Column By John Young
Now we know about the shooter.
He was a white supremacist, captivated and motivated by the right-wing “manosphere,” and of course a nation’s gun fanaticism.
But he’s dead now, sucked into a vortex of hate.
Sorry if that first paragraph description misled you. As I write this, I am thinking of a shooter who didn’t get national attention for his awful deeds Sept. 10. His actions were closer to home.
Desmond Holly was only 16, but he’d grown to be quite an extremist when he decided to shoot up his high school in Evergreen, Colo.
He killed himself after critically wounding two classmates.
Scores might have died there if not for oft-rehearsed school lock-down drills. Those who’ve lost all perspective in adoration of deadly weapons no doubt will call them “price of freedom” drills.
Many would be dead, too, if instead of a handgun, Holly had carried the AK the shooter in Uvalde, Texas, used to blast through plaster in that town’s grade school, killing 21, wounding 17. “Stronger walls,” said Republican problem- solvers.
Apologies if you assumed the shooter to whom I first referred here was the one who unleashed national tremors and forever nightmares at Utah Valley University with one pull of a trigger.
Way early in the game, before we knew anything at all about the confessed assassin of Charlie Kirk, our president already had offered chapter and verse.
The next day when asked by an interviewer how to bring the country together at a rage-filled time like this, he said, “I’ll tell you something that’s going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less.”
The nation’s violence problem was distilled to two words by him: “radical left,” people whose rhetoric, he said, is “directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today.”
It could not possibly be people on the right, including Charlie Kirk, who joked about the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband.
It could not be the stew that produced the plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer or the torching of the home of Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
This president behaved as is par for his course after Minnesota legislative leader Melissa Hortman and her husband were assassinated. Asked if he would call Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to offer support and condolence, our president said Walz was “whacked out.” Ever manning the higher ground — that’s him.
“The guy doesn’t have a clue,” he shrugged. “He’s a mess. I could be nice and call, but why waste time?”
And we wonder why our nation is so polarized. Yes, let’s have a seminar.
Politico headline: “Charlie Kirk’s death exposes absence of a leader to calm America.”
The Wall Street Journal editorial board called on the president to “rise above this madness” and show “leadership.” Porcine squadrons will fly first.
This president is the least credible person to bring calm to a situation that he creates daily in word and deed.
Almost every one of his actions is predicated on political retribution and a mission to “own the libs.”
Then there are the mob-stirring lies.
Politico asked former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, a Republican, indirectly about his party’s leader on this matter: whether anyone — you know, anyone — can unite the country.
“I’m looking, but I can’t claim that I can identify that person,” he said. What a comment about his party’s leader.
Every day and in every way, Peter Baker’s intricate book about this presidency richly affirms its title: “The Divider.”
As Politico’s Adam Wren puts it, “No one can quite find the words — or the credibility or moral authority — to quell the molten anger of this American moment.”
No words. So, assailants etch messages on shell casings or sketch out plans for catastrophe on social media.
And the uniquely American commerce of death makes it all possible with a joyous ka-ching.
Longtime newspaperman John Young lives in Colorado. E-mail him at jyoungcolumn@gmail.com.
The opinions expressed in this editorial are those of the author.
