The GOP’s Stochastic Coup Against American Democracy

The political rudder that moored me to aspirational security for all seems aimless. President Biden’s memorializing words yesterday ring hollow in this fast-moving GOP rejection of democracy. I feel like a caged hostage to the murderous policymakers of the GOP. The autocratic uniform is coming into view. Those far-right people getting guns for self-protection are also, I’m guessing, procuring guns for what they hope will be another January 6. Frightening times.

The GOP leadership’s rejection of the following statistic is an indicator of autocracy: 88 percent of Americans want background checks for every gun purchase. Yet, GOP policymakers (from small county GOP commissioners to the US Senate Majority leader) refuse to make that happen. They say such a law wouldn’t have stopped these shooters. True, but irrelevant. It’s still a good law and would save other lives. But we will lose these lives despite most GOP voters’ views on background checks for all gun purchases because they won’t vote for candidates supporting common-sense measures leading to better regulations on gun ownership. My blame, however, isn’t limited to the GOP voters.

I know people on the far left also searching for candidate perfection. They do not think they will vote for Biden in 2024 because of what’s happening on the US southern border to undocumented immigrants trying to get into the country, that he’s fallen short on climate policy, etc. I tell them, “it’s awful, and we need to protest, but your 2024 vote may be your last democratic choice if you don’t vote for Biden. This is not a moment to vote against better than Trump on behalf of aspirational perfection. If enough voters do as you will, Trump is back in 2024 with a Hobbesian play book.” Look no further than Texas & Oklahoma on guns and abortion.

Popular Texas gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke was right to tell GOP Governor Abbott that Abbott is himself personally responsible in part for the climate when Abbott tried to address the murdered children in Uvalde. Abbott recently signed a Texas law that rids the need of being licensed to own a gun. Abbott’s rhetoric has helped create the environment in which an Uvalde 18-year-old man walked into a gun selling restaurant where he bought the two AR-15s he used to murder 19 children and 2 teachers. “I hate to say this,” said Abbott with a complete lack of empathy or human decency 3 days ago, “but there are more people shot every weekend in Chicago than there are in schools in Texas.”

It is not that Abbott sees no reason for any gun regulation reform. He is an ideologue, not stupid. How can he not know that even allowing discussion of common-sense measures is contrary to the violent, eliminationist political agenda that gives him power? Like so many others, he pulls out the latest red herring, mental health reform. But, of course, he does this just after cutting the state’s mental health budget. CNN reported that in 2021 Abbott cut 117 million dollars from the State’s Health & Human Services Commission, which oversees public mental health resources. It was given 93 million dollars for 2022.

Abbott is predicted to win the election.

How did we get here? How does this happen? I don’t have answers to these “what is the cause?” questions. GOP pundits, such as Ben Shapiro, do. Shapiro says if all gun laws were enforced with added security at schools, such as having one entrance to get in with many exits that only open from the inside, Uvalde wouldn’t have happened.

Everyone agrees that we should have better security at schools and that our gun laws on the books need to be enforced. But that does not mean that there are not common-sense further steps that must be taken and are being blocked. We should also amplify the need for more ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) investigators. The ATF has fewer investigators than the Las Vegas police department. Why? GOP Senators.

GOP leaders, e.g., Texas Senator Ted Cruz, respond to all this trauma with prayer for the dead and bereaved while saying let’s not politicize this sorrowful moment, which in itself is explicitly designed to be a political statement. If it was a genuine call to non-partisan work to save lives it might work, but it is disingenuous, designed explicitly to make sure nothing happens. It is an attempt to kill legislation so that guns continue to kill Americans.

What will work is us creating a way out of this. Genesis states humans are created in God’s image. God creates. We thus create. We now need to create better “choice” architecture to live in. A reason we cannot show a direct link between political words, policies, and the actions of the two recent mass murderers is that, e.g., Governor Abbott, Senator Cruz, the GOP crew speaks stochastically, not causally. Stochasticism is easily explained by candy placement in grocery and convenience stores. (I’m taking the following example from my last opinion piece).

Candy placement in stores makes it likely to be picked up. They’re not making you buy candy, but they are setting up a situation in which many will likely pick candy up. However, one can’t forecast with certainty who will take it or if anybody will take candy, one can only make it more likely people will buy candy. A term that describes this is “choice architecture,” which is doing or saying things a certain way to make it likely the choice will be taken. However, the architect can’t predict who will actually pick up candy. Thus, if someone who shouldn’t pick up candy grabs candy, the choice architect is not responsible because they didn’t make or cause them to pick it up. Candy placement is only set up to likely entice someone to grab candy. No one makes anyone buy candy. Remember when Tobacco CEO’s used to use stochastic architecture when claiming no responsibility for a person’s choice to start smoking? This is stochastic choice architecture. To draw an analogy to the GOP approach, look at Tucker Carlson, the internationally famous, terrorizing stochastic.

“In a video posted to Fox News” on September 28th, 2021, “Carlson said President Joe Biden had aligned himself with sentiments of “The Great Replacement,” which Carlson explained as “the replacement of legacy Americans with more obedient people from far away countries. They brag about it all the time, but if you dare to say it’s happening, they [liberals] will scream at you with maximum hysteria.” Erin Jensen, USA Today.

When held to account for amplifying Nazi rooted replacement theory to his listeners, Carlson places blame elsewhere. Right after the Buffalo grocery store mass murder of black people, he “insisted that the alleged Buffalo shooter was not acting in response to anyone’s rhetoric but because he was mentally ill” (in lock step with Abbott and vice versa) “— and also that if he was “alienated,” it was the Democrats’ fault, because of school closures during the pandemic.” Washington Post, “Tucker Carlson Plays Dumb with Replacement Theory,” Phillip Bump, May 18th, 2022.

See how this works? Carlson bears no direct or indirect responsibility for the journaled and advertised “replacement theory” informing the murdering racist gunning down black people. Carlson absurdly, but frighteningly, blames the democrats and their democratic COVID-19 clamp downs for the Buffalo shooter’s rage. Carlson ‘reloads’ the candy aisle, and it can’t be said enough, which in his case includes Nazi replacement ideology plus 18th century American Southern fears of being replaced. And for replacement ideology to effectively work at a time when groups can be surveilled and defended against, the best tactic is the lone wolf/small cell independent model who does not report to a leader, but still get triggered while highly armed. That requires stochastic terrorism and no restrictions on guns. Is any of this is accidental?

Finally, imagine all the times those 19 murdered children begged their parent to buy the well placed candy they found while shopping. Imagine all the times the Buffalo dead had to tell a child, no candy today while caving in at the last minute and buying the child candy.

11 more mass shootings happened over last Memorial Day weekend. Mass shootings are defined as four or more people being shot.