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It’s one thing to note that the Rittenhouse case is both a reflection of and an accelerant to our insanely polarized nation.
It’s another thing to engage in sophisticated and vital efforts to understand why and how a meaningful segment of the country has cleaved into two loud, angry, and dominating tribes.
It’s yet another thing – really, the most important thing now – to become part of an intellectual and practical effort to actually try to do something to soothe and, then, actively, to make it all better.
During the trial and in the hours since the verdict, I’ve seen a lot of the first thing, a sliver of the second, and almost none of the third.
America – its leaders and all its concerned citizens – needs to do a lot more of the third.
The days of contributing to the problem and describing the problem need to end.
The Presumption of Grace needs to become the nation’s North Star as a first step.
And then the power must be transferred with cleverness and purpose, away from the loudest voices on the national town square and to those who seek to restore civility, trust, cooperation, and grace as the animating characteristics of our public lives. (It would be great to have those in everyone’s private lives too….)
Many of you know some of the Rittenhouse shouters; more of you are patronize the media and politicians who are among the Rittenhouse shouters; some of you readers are among the Rittenhouse shouters.
It all has to stop.
You Blues will send me emails all day, saying no one in your tribe is as bad as Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz (or Donald Trump).
You Reds will send me emails all day, saying the bias in the Dominant Media is worse than anything your tribe has done, plus Maxine Waters and CRT (and Joe Biden’s health records).
It all has to stop.
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The Washington Post describes the situation:
Ever since the early-morning hours that day in August 2020, when video footage of a teenager opening fire on the streets of Kenosha first started to circulate, Kyle Rittenhouse has been a human canvas onto which the nation’s political divisions were mapped.
To many on the right — including gun-rights groups, Trump loyalists and white supremacists — he was a folk hero, a vigilante for justice who had stood up to a rampaging mob.
Americans on the left, including racial-justice activists, gun-control advocates and police reformers, saw something quite different: a trigger-happy youth who had recklessly used his AR-15 to escalate an already-chaotic situation into the realm of deadly violence.
The Associated Press summarizes presidential reactions, which surely enflames the opposing tribes:
President Joe Biden called for calm, saying that while the outcome of the case “will leave many Americans feeling angry and concerned, myself included, we must acknowledge that the jury has spoken.”
Former President Donald Trump, who at the time of the shootings said it appeared Rittenhouse had been “very violently attacked, ” issued a statement Friday congratulating Rittenhouse on the verdict, adding “if that’s not self defense, nothing is!”
Team Biden can rightly say that Tucker Carlson is all kerosene-on-a-transcontinental-bonfire, but what is this?
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Barton Swaim semi-intentionally offers an explanation/justification for the Red attitude/behavior:
Which brings us back to Donald Trump. His nomination in 2016, and even more his election to the presidency, was an anguished outcry against decades of aggressions. It wasn’t wise or sensible, but it was understandable as a frantic attempt to stay the hand of an uncompromising cultural leftism.
The leftward-inclining elites who dominate American institutions didn’t interpret it that way. They classified it, as they had classified the tea-party revolt of 2009–10, as an expression of racism and hatred, thus relieving themselves of any responsibility to take it seriously or to discern its meaning.
Then he offers a bit of explanation/justification for the Blue attitude/behavior (and more of the explanation/justification for the Red attitude/behavior):
Mr. Trump’s postelection claims of election theft were not worse than his enemies’ attempts to delegitimize his 2016 election by pretending the outcome was a consequence of Vladimir Putin’s machinations. But his claims were false and without excuse, and his maniacal repetition of them led directly to the disgrace of the Capitol riot.
What the former president’s cultured despisers fail to appreciate, however, is that four years of subversion, slander and scorched-earth resistance made his cockamamie claims sound credible to a large audience of otherwise sane and sensible Americans. They may have entertained many incorrect notions about the 2020 election, but they were right to conclude that Mr. Trump’s enemies possessed far more power and influence than he did and were willing to defeat him by any means necessary, including unethical ones.
The Rittenhouse matter will reverberate for a long time, and/but it is and will remain part of the hideous mosaic that will be our shared American Experience until those of us who want it to be different figure out how to make it different.
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If the Gang of 500 ever gets around to casting the current Axis of Evil, I’m not sure exactly who the three consensus choices would be, but I know I will be pushing for the inclusion of Russia and Iran.
The buildup of Russian troops near Ukraine has left U.S. officials perplexed, muddying the Biden administration’s response.
Some Republican lawmakers have been pressing the U.S. to step up military support for Ukraine. But that risks turning what may be mere muscle-flexing by Russian President Vladimir Putin into a full-blown confrontation that only adds to the peril for Ukraine and could trigger an energy crisis in Europe.
But a weak U.S. response carries its own risks. It could embolden Putin to take more aggressive steps against Ukraine as fears grow he could try to seize more of its territory. And it could cause more political damage for President Joe Biden at a time his popularity is dropping.
Knowing how to strike the right balance would be easier if the U.S. had a better understanding of what Putin was trying to accomplish. But top officials admit they don’t know.
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So much to say about this on so many levels…..
For the time capsule:
If we can handle the Kardashians….
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