Those of us whose brains are hopelessly riddled with windmill cancer probably can’t see it, but there’s a clear line to be drawn between liberal things and other, seemingly unrelated, terrible things—like post-pandemic inflation that somehow seeped from President Joe Biden’s mind into the global economy or, you know, school shootings undertaken with AR-15s.
Since the obvious answer for ending America’s unrivaled status as the world’s most popular mass-murderer theme park is to stop selling military weapons to disturbed 18-year-olds, that answer has to be vigorously ignored at times like this by the same people who are paid handsomely to ignore it all the rest of the time.
Thus, we get tortured explanations like the following, from Republicans who need to continually trot out fresh bugaboos to keep their base from questioning the wisdom of putting assault rifles in the hands of teenagers. You see, it’s liberal teachers who did it—at least according to Republican hopeful Heather Ann Sprague, who helpfully posted some of her transphobic thoughts on Facebook in the wake of the tragic school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
Portland (Maine) Press Herald:
A Republican candidate for the Maine House of Representatives is blaming “liberal teachers” for the mass shooting at a Texas elementary school that killed 19 children and two teachers.
[...]
In an apparent reference to a rumor on social media that has been debunked, Sprague claimed there were pictures online of the shooter dressed in women’s clothing.
“All I have to say is this is the result of what happens when kids are pushed past their limits. Its obvious he was brainwashed in school by liberal teachers to think he shouldn’t be a male. If this crap doesn’t stop we will have more shootings because there are alot more confused, fed up and now mentally ill kids out there thanks to the #publicschoolsystem THIS is why I have been TRYING to get the truth out about what the schools are doing to our youth because it’s DANGEROUS,” Sprague said in her post.
So a Republican took unconfirmed information that felt comforting to her, and instead of researching it thoroughly, she immediately weaponized it in order to smear liberals and deflect responsibility from her own party’s shameful lack of action? Yeah, I used to have that problem, too, but then I took ivermectin and it knocked it right out.
Of course, you probably already heard the rumor that the perpetrator in the horrific Robb Elementary School shooting was a “confused” transgender kid. That’s false, of course—and I know it’s false because I did a perfunctory Google search that almost instantly revealed Paul Gosar thinks it’s true. But its falsity didn’t stop conservatives—including Republican politicians—from spreading it far and wide.
In another Facebook post, Sprague wrote, “I’ll go a step further and say the teachers that molded this kid into a #killer should be arrested for multiple MURDERS.” But not the person who sold the gunman two assault rifles with multiple rounds on his 18th birthday. Okay.
She also wrote, “more and more I cant help but think these shootings are on purpose to push gun control with the lives of babes. If they’re not getting shot they’re getting aborted. It’s disgusting and EVIL. If elected I will push to have armed guards at ALL our schools here in Maine.”
Do Republicans’ brains even work anymore? I dropped that post into Google Translate and it told me to get help.
Of course, this is the same kind of muck conservatives stir up whenever there’s a mass shooting. They mix all that roiling sediment with our own righteous indignation in order to muddy what should be a pretty clear picture, and then they wait for the whole mess to settle down again—which it inevitably will, no doubt before Congress is spurred to take anything even resembling meaningful action.
And blaming trans kids for this mayhem is particularly perverse, since they’re more vulnerable to school violence than most. But they—and grade school teachers, FFS!—are an easy scapegoat, since Republican politicians know their base will never push back on this slander. So trans kids and teachers now join video games, rap music, COVID-19 lockdowns, unlocked doors, a dearth of good guys with guns, single mothers, and bastard politicians who cut mental health services (whoops!) as bullshit explanations for this ongoing carnage. None of them seem interested in slowing sales of assault rifles to anyone who wants one, though. Nor will they ever.
By the way, Sprague is the only Republican running in her district, and will face incumbent Democrat Ann Matlack in the general election. So voters, it seems, will have a pretty stark choice in this election between bullshit and reality. Let’s hope they choose wisely.
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