We all owe it to ourselves to try and understand who they
are. These angry white men that are killing people in our country. To do that
though, we need to understand what they all have in common. What they have in
common
other
than gender, color or religion. If we understand that, then
maybe we can stop all of this anger, hate and yes,
slaughter
.
I think one of the common threads here is that they don’t
have friends. Certainly not the way most of us do. They want friends but they
just can’t find them. And because of that, they have few places to go, and even
fewer people to talk to.
So for that, they need someone to follow. Someone that
speaks directly to them with no filter about what is right or wrong. They need
a person willing to blame everyone else for their lot in life. Whether it’s
race, religion or gender, you have to have another white male to agree with.
Someone who makes it cool to hate.
What better person for that than Donald Trump. A President
that’s made it OK to do just about anything. Deep down you know I’m right. You
know that Trump stood at a podium and with one smirk, he condoned killing
immigrants. He acknowledged and encouraged chants of ‘send them back’ to four
women of black descent. Never minding the fact that three of them were born
right
here
. And the fourth became a legal citizen of this country the way he
tells people to.
What happened in Dayton and El Paso was tragic. At least 31
people are dead and many more are injured. The individual that heard the dog
whistle drove 10 hours to get to El Paso to commit mass murder. That’s 10 hours
to change your mind and turn around.
But in the end, he didn’t care, did he?
They weren’t friends anyhow.
Good riding with you.
(Joel Heitkamp is a talk show host on the Mighty 790 KFGO in Fargo-Moorhead. His award-winning program, “News & Views,” can be heard weekdays from 8 – 11 a.m. Follow Joel on Twitter @JoelKFGO.)
