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Salon, of course, is where really bad writers go to be truly awful writers. And Amanda Marcotte is AWFULER than AWFUL as The Other McCain notes, it is also Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs!
However, to summarize her theme briefly, it seems to be Marcotte’s contention that, because a majority of U.S. shootings involve “people of color,” Republicans actually encourage criminal violence:
“It is nothing more than a new version of the Southern strategy,” [Philadelphia DA Larry] Krasner told Business Insider. “They’re saying ‘big cities, lawless,’ except all the big cities they’re talking about are very Democratic and have huge Black and brown populations.”
This race-baiting is especially gross when one considers that, despite the paranoia of the white GOP, racial minorities are more likely to be victims of gun violence. But that underscores just how nasty and cynical the Republican strategy here is. They back policies that lead to violence that harms people of color, then they blame people of color in order to get votes from racist white people. For Republicans, it’s all political upside.
Krasner, of course is to the DA field what Marcotte is to writing. He is to being a DA what the 1976-77 Bucs were to football. Those Bucs, I remind y’all lost their first 26 games! But, of course, Krasner and Marcotte have Leftist immunity from criticism as The Other McCain notes. They just scream RAAAAACISM!
Neither Marcotte nor Krasner has ever had to face any well-informed critic in debate. Liberals merely hurl the accusation of “racism” at their opponents and, believing this sufficient to discredit anyone, conduct themselves as if they possess a monopoly to discuss the underlying policy issues. In her column, Marcotte takes a jab at Arizona Republican candidate Blake Masters, who recently had the temerity to say of the current violent crime rampage in America: “It’s gangs. It’s people in Chicago, St. Louis, shooting each other very often, you know, Black people frankly.” You may say that this statement is “racist,” but that doesn’t mean it’s not also true.
I would say yes it is true, that stats are exceedingly clear, and truth really cannot be racist. Anyway, go read the whole thing and also read Pico’s piece on Marcotte’s fantastical trip down Conspiracy Boulevard Here is a small taste.
First from Marcotte, blaming Republicans for random gang violence
As Melissa Ryan wrote Monday morning in the Ctrl Alt Right Delete newsletter, “For the Right, mass shootings are a feature, not a bug.” And as I have been arguing for at Salon, mass shootings are effective for Republicans at demoralizing their opposition and training their base to unlearn any lingering sense of empathy. Historian Ruth Ben-Shiat argued in October in the Washington Post, that gun violence “fosters political, social and psychological conditions that are propitious for autocracy.” A major GOP campaign message going into the midterms is that “woke” Democrats are letting criminals run amok in the cities. Dramatic gun violence really helps sell this message, which is why Republicans are guaranteed to block any bill that would make it even slightly harder for violent and unhinged people to get guns.
Quite the stretch she makes, but, she is not familiar with reality it seems, or logic. Pico responds with reason
Given that the left are the ones who wish to impose an autocratic rule restricting, or completely banning, private ownership of firearms, the author’s claims are pretty silly. Of course, none of the gun control proposals would make it slightly harder for violent and unhinged people to obtain firearms; the most they could do would be to restrict the rights of normal and law-abiding Americans. We’ll eventually find out, if anyone bothers to report it, that the guns used in the South Street shooting were all illegally possessed
Marcotte, naturally, doubling down on blaming gun owners the GOP, and paranoia
Gun violence in Philadelphia is bad, just like in the rest of the country. The reasons aren’t mysterious. Gun sales surged during the pandemic because decades of propaganda caused people to think they needed them to be “safe.” (In reality, having a gun in the house increases your chances of injury or death.) More guns lead to more violence. Research shows that was especially true of this gun buying surge, as the percentage of newly purchased guns being used in crime surged. Things only promise to get worse because, no matter how much research says otherwise, people still have this asinine idea that the way to protect themselves from gun violence is to buy more guns. So this vicious cycle is perpetuated. People buy guns, which leads to more gun violence, which leads to more gun sales, and so on and so forth. Next thing you know, there are shootouts on South Street because everyone thinks they’re in some goddamn action movie.
PAINFUL! Truly painful to read such blabbering nonsense
Once again, Dana Pico applies some reality to counter Marcotte’s fantastical rantings
Oh, so “Gun sales surged during the pandemic because decades of propaganda caused people to think they needed them to be ‘safe’”? Apparently the author didn’t notice that, in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, homicides in Philly soared from an already high 356 the previous year, to 499, one short of the city’s all time record of 500, set during the crack cocaine wars of 1990. From slightly under one murder a day, the city shot up to 1.3634 killings per day, a 40.1685% increase.
Then, in 2021, with the evil reich wing Donald Trump out of office and the sweetness-and-light Democrats in power in Washington as well as Philly, the killings soared to 562, a 12.6253% increase, and 57.8652% higher than two years earlier.
Go read it all folks. The left has gone literally nuts. Go read Pico’s abject destruction of Marcotte’s delusional ramblings.
