By now, everyone knows the basics of what happened in the early morning last Saturday. I’ll skip trying to write yet another narrative. Suffice it to say, too many good people were injured and killed. Our hearts go out. We are poorer for the loss. If we learn from this we will be an even stronger state and nation.
The mainstream news media’s narrative is that this horrific crime was motivated by politics, far right vs. far left, conservative vs. liberal. That is the easy explanation that ruffles the fewest feathers. The horse race model. It provides little insight or context. We will learn more about the background and motives of the accused in the next days and weeks and I will be proved wrong or right. However, based on what has been learned so far, it appears to me that he was motivated more by religious ideology than by politics. Religious ideology led him to his politics, not the other way around. His support for Trump and the far-right GOP was based on their claim to much the same world view as his religion. The accused appears to be a very devout Christian Supremacist. They believe in the Christian domination of all of society and the end of the separation of church and state, among many other ideas. This was a hate crime not dissimilar to 9/11/2001, inspired by religious beliefs. We were sold the wrong story then. Let’s not buy the wrong story this time. Our democracy depends on getting this story and the real causes behind this and other similar tragedies right. Acting on the erroneous information is dangerous.
Tim Wallace
Zim