Stochastic Terrorism from the Right continues
After the horrific attack on a queer nightclub in Colorado Springs, the Right keeps spreading hateful lies - implicitly embracing the violence.
If you thought that the horrific massacre at a queer night club that killed 5 and injured 25, that shattered the heart of the LGBTQ community in Colorado Springs, would lead to even a few days of silence on the Right, before they would start their hateful campaign against LGBTQ people again, you were mistaken.
Tucker Carlson, who still hosts the largest show on cable TV, started his monologue on Monday with an attack against gender affirming care, and twisted the horrific attack into yet another victimisation ploy for his audience - because really, they are the victims here:
„So these horrifying murders in Colorado over the weekend quickly became a pretext for yet more censorship of your speech. You are responsible for this, they told you, because you said the wrong things. You are guilty of stochastic terrorism, inspiring violence by your beliefs. Anderson Lee Aldrich committed mass murder because you complained about the sexualizing of children. Every time you object to drag time story hour for fifth graders or point out that genital mutilation is being committed on minors -- which it is -- every time you say that, you are putting people's lives at risk. Now that seems implausible and yet many are making this claim. (…) When you point out the truth, indisputably, and the truth is that some adults in this country, apparently a growing number, have a deeply unhealthy fixation on the sexuality of children -- when you say that out loud, you get people killed. (…)“
It was one of the many iterations with which right-wing media figures have tried to shift the blame for the attack away from themselves. It wasn‘t enough for Carlson to continue peddling lies about gender affirming care for trans teens, he also decided to attack a children’s hospital by name, accusing the medical staff there of „mutilating kids“. Carlson knows, of course, that Boston Children’s Hospital has been the target of death threats, two bomb threats and harassment due to a hate campaign spread by media figures like himself. He doesn’t care - that he and others are continuing their lies, even in the light of a horrific attack can only be deduced to mean one thing-that they welcome the violence:
„Children's Hospital in Boston, one of the most famous hospitals in the world, has admitted performing double mastectomies on children for no medical reason at all. There is no scientific justification for sexually mutilating kids. They are not doing it for a scientifically defensible reason. They are doing it because they believe in a very specific religious ideology. That's true. Is pointing that out an attack on gay people? Of course it is not an attack on gay people. It has nothing to do with gay people. It has to do with sexually mutilating children, which is wrong, period. It should be a crime, period. And yet suddenly, it's very common.“
Another Fox News host who joined Carlson in pointing the angry anti-LGBTQ mob to their next target - Laura Ingraham, too, named a children’s hospital, that she claimed was engaging in horrific mutilations of children:
„More adults finally see the inherent evil in butchering children's reproductive organs and messing with their hormonal makeup. We're seeing hospitals like Vanderbilt's Transgender Health Clinic pressured into stopping these surgeries for children. And states are taking action to ban these surgeries for minors in their own areas altogether: Alabama, Arizona, they already have bans in place on gender-affirming care and that's for kids and many more plan to follow suit.“
Ingraham, of course, wasn’t to be outdone by self/described „theocratic fascist“ Matt Walsh (who was praised by the German conservative newspaper „Die Welt“ as the „Michael Moore“ of the Right). Walsh managed a paradox: claiming no responsibility for the attack, while at the same time justifying it - and implying that if drag shows should cease to take place, nobody would get killed:
According to the left, the drag queen-child combination has become dangerous. They say it’s a "lightning rod" for violent backlash. Right, that’s what they say — and it’s greatly exaggerated, of course, mostly it’s invented out of whole cloth, actually. But even by their version of events, if it’s causing this much chaos and violence, why do you insist on continuing to do it? If according to you, it’s like putting people’s lives at risk, if the effort to have men cross-dress in front of children is putting people’s lives at risk, why are you still doing it? Is it that important to you? Now, as always, they try to flip the burden around on us. They demand that we explain why we object to children being exposed to drag queens. And we can explain it, and we have, and we will continue to, because it’s very easy to explain. Drag is inherently sexual and ideological, it is burlesque, and it’s not appropriate to bring your child to a burlesque show — you disgusting freaks.
It is - apart from the hideous anti-LGBTQ lies that are apparent in this quote - an abuser’s logic: If you just stopped behaving this way or doing this thing, I wouldn’t have to hit you. So its your fault if you get hurt, or killed, for merely wanting to exist in peace.
The goal of these right-wing media figures is clear - to stop trans (and LGBTQ people in general, but they’ll start with trans people) from existing. First step: Ban gender-affirming care - first for teenagers, then for adults. We don’t have to guess: On the state level, Republicans have already taken steps to reach these goals. And on TV, the Right openly states their goals, while threatening violence:
Like Jaimee Michell, founder of „Gays against Groomers“, a White Supremacist and Neo-Nazi sympathiser who spreads anti-LGBTQ hatred online and on Tucker Carlson’s show. Mere days after the massacre at Club Q, Carlson had her on an solemnly nodded (while letting one smirk slip) while she claimed that shootings like the one at Club Q would continue to happen „until we end the evil agenda that is attacking children“ - referring, of course, to gender affirming care.
As of now, the Right is giddy - the reason is a claim by the terrorist’s attorneys, to be found in a footnote of the courts filing, where they claim that the shooter identifies as non binary.
Now, let me say a few things: