Making Shift Happen In The Midst Of Violent Extremist Attacks
A version of this post was published on Facebook on May 17, 2022 after the mass shooter attack in Buffalo, NY.
We were absolutely headed toward the kind of racist violent extremist attack that happened at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo.
It wasn't a surprise. That sounds harsh. But it's true.
Worse, there are likely to be more of these attacks in our very near future, and well beyond that. Domestic violent extremism has been on the rise for years. People don’t re-radicalize quickly at all. There isn’t much happening in our collective society yet to counter this kind of extremism. And all sorts of guns are easily available. The attacks will continue.
There's already talk from some of the violent extremists that the Buffalo shooter should have hit the weekend's pro-choice rallies instead. That's all part of an attempt to tie things to a nonsense idea that pale people are being somehow deliberately replaced (like for example having less babies) in some kind of coordinated scheme (which is not true).
It's devious as hell. It's an attempt to justify even more violence. It's an attempt to justify more hatred and hostility.
Another example: this replacement conspiracy theory BS makes it so that an attempt to put any rational immigration strategy in place for the southern border will be framed by the violent extremists as an attempt to bring supposedly new Democratic party voters in.
Never mind that it takes like 10 years to get citizenship. And never mind that the Trump Administration decimated much of the administrative capacity for the immigration system - and it's now an even less efficient system than it was before.
Other things are also inevitable. Like more intense, more frequent, bigger disasters. This country is intensifying.
Doesn't mean we can't do anything about all of this. We can.
Obviously, gun access is wildly out of control in the US. That’s one huge, massive specific thing that needs to change. That’s not the focus of this post, though, partly because so many millions of people are currently talking about it.
The point is that we have options. We would be wise to lean into those options proactively, and also so we are not frozen in shock at every god-awful shock that occurs.
The first step is to see the threats for what they are. To look honestly at what's in front of us. To speak honestly about it all, and to get better at talking through uncomfortable truths. To stop pretending like everything is normal and like there's any chance we're going to go back in time. We're not.
Here's what we can do after that.
We can help each other get through all of this, take action together, and hold democracy together at the same time.
We can get all of the groups doing all of the things together for this fight. Businesses too. Let's get folks on the record for whether they support democracy and diversity and rights.
We can learn how to drive the American narrative, and get serious about doing it.
That means championing what's right and calling out what's wrong. All of us. Big time. Way more than what anyone has been doing up until this point. That's part of why we need the moral support.
There are ways we can do all of that. It's achievable.
We change the direction we're going in while we're doing that. And create energy and attention on the country we want and the country we can be... and not on this BS extremism that's getting all of the oxygen.
We're in for some rough stuff. It's probably going to get rougher.
It isn't just the disasters. It isn't just the domestic violence extremists that will take years if not decades to de-radicalize.
It's the torn-up social fabric.
It's the fractured society.
It's the decimated faith in institutions and shared truth.
The lists go on.
^^ I don't say all of that to cause fear.
I say it because we need to get ready to get out of our comfort zones... and do something about it. Something different than what we've done before.
This is a pivot point in our history.
Are we going to help the moral arc of the universe bend toward justice?
It doesn't do that on its own.
These are things to think about.
We'll have more on how we can realistically do some of this stuff as the new Shift the Country nonprofit ramps up in early June. It's finally time. The points in this post are where we’re going to start.
Be well. Look after some humans. Look after yourself. Put some resilience in place. Breathe. Eat. Sleep.
And get ready.
Shift is coming.