Dissent and Christian Nationalism after the Assassination Attempt

Republicans are using the attempted assassination of Donald Trump to suppress legitimate political dissent in the United States. When Donald Trump says he wants to terminate parts of the Constitution, wants to begin the largest mass deportation in American history, wants to round up tens of millions of people into concentration camps, wants to use the military against protesters, and wants to eliminate his critics as if they are vermin, it is legitimate to say that Donald Trump has the plans of an authoritarian fascist and that his plans are a threat to American democracy.

American democracy is already on the edge of falling apart, thanks to the Supreme Court justices appointed by Donald Trump. The President already has the power of a king. It’s legitimate for Americans to criticize that.

It’s not legitimate to tell Americans to be quiet while their democracy is taken away.

It’s also antidemocratic to engage in political violence. Violence is the opposite of freedom. You know the old saying: Fighting for freedom is like screwing for virginity.

Trying to kill Donald Trump is not an effective way to stop Christian Nationalism. Individually, Donald Trump holds most of the power in the Christian Nationalist movement, but Donald Trump is not the problem. He didn’t create Christian Nationalism, and Christian Nationalism won’t go away when Donald Trump dies.

What Matthew Crooks did was wrong. It was wrong morally, strategically, and tactically.

After Donald Trump was shot in the earlobe, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick wrote in a message to him, “Your life was spared by the Grace of a Merciful and Holy God. I shared with you not long ago, on our flight to Houston, that God has had his hand on you since you first ran for President. That I believe. No man could survive all you have been through without the Grace of God upon you. The Bible verse "And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?" appears in the book of Esther 4:14. Praise God your life was spared "For such a time as this."

The Book of Esther tells the story of a Jewish woman in Babylon who marries into the royal family there. She learns of a plan to attack the Jewish community in Babylon and launches an attack of her own, killing all of her political enemies.

Dan Patrick’s choice of the Book of Esther as a biblical citation in his message to Donald Trump sends a clear message: Republicans are prepared to engage in political violence against Democrats, in the mode of Esther, on the pretext of preventing further violence such as the assassination attempt by Matthew Crooks.

There was a man who was shot and killed on Saturday. His name was Corey Comperatore. He was a former Fire Chief, and he used his body to shield his family from the bullets that were being fired.

What was God’s plan for him?

What was God’s plan for the two other critically injured victims who were shot at that rally?

If Steve Scalise is right, and the Christian God is performing miracles every day, and God has the power to stop bullets from hitting people, how come he only performed these miracles for Donald Trump? What does the Christian God think is wrong with all the other people who die from gunshot wounds?

Don’t give us the pathetic excuse that “God works in mysterious ways.” If your god works in mysterious ways that allow people to get shot with guns when it doesn’t have to happen, that means your god is unreliable and indifferent. That kind of god is unworthy of worship.

Where was the Christian God when Matthew Crooks was being led into the depths of American gun culture? Who taught Matthew Crooks how to shoot a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle at people from a distance?

We know that Matthew Crooks trained at the had a membership at a local shooting club, the Clairton Sportsmen's Club south of Pittsburgh, which has a shooting range with high-powered sniper rifles and experts who help people learn how to use the guns to kill people from a distance. We know that the Bethel Park high school that Matthew Crooks attended had a club that taught students how to fire rifles, although Crooks wasn’t able to gain a place on the school’s competitive shooting team. We know that the rifle Matthew Crooks used to attack Donald Trump was purchased by his father.

We also know that when Matthew Crooks fired that rifle, he was wearing a t-shirt for Demolition Ranch, a YouTube channel that features videos of people firing military-grade guns at human mannikins. One Demolition Ranch video celebrates “the ultimate assassin weapon”, another video reviews an “assassin pistol”, and a third promotes “the quietest assassin gun ever made”, as well as “the quietest sniper rifle in the world”. Depicting assassination and firing sniper rifles as a fun activity is at the heart of the Demolition Ranch brand.

It's clear that Matthew Crooks was immersed in a toxic culture that fetishized guns and violence. He was taught to celebrate guns by his family, his school, his community, and online influencers. How could he have not picked up the idea that firing guns at people is a normal thing to do?

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Donald Trump may be unstoppable. The fascist ideology of Christian Nationalism may be unstoppable. We can’t know if that’s true if we never even try to stop it.

Don’t just sit there and accept the rise of Christian Nationalism as fate. There is no such thing as fate.

Democracy is what we make of it. Let’s make something of our freedoms, while we still have them.

If Donald Trump is elected President, we need a strongly progressive US Congress to check his power.

Get out there, not with a gun to shoot people, but with your voice. Knock on doors. Make phone calls. Write letters. Volunteer for your local congressional campaign and spread the word.

Whatever you do, don’t ever respond to the provocations of extremist Christian Nationalists with violence.

When Matthew Crooks shot Donald Trump, he made Trump stronger. Violence is not an effective tool of democratic political activism. Violence inevitably damages democracy. The best way to preserve American democracy is to remain vocal in critical dissent of our nation’s leaders while resisting all provocations to violence.