Welp, the GOP continues to blame mass shootings on everything but guns. Doors, pot, mental illness, video games, and now smartphones. Meanwhilst, Cucker Tarlson insists that we need “traditional masculine values” which, since he extols male sports, apparently means allowing your rivals to beat you senseless for the entertainment of the masses and/or abusing the women closest to you. On the contrary, we don’t need more traditional masculine values; we need LESS.
Someone asked, what happened in the last 50 years? (I think that too was Tarlson, but I can’t find it in a quick Google search.) What happened? Women, minorities, and the LGBTQ+ community wrested a few more opportunities out of this country and the globe, and those with toxic straight white male privilege can’t stand it, throwing temper tantrums like spoiled 2-year-olds. We elected our first Black president in 2008 and they elected their first Orange president in 2016 in retaliation, and still they weren’t happy — on the contrary, mass shootings increased during the $Rump years. Study of the manifestos of mass shooters shows repeated “expressions of masculine overcompensation, ritualistic responses to exclusion, and racialized status threat”. This study was published in 2021, and although there was no similar document from the Uvalde shooter, the Buffalo shooter did post similar rantings. In efforts not to spread hate, his manifesto was removed from social media, but reports are that he targeted Blacks specifically and believed the "great replacement” nonsense.
What else happened during this time? Rush Limbaugh first aired as a “conservative” commentator in 1984 and the Fairness Doctrine was eliminated by Reagan in 1987, so that media no longer had to present balanced views. Rush was under contract to work at a Top 5 radio station (NYC) and syndicated as of 1988. By 1990, he had the most listeners of anyone on radio. Then in 1996, the Faux Network was founded. It has been the top-rated cable news show since 2002. Could there be a connection? I’m just asking the question.
[For those not familiar, the “brains” at Faux often phrase the most incendiary rhetoric in the form of questions, and then respond to criticism with “I’m just asking”.]
But toxic rage in these and other echo chambers seems to just amplify the rage, not give it safe expression so it defuses. The Internet has also been more of an amplifier than a solution. Available information might provide something of a balance, but not when Internet searches provide more of the same in the searcher’s bubble.
What might masculinity look like when it is not so toxic? Welp, maybe a lot like core liberal values: Belief in individualism, rationalism, freedom, responsibility, justice and tolerance - the last two bolded because when applied to all, there would be very little toxic anger at a more equal society, IMO.
Then of course no thinking person can state a solution to mass mayhem and murder without doing something about the guns: There is a lot we have tried to do and a lot we can still do to limit illegal guns and the inappropriate violent use of guns in the US. Here is a good dive into the history of guns and regulation, www.americanprogress.org/… And here is a chart of the incidence of mass shootings in the US, ,www.statista.com/… See how things started to rise in 2004, with more bad years and more frequent years with ever-higher deaths and injuries (even if you ignore the giant spike in 2017, which was the year of the Las Vegas shooter)? What was a major event in 2004? The sunset of the assault weapons ban, and little to no further attempts to restrict guns ever since. American Progress breaks down relatively minor legal changes we can make that might make big differences (i.e., enforcement of existing laws, not any major restrictions to gun owners’“rights”). Maybe we should try those. And more: Tell Congress to pass federal law to outlaw assault rifles. Sure, we know it won’t happen right now with a few too many GOP and GOP Light lawmakers. But they need to keep feeling the pressure.