Dear Friends,
I have been writing this weekly newsletter for five months. That went by fast. And I’m so grateful you’re still along for the ride. One of my original goals for The Square Inch was to studiously avoid becoming just another political outlet devoted to the outrage of the day. Looking back on the body of work so far, I feel like I’ve accomplished that pretty well.
We are now nearing another presidential election. Both major parties have completed their (non-traditional) conventions, the nominees have given their acceptance speeches, and we are rounding into the last turn with nothing to look forward to but wall-to-wall nasty political advertising. Oh, joy.
So far, so normal. But these are not normal times. Cities are burning and the tribes and factions have taken to assaulting and killing each other. So, it’s time to say a few things. It may not make you happy, but I never promised that I’d always do that.
The Progressive “Shakedown”
Let’s start with this oddity. The Trump reelection message seems to be that rioting, looting, and burning is “Joe Biden’s America.” It’s a strange sales pitch because right now rioting, looting, and burning is Donald Trump’s America. I’m not blaming him or suggesting that our civil unrest is somehow directly his fault. But it is happening on his watch, and I don’t understand why “elect me and I’ll put a stop to this nonsense” is an argument for the incumbent. It’s bizarre. It might well work (read on), but it’s weird.
But we do need to ask ourselves what is the source of the unrest. It seems fair enough to presume that much of it is well-meaning, sincere people who have had enough of police brutality and unequal treatment of minorities. They want to march and demand better from their government—and it’s a wonderful thing to live in a country where one of our first freedoms is the right to assemble and to demand “redress of grievances.” But it’s also fair to say that much of it is a diverse array of professional agitators trying to manipulate and direct societal emotions toward ulterior political aims. For example, the Black Lives Matter organization is very much not just about ending police brutality—read what they believe for yourself. Antifa is clearly a revolutionary coalition committed to Marxist ideals.
If you want to know how to figure out the difference between legitimate grievances and pure partisan political activism, here’s how: with legitimate grievances facts matter; with pure partisan political activism, anything and everything can be weaponized for the cause regardless of the facts. More on this in a bit.
My friend Erick Erickson describes what is going on as a kind of progressive “shakedown,” and I’m persuaded that he’s largely correct. It goes like this: “Give us the White House or we’ll burn your country to the ground.” That makes sense of a lot of things, and it demonstrates the strangeness of the President’s message. If he gets reelected there will surely be more unrest (I am NOT here making an argument against his reelection—I’m just stating what seems to me a fact); if Joe Biden wins, the various left-wing factions will celebrate their victory and they’ll leave the streets to apply political pressure on the new administration in other ways.
Nevertheless, the President’s message might just work. Why? Because the shakedown is now completely beyond the Democrat Party’s control. Oh, yes, they can keep talking about “mostly peaceful” protests and legitimate grievances and so forth, but the backdrop for their media outreach is broken windows and looted stores and burning cars. Folks, this image is real:
Just look at that chyron. “Fiery but mostly peaceful.” Like, you know, campfires that people are gathered around singing “Kumbaya.” Oh, man. The party (and its media allies) is backed into a corner of its own making. They’ve lauded and praised the protests from day one, continually provided cover for violent actors, and they’re now absolutely married to it politically. In fact, today vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris found herself promising more of the same! I think she meant to sound inspirational, but word to the wise: the word “beware” doesn’t belong in a motivational speech.
This is how they lose. Incredible as it seems to me, they are perilously close to losing an election against an incumbent with approval ratings and poll numbers that have never translated into a reelection victory. There is a very small slice of the American electorate who are “undecided” or even “persuadable” in this election. And if more of this “mostly peaceful” protesting is the Democrat message, there are a lot of people who are going to vote for Donald Trump. The hand has been overplayed and I don’t see how the Biden campaign can back down now. Sure, they can issue some condemnations of violence, but the protests themselves are the Democrat brand and the party has approximately zero control over what the rioters and looters are doing.
Of course, there is an X-factor: the President himself. If anybody can squander this arguably slight advantage, he can. Nobody has been able to wrest his iPhone and Twitter account from him in four years, and nobody is going to. All it takes is some messaging discipline, but “messaging discipline” is the very last thing anybody associates with Donald Trump.
It’s going to be one wild ride to the finish line. And I predict… nothing. I’m out of the political prediction business.
Truth Stumbles in the Streets
Anybody want to be a police officer when they grow up?
I’m starting to think that maybe instantly litigating on the Internet every single police interaction might have some downsides. Can you imagine the potentially fatal self-doubt creeping into the back of every officer’s mind, knowing that whatever decision he or she has to make in an instant is going to be broadcast in near-real time to the world and that regardless of the facts a mob is going to demand to know your name and address? Excuse the foul language (well, on second thought, don’t), but this is Black Lives Matter activist Shaun King, a man with a not-insubstantial 1.1 Million Twitter followers:
King followed through and later did “out” the officer. Never mind internal investigative processes and use of force reviews. This is pitchfork wielding mob stuff, and it is loathsome and incredibly dangerous. Let’s add into the mix places where morale is low and officers think their departments are ready and willing to cave to online and literal mobs and throw them to the wolves.
You don’t need to “defund” the police. Just keep this up for awhile and you won’t find anybody willing to go within a hundred miles of that job. And you know what comes after that? Streets that resemble Mogadishu, with rival warlords carving up our cities. I’m not trying to make absurd and hysterical predictions; I’m just pointing out the trajectory of where things are headed if we let this continue. If you’re wondering why gun sales numbers in America are floating somewhere in the upper stratosphere, this is it. You may not wonder because maybe you’re not aware: gun manufacturers cannot make them fast enough, industry wide. It is “out of stock” and, on some weapons, 12+month backorders as far as the eye can see.
I mentioned earlier the difference between legitimate grievances and pure political activism: in one, facts matter; in the other, facts are irrelevant. I am well and truly disgusted (and exhausted) by the lack of critical thinking in this country, and how easy it is to get people to jump on a bandwagon—especially when jumping on the bandwagon promises to make you look like a virtuous, caring person. People like professional athletes, who declined to perform their jobs yesterday because a police officer in Wisconsin shot a man. That’ll solve the problems of racism and police brutality: sports stars just needed to take a day off.
Here is something literally everyone knows, but a large number of people are pretending not to know: in any altercation with law enforcement involving drawn weapons, if you do not keep your hands visible at all times, you will be shot. If you reach for something, you will be shot. Everyone—everyone—knows this. And what we also know, because it is caught on camera, is that Jacob Blake, with guns-drawn officers around him ordering him to stop, casually walked to his car door, opened it, and reached inside. It would not have mattered if inside was a pack of gum, rather than the knife that apparently was there. It did not matter if Jacob Blake was a good guy or a bad guy or wanted for a crime or not.
Maybe you think the officer was hasty. Maybe you don’t like the “use of force” policies. But to think there is going to be some kind of attempted murder conviction (oh yes, Blake is alive because the officer immediately administered first aid), is delusional. But the facts, you see, don’t matter when the important thing is to immediately weaponize the event to support the “cause.” And so Jacob Blake gets conflated with George Floyd when the events have almost nothing in common. Suddenly sports teams are making statements and the “movement” keeps on moving and all too often leaving in its wake shattered windows and torched businesses and lost livelihoods and, indeed, more lost lives.
I am long on the record wanting police reform. There have been shooting incidents that make my blood boil, even now. I believe many officers are given way too much benefit of the doubt. But the public standard must be the truth, not political propaganda. And truth is, as Isaiah puts it, “stumbling in the streets.” We are increasingly divided into separate bubbles and echo-chambers, and the TRUTH has no grip or purchase on us. We listen to whomever represents the “side” we’re on, and then parrot the talking points. And this is bipartisan. It’s obvious on the left: every incident has an easy, ready-made explanation: racism. But it is so depressing to immediately see people on the right instantly villainize every police shooting victim in an effort to “back the blue” (again, indicating that the cause is more important than the facts).
You might have heard about 17-year old Kyle Rittenhouse, an Illinois youth who went to Kenosha, Wisconsin for some idiotic reason armed with his AR-15. He ended up killing two people and wounding another. He was charged with first-degree murder, which looks to be a rather hasty charge. He’ll have a decent argument about self-defense (for example, this New York Times report is excellent), though I have no idea what his argument will be for possessing a weapon he’s not legally allowed to have. But click on this and take a look at this thoughtful graphic:
I think this is exactly how this works—how facts are bent and distorted to fit our preexisting narratives. What can we do about this?
Well, as Christians there is one thing we can do immediately: obey the 9th Commandment. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. Facts matter to God, and they do not care about your political leanings. Obeying this command might mean keeping our mouths shut until we know enough to know something. It means not assuming we know things we do not know. It means refusing to jump on bandwagons that don’t seem to have any interest in the facts. And it means a commitment to legal procedures before condemning people and forming mobs.
I can suspect a lot of things about Kyle Rittenhouse. I suspect he is, at best, a fool. I suspect that even if he acted in self-defense in the moment, he had absolutely no business being anywhere near Kenosha, Wisconsin. (I am a supporter of the Second Amendment, and I am pretty well-connected to others in “gun culture.” And mature gun folks—and when I say that I mean some pretty rough ex-military dudes—will tell you an important rule of civilian armed conflict: avoid it in every possible way available to you. Run. Hide. Get to safety. Driving up to Kenosha to “help out” does not qualify as following this rule.)
But here are two things I’ve heard:
Multiple media outlets immediately describing him as a “white supremacist.” (No evidence provided, but it makes a great story)
Right-wing commentators describing him as a patriotic hero willing to stand up to the forces of evil. (No evidence provided, but it makes a great story)
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to live in a world where those are our only interpretive options. God has given us institutions of government to sift through the facts and make judicial determinations (Romans 13), and I am endeavoring to leave that job to them.
I believe that is part of what it means to obey the 9th Commandment. Our society needs people more committed to truth than self-serving narratives.
Miscellany
Speaking of self-serving narratives, I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Liberty University President Jerry Falwell, Jr. has been dismissed. Remember the stir this photo caused?
I couldn’t have imagined it in a million years, but I guess now we know why Jerry and Becki weren’t bothered or embarrassed by that Playboy cover. Just sad and humiliating, and their explanations of what happened don’t even begin to approach the level of persuasive.
The bigger Liberty scandal is the question Warren Cole Smith is asking: “Where Was The Board?”
And former faculty member Karen Swallow Prior is worth reading, too: there is an epidemic of Christian institutions that operate as nothing more than a protection racket for narcissists and other bad actors.
National Review’s editorial on events in Kenosha, Wisconsin is outstanding.
If you do not go pre-order this book, I will be very disappointed in you:
Thaddeus Williams is a truly gifted thinker and writer. I’ve read portions of this book and believe it will be the most significant contribution to this topic to date. Do not miss out on it.
I have a “Biggest Fan.” I mean other than my Mom. He’s a sweet young boy with autism who loves EVERYTHING “Dr. Mattson.” He loves my music, he thinks I’m hilarious, and he scours YouTube and other places for good quality Dr. Mattson content. So I got a photo texted to me the other day of him watching me on the big screen. I had no idea what he was watching, and thought long and hard about it. I recognized the backdrop, but couldn’t place where I’d been when the video was taken. It then dawned on me: a 45-minute lecture on wealth inequality I gave in Toronto years ago! Hey, gotta teach them communism is bad from a young age, right? I had no idea it was even online.
Anyway, I thought you might enjoy the lecture, too:
Oh, I might as well close it out with one of my own. I’m sure my Biggest Fan will appreciate it! This is “Baby, I’d Rather Remember,” live at the Pub Station in Billings, Montana: