Barbarians at the Gate

 

     The planet earth is one that is filled with predators.That's just a given. Whether we're talking about animals or humans, who are essentially just animals with cell phones and social media accounts, when an entity is at a moment of disadvantage, either real or imagined, you can bet that some predators will begin circling before closing in for the kill. It doesn't matter if it's a suddenly disgraced politician, a financially-stressed corporation or a lone water buffalo on the savanna, predators are very good at sensing weakness. After all, if they weren't, they wouldn't be very good predators, now would they?

     But predation can take many forms whether it's a large corporation trying to buy out or subsume another, a serial killer seeking a lone female victim or a democratic republic in serious danger of permanent decline. It's latter that I'll address here.

     Minutes after Kyle Rittenhouse, in an outrageous contortion of jurisprudence, was acquitted on all charges in Kenosha yesterday, the NRA put out on its Twitter account the language of the second amendment. Not far behind them was the right wing's version of MS-13, the Proud Boys. Their Telegram channel lit up like a KKK cross with one member stating, "The left wont (sic) stop until their bodied (sic) get stacked up like cord wood."

     It ought to be mentioned that about 12 hours after Trump told that same terrorist group to "Stand back and stand by" during his first debate with Joe Biden, the Proud Boys were already marketing a tee shirt with Trump's instantly infamous ad lib. In a painful paroxysm closely approximating a corporate conscience, Amazon, eBay and Etsy all blocked sales of the tee shirts.

     And while the predatory instinct has been on earth since the earliest days of prehistory, the instant backlash and attack on vulnerability really got ramped up under that same Donald John Trump. I read this afternoon in the Michigan Advance, 

     "It occurred the day after former President Donald Trump’s win in November 2016. A group of Latino children were eating when white students began chanting at them, 'Build the wall,' a popular anti-immigrant Trump slogan."

     Even children. Yes, they learn that young to be predators.

     So when Rittenhouse was acquitted yesterday, it was virtually a given that right wing lunatics were already licking their chops and rubbing their hands at the very thought of gunning down nonexistent antifa opponents and with impunity.

     What came as a bit of a surprise was Paul Gosar (R-Bobblehead) challenging Matt Gaetz (R-Venmo) to an arm wrestling match over who would have the right to hire Rittenhouse as a Congressional aide, with maybe Madison Cawthorn (R-Eagle's Nest) taking on the winner.

     So it's no coincidence that the three organ donors listed above would also be the most strident defenders of the insurrectionists who on January 6th descended on the Capitol building in a murderous frenzy just minutes after Trump told them to "fight like hell." No doubt, some of the rioters were also outraged by the Senate runoff elections in Georgia getting swept by two Democrats just the night before

     Trump didn't directly weaken democracy but, indirectly, he had by convincing others it was weak and that all they had to do was storm the very nerve center of our nation's government, yell loudly enough and assault whomever gets in your way and all will be as right as rain.

     To everyone's surprise, the barbarians at the gate took down the gate and stormed the empire and were in charge for 45 minutes while over 500 lawmakers ran and cowered in fear of their lives.

     God help African Americans if the McMichael/Bryan trial in Cobb County, Georgia also ends with an acquittal. It'll be open season on them, as if it isn't already.