeds and sustains white fear when America’s racial makeup is changing. These trends will continue and how that is explained — or alternatively exploited — will impact the safety and security of all Americans. But Black and brown people cannot inoculate against fears that Whiteness is no longer America’s cultural default. White people have to do that themselves.

Brittney Cooper at The Cut:

Taken together, violent racist acts like these, the stripping of rights from women, and the collective political will to do absolutely nothing about it effectively inculcate the idea that this is normal. Just accept it. Just be scared. Just demand less. Just shut up. Just stop yelling “Black Lives Matter!” Just stop insisting on your right to vote. Just stop insisting on your right to control your reproduction. Just stop critiquing the police. Just stop it with your demands. Just stop. I imagine images of white people with their fingers in their ears, yelling insolently like children, “I can’t hear you!” in the face of Black protest. Perhaps that’s not fair. But I’m not interested in being fair, or nice, or reasonable, or nuanced, or civil. That s--- does not work.

Kerry Eleveld of Kos has details of the poll Norris referenced. Mark Sumner of Kos dissected a poll by Morning Consult that showed 60% of Republicans voters are more concerned about white replacement than the mass violence of white supremacists. Sumner said the choice is false because one side of the comparison is false. US immigration policy does not try to lessen the influence of white people. Nick Anderson of Kos posted a cartoon about the Great Replacement. Hate, paranoia, fear, and a lot of other garbage are being dumped into a person’s head, replacing their brain. deltopia of the Kos community wrote that since 1850 the percent of the US population that was foreign born has been rather consistently under 15%. This post started with another cartoon: A white man in a suit points to a family and says “It’s time to reclaim America from illegal immigrants!” And a native person replies, “I’ll help you pack.” In another pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin quoted Greg Sargent of WaPo interviewing Amy Spitalnick, who takes on neo-Nazis and sees ominous signs.

Sargent: There’s a tendency in the culture and in the media to see these mass shootings as isolated events. But in many of these cases — and particularly Jan. 6 — organizers and shooters see them as part of a much larger struggle. They fully intend for them to be galvanizing of more such events later. Spitalnick: That’s exactly right. They’re not lone wolves. They’re part of a broader extremist network in which each attack is used to inspire the next one.

In case you missed it (and with just the corner of news I consume I doubt you have) here is a report by April Siese of Kos on the latest mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas and the surrounding politics. Biden is annoyed and called for action. Schumer set up a vote in the Senate for a small gun control bill (which won’t pass, certainly not with the filibuster in place). Abby Vesoulis tweeted:

In 2021, Gov. Abbott signed 2 laws allowing Texans 21+ to carry handguns without licenses or gun training, and to allow certain 18-20 year olds to carry handguns too. Today, he says the shooting—which killed at least 14 children and one teacher—is "incomprehensible."

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported that the senators who most talk about prayer as the appropriate (and only) response to a mass shooting are the ones whose campaigns have accepted the most from the NRA. Brady United listed the top senators who have received NRA money and Einenkel lists 20 of them with the amounts they’ve received over the years. Most have received millions. These numbers are from 2019, which makes me wonder how big donations have been since then now that the NRA is “bankrupt.” Einenkel pointed out usually the biggest money goes to candidates in swing states. Why give to Texas Republicans when they’re going to win anyway. Better to donate to candidates in Ohio or North Carolina. However, that doesn’t quite explain Mitt Romney of Utah at the top of the heap receiving $13 million. I don’t believe (and haven’t for a long time) that Republicans refuse to vote for any sort of restrictions on guns because the NRA pays them well. Sure, they’ll take the money and use it to get elected. However, I’m convinced they refuse any sort of restrictions on guns because they’re high in the social hierarchy and want to protect that spot. Guns are very good at enforcing the hierarchy. Their spot in the hierarchy looks better (to them) when those lower down are oppressed. Killing and terrorizing are great tools of oppression. I’m convinced they want that terror. They want that mayhem. They want those deaths. And Americans will keep dying. I had written about Zander Moricz, the gay high school class president who was told he wasn’t allowed to talk about the Don’t Say Gay bill at graduation under threat of his mic being cut. Melissa Higgins of Kos reported the graduation ceremony happened without incident and Moricz talked about the bill without saying “gay” and doing so in a clever manner: Here’s a bit:

I must discuss a very private part of my identity. As you may know, I have curly hair. I used to hate my curls. I spent mornings and nights embarrassed of them, trying to desperately straighten this part of who I am. But the daily damage of trying to fix myself became too much to endure. There are going to be so many kids with curly hair who need a community like Pine View. And they will not have one. Instead, they’ll try to fix themselves so that they can exist in Florida’s humid climate.

Later, Moricz was on Good Morning America, where he said:

I knew that the threat to cut the mic was very real. So I wasn’t gonna let that happen. I just had to be clever about it. But I shouldn’t have had to be, because I don’t exist in a euphemism. I deserve to be celebrated as is.

Higgins included videos of both the graduation speech and the GMA interview.