It's too frustrating and painful to regurgitate the same things we've written for years with regard to mass shootings, guns and right-wing extremism in this country. Chuck Todd said each time one of these mass shootings occurs, we get the same wash, rinse, repeat sort of rhetoric in Washington and nothing happens. We would contend that we're not even getting the empty rhetoric anymore. It's the silence on the right that Republican strategist Al Cardenas referring to that now exists.
And why? Because the Republican base is rapidly growing in extremism? Not necessarily, but it's loudest voices have been breathing the words of intolerance and grievance steadily for years. Reverend Al Sharpton made an interesting point in as much as the 18 year-old shooter in Buffalo, NY yesterday was an impressionable 15 year-old at the time of Charlottesville, with the president at the time saying there are good people on both sides. It's a bit speculative but certainly logically.
However, there were two comments by Rev. Sharpton and The Washington Post's Matt Bai respectively that were incomplete in their reasoning. Rev. Sharpton said that President Biden should call a summit of minority leaders in our country to confront this kind of extremism and Mr. Bai explained that our political leaders have to stand up and look in the mirror. However, in an aforementioned summit, white politicians primarily from the Republican side of aisle need to be forced to listen to these cultural leaders as well. And for Mr. Bai, how about the press looking in the mirror - he should point that at himself.
This individual had a manifesto teeming with hate speech, white nationalism, anti-semitism and screeds about white replacement theory. The panel, of journalists, said this was a heinous theory, but it is pushed into the mainstream by the biggest name in their profession, Tucker Carlson and hence by his benefactor Rupert Murdoch who is only concerned with the profit margin.
Now, we're not saying that they can't have their biased opinions, but what they're pushing on air to millions of people is beyond irresponsible. What we are saying now is that legitimizing of a heinous theory like that got 10 people killed yesterday, 9 of whom were African-American.
Governor Kathy Hochal of New York, who is from Buffalo, explained that New York has very strick gun laws, but because laws vary state to state, you can never fully enforce your state's laws. She called for national gun legislation, and therein lies the rub.
If we're being honest with ourselves, and Americans writ large are not, Democrats vote for gun legislation and overreach and Republicans have no interest in gun legislation whatsoever so there is no compromise to arrive at a place where 60 senators will vote in favor.
As "Meet The Press" is alway wont to do, it's all discussed through the prism of elections and most assuredly 'guns' will not be on the proverbial ballot. However, given how the Supreme Court is trending, now that we all know, womens' reproductive health most certainly will be.
Even if the Democrats manage to maintain control of the House of Representatives, it won't move the needle enough in the Senate unless the filibuster is amended. Republicans will put in that and the Republican majorities in individual state houses are going anywhere.
We're not sure what kind of wake-up call it will take for this country to change it's tone and become less polarized, but may be a day that none of us want to experience. Until then, the loss of rights and lives will continue unabated.
Panel: Ashley Parker, The Washington Post; Susan Page, USA Today; Matt Bai, The Washington Post, Reverend Al Sharpton
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