It seems that one of the recent sports in recent days for some empty Republicans is to ridicule liberal gun control advocate Alec Baldwin for being the person who pulled the trigger that tragically, accidentally killed the cinematographer on the movie set for the film he was starring in and producing. Most notably, perhaps, is Donald Trump Jr. hawking a t-shirt about Baldwin killing the woman.
I’m not going to get into detail about the tragedy on the set. I have some opinions on the matter, and I have no great admiration of Alec Baldwin dating back to an online “confrontation” of sorts that we had when I writing on the Huffington Post – an exchange I wrote about here a couple of years ago. But none of that matters when dealing with something so deeply sad, most especially when all the facts simply are not known yet. So, for right now, the only thing we can know with absolute certainty is that this is a tragedy, and it was caused by some irresponsible mistakes. The Republican reaction, however, is another matter. And they’re only hurting themselves by it, which is clearly something they don’t grasp. It starts with what I mentioned, that we simple don’t know the details enough yet, a pesky fact which has escaped the sensibility of these Republicans happily dancing. But then I’m not surprised, since dealing with facts is a non-issue to Republicans these days, and jumping to conclusions is never a good look, most especially in a tragedy. More to the point, though, is by spinning in giddy joy over one death, these Republicans don’t realize how utterly cold and callous they appear, metaphorically dancing on the grave of a woman they ignore, being so blindly focused on Alec Baldwin being in middle of a tragedy. Gee, never mind the woman whose death actually is the tragedy. In fact, the emptiness of these Republicans is so focused on Baldwin and so overwhelms them that the comments I’ve seen haven’t even included the bare-minimum default expression of sympathy that Republicans almost always offer after such tragedies – sending their “thoughts and prayers (™ GOP). Nothing, not a word of sympathy for the very real, actual death. But beyond this, what they don’t realize is that their attention to this one death and how irresponsible they rightly say it was (again, whose irresponsibility is a matter to be determined) shines a massive light on the reality that, if this one gun death was so profoundly wrong – which it was – imagine how ghastly the 30,000 gun deaths are every single year after...after year after year after years, and the mass gun shootings which occurs on average of one every single week. And yet, this cadre of warped Republicans dancing with joy at a death -- whatever the accidental cause -- ignore that. And so, they show themselves “outraged” by a single death, but are just fine with those 30.000 yearly gun deaths and weekly mass gun shootings. Which only serves to highlight their emptiness and callousness. And…yes, that GOP-related word these days…hypocrisy. Further, the t-shirt Don Jr. is hawking on behalf of a tragedy references Alec Baldwin killing one person. And of course, being the lifelong mindless, clueless Don Jr. that he is misses the obvious point that in doing so, he leaves Republican NRA apologists open to not only being slammed for the yearly 30,000 deaths, but also the perhaps 80-100,000 deaths from COVID-19 caused by his father willfully ignoring the pandemic, which overall has killed almost 700,000 Americans. And yes, criticizing Don Jr. for all of that has, in fact, been the response that sonny boy’s cruelty has gotten. Which anyone but a self-absorbed, cold-hearted chump trying desperately to please his daddy could seen coming. (By the way, while trying to have a happy dance over this shooting tragedy on a Hollywood movie set, to "own the Libs," no doubt, what these cheery Republicans are missing is the very opposite of what they're reprehensibly trying to gloat about: how incredibly rare these terrible gun accidents on movie sets are, most especially when compared to shooting deaths in the rest of society. Each gun death on a movie set is utterly horrific -- and one more than should ever happen -- but news stories on this recent tragedy which note other gun deaths like it that have happened during movie production have only referenced two. Not just "two" others in the past 40 years, but in all the records they can find. There might be more, but none are mentioned. Again, this is now three more gun shooting deaths than should happen, but if all of society had that record of gun tragedies, a lot more people would be alive.) In the end, I am sure that all these Republicans think they are making some Great Point by dancing at a tragedy, but of course the only people joining their dance are those who already agree with them. Most everyone else saddened by a tragedy only can look at this happy reaction and recoil in ghastly response. Which seems to be the Republican brand these days.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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