Today has been pretty surreal. As is typical on a summer Saturday, I got back from work around 5AM, went to bed, and woke up at 11AM to listen to Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me and Ask Me Another, and went back to sleep for another hour. When I finally woke up to prepare for the workday, I put on the local CBS news radio affiliate to check out the coverage of the Unite the Right rally. As is typical these days, the media reports trailed the on-the-ground social media coverage.
It wasn't until I got to work that I learned that one counterprotestor was killed and nineteen injured in a vehicular assault, and that two police officers were killed in a helicopter crash in the vicinity. Honestly, I thought the rally would be more violent, and hope that the attendees disperse back to their lairs.
The optics of the demonstration were surreal, from the pro-Confederate tiki torch-lit rally last night (insert Traitor Vic's quip here) to the khakis-and-polo business casual look accented with homemade shields. The whole thing smacked of the dumbest LARP ever until this asshole plowed into a crowd, ISIS extremist style.
The whole affair was, as Hillary Clinton would put it, deplorable, but it could have been so much worse. I sincerely hope that any of the attendees who showed up merely for the keks reconsiders the path on which they have been treading.
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I think the pattern is set. We can expect more 'rallies' to be scheduled, and more people on both sides going to the city where they are held. We can pretty much count on increasing violence, and at some point a gunfight.
I've wondered for a year how you can possibly 'do' a purely ideological conflict. I mean, the KKK/Nazis have it a bit easier, as they can attack any group that includes black or brown people, but in the larger civil war of 'Libs' vs. 'Fascists', they're going to have to wear a sort of uniform. And that's one of the things these 'rallies' gives us. In other nations, the conflicts are racial/ethnic/tribal/sectarian, and they have no trouble identifying 'the enemy'.
The first problem will come from so-called Open Carry states. That's what will lead to the gunfight. The second problem will come from the tension between the constitution and the necessity local law enforcement will feel to disarm people once the shooting has started.
It's a long way to 2020. Way too far for any of us to emerge unscathed, no matter who 'wins'....
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