evil

by Malcolm J. Brenner

I woke from a nap last Saturday, just in time to witness on live TV the attempted assassination of ex-President Trump. It was quite a surreal situation, I assure you; I’d laid my head on a pillow on the couch for just a moment, and it seemed like no time had passed. I sort of lap-dissolved from the national evening news into coverage of The Donald’s election rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and became, as they say, another witness to the latest chapter in America’s dark, violent and bloody modern politics, the politics of hate, of polarization, the politics of the AR-15 and the bump stock.

Do you know what the wonderful thing about hate is? It is utterly indiscriminate! As an emotion, a state of self-perpetuating rage and battle-response stress, hate doesn’t care about any reasons who or what is hated, it’s much too primal for such refined cogitation. Any reasons it could come up with would only be thin masks, barely concealing the need to inflict hurt on others. Because hate only acknowledges its own existence, its own pain, its own wounds, and uses them to justify lashing out at the perceived person or object hated, or, as psychologists call it, the other.

Hence, we get news stories of rednecks attacking Sikhs, not because Sikhs are evil or have done the rednecks any harm, but since adult male Sikhs all wear turbans, grow full, luxurious beards and appear prosperous (the ones I’ve seen, anyhow), they fit the rednecks’ preconceived image of “your stereotypical A-rab oil sheik” and as such become the target for discrimination, harassment, assault and worse. Mind you, the rednecks wouldn’t know a real sheik if they tripped over him; many sheiks wear Western business suits when visiting our side of the world. Besides, I hear relations between the Muslims and Sikhs aren’t exactly what one would call amorous, and haven’t been much that way for the past, oh, I don’t know, 525 years?

Would-be Trump assassin Thomas Mattew Crooks, it now turns out, had images of both Trump and Biden on his cell phone, along with schedules of the Republican and Democratic Conventions. Crooks targeted both, but Trump’s convention came first, and was thus the earliest opportunity to do something totally random, totally chaotic, and thoroughly evil. It’s obvious Crooks didn’t care who he killed, finding one victim as good as another! He therefore had no impetus, no narrative, and no motive, except the brooding rage of one incessantly bullied, access to his father’s semiautomatic people-hunting rifle, enough cash to buy 50 rounds of ammo, and the immanent, irresistible presence in his world of an important, accessible target, like the smell of bacon attracting a hungry dog.

The FBI and other law enforcement agencies are having a hard time assigning a motive to Crooks’ murderous actions, and no wonder! His only motive was the opportunity to kill someone famous, it didn’t matter who! This kind of randomness, where the flip of a coin may decide whether you live or die, doesn’t care which side you’re on, what uniform you’re wearing, what color your skin is or what language you speak. Like the Xenomorph in the Alien movie franchise, Crooks killed because he could. His attempt to murder Trump made about as much sense as nobody John Hinkley trying to kill President Ronald Reagan to impress actress Jodie Foster: NONE WHATSOEVER!

Is this assassination attempt, such a meaningless gesture, a signal that the era of extremism in politics is over? If it no longer makes any difference to a would-be assassin what you as a victim believe, or do, or plan, why bother holding extremist viewpoints? Now, both sides of the Congressional aisle can feel equally threatened!

When it no longer matters who you kill, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, you have truly become a psychopath.

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NO ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (A.I.) WAS USED IN THE COMPOSITION OF THIS ESSAY. AS A WRITER, I REJECT A.I. IT’S MORE PRONE TO HALLUCINATIONS THAN I AM! I MUCH PREFER THE APP NATURAL STUPIDITY. YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT AT… OH HELL, JUST GO FIND IT YOURSELF!

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