Jumping the Shark

 

In 1995, I began working as a security guard around the same time the federal building in Oklahoma City was bombed. I was all about law, order, and uniformed defense. The bombing was quickly linked to Timothy McVeigh and his involvement in radical militias. At this time, I had a cursory knowledge of U.S. history and the Constitution. I was quick to link the 2nd Amendment to citizens as being the militia. In this light, civil militias made sense and I became an immediate defender of groups having the right to organize local militias as a safeguard or check & balance on supposed government tyranny. I was sure that my interpretation of things warranted this view of militias.

Since then, I have become an aspiring historian, with a master's degree and half a PhD. completed in the discipline. I have a better contextual understanding of the 2nd Amendment, the Constitution, and what the militia is and was (see my 11/13/21 article on the 2nd for more). Still, in '95 I was in my youth (I was 18) and I was naive. Because of this, I was self-assured and ideological. While working a security gig and listening to the radio for entertainment, I even called into a Los Angeles talk radio show to defend the idea of militias on air, like I was some sort of expert. I actually made it on air and spoke with the host Michael Jackson (not that one). I defended the militias, partly by lying. I told the host that I was in a militia and raised the typical tropes of the 2nd Amendment and losing our liberties to a tyrannical government. I was of course not affiliated with a militia. It was stupid for me to say such a thing, but I felt a sense of purpose and righteous indignation, and that I was obliged to defend the Constitution, which I of course never fully read nor did I really understand.

I get the feeling that this is most of our country today -- on both sides. Yet, I am dismayed specifically by the Republican Party. I first registered as a Republican in 1996, after a couple of years as a Libertarian. Other than a couple of years as an independent later and as a Libertarian, I have been a Republican for the majority of my voting life. But the party has since shifted in its views. I don't mean that it is suddenly pro-2nd  or pro-Life where it once wasn't, but that it has allowed some of its classical tenets to domineer in a polarizing way, to the point of de-contextualizing the text of the Constitution and glorifying party ideologies as near sacrosanct. 

Case in point, in August of 2020, then 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse traveled from Illinois to Wisconsin to make a show of force at a George Floyd protest. He had obtained a semi-automatic rifle from a friend as he couldn't legally buy one. He and his friend decided that they were going to act as security for local businesses against potential looting. Rittenhouse's presence likely agitated the scene and protesters rallied against him, challenging him, and then they chased him. Rittenhouse killed two of his opponents and wounded another. He was acquitted of all charges against him in court on the grounds of self-defense. 

Recently, Rittenhouse attended the far-Right Turning Point USA rally in Phoenix, AZ and was praised as a hero. Whether he legitimately defended himself or not, and whether or not his presence in Wisconsin was a noble gesture of a concerned citizen or not, we ought not miss the point that his armed presence may have indeed been incendiary to those at the protest. His actions did nothing to diffuse the situation. Yet, he has been lauded as a defender against Leftism, a beacon of law and order (supposedly defending the overwhelmed police force in Wisconsin), and is the poster child for the 2nd Amendment. 

Still, the dude didn't need to be there. He was inexperienced and lacked the wisdom of age to actually affect real change. He was, in my mind, an ideologically impassioned teenager seeking to join a fight he wasn't privy to. But the Republican party has eaten this up. Pundit Tucker Carlson has even called himself a fan of Rittenhouse. A fan? A fan of shooting people? Defense or not, the kid should have stayed home. But guns are on the brains of the Right. Representatives Lauren Bobert and  Marjorie Taylor Greene are well known to flash their pieces and have claimed Evangelicalism as their base, despite their harsh and frictive tone. Faith and guns are linked in the Right, hence the strong favor of guns by Evangelical Christians, who happen to worship the Prince of Peace. The Right has gun lust, and this is coming from me -- a gun owner.

For me, the Republican party has jumped the shark, which is a term referencing a 1977 episode of Happy Days where the Fonze jumped over a shark while water skiing. The term has come to mean the use of over the top gimmicks and scenarios that writers employ in film and TV when they've run out of ideas. In popular culture, jumping the shark simply means to have gone too far, perhaps too far irrationally. I find the posturing of the Republicans today to be disturbing, faddish, and dangerous. I fear for this country.