Our Irresponsible Politicians

Two recent mass slayings within 24 hours, one in El Paso, Texas, and the other in Dayton, Ohio, traumatized the United States, in particular because no one has any idea how to stop them (all the calls for stricter gun control notwithstanding). But the response of the American political class portends even worse for the country than the slayings themselves.

Our political discourse has become deeply degraded. Both political parties devote much of their energy to keeping their respective bases in a state of perpetual rage. A combative president with an acerbic Twitter habit certainly does not help. And for more than a decade, the Democratic electoral strategy has been to balkanize America into a multiplicity of minority grievance groups, cheered on by woke, white urban elites. The Democrats’ identity politics depends on turning ever larger numbers of Americans into aggrieved victims.

The degradation of our discourse and the irresponsibility of our politicians was on full display in the wake of double shootings. The El Paso shooter told authorities that he targeted Mexicans, and he had written a white supremacist manifesto. Former El Paso congressman Beto O’Rourke immediately seized the opportunity to revive his floundering presidential bid by rushing to blame President Trump for the shooting by “inciting racism and violence.”

Somehow Democratic theories of causality always go missing, however, when the shooter identifies with the “anti-fascism” of Antifa — a group of violent, black-hooded thugs, whom not one Democratic presidential hopeful has found the occasion to condemn — as did the Dayton shooter. The Dayton shooter also professed his admiration for Democratic front-runner Senator Elizabeth Warren.