Empty Words: Right Wing Media’s Tough on Crime Talking Points Ring Hollow in Wake of Mass Shootings
By Kevin Howley, November 25, 2022
Right wing media could scarcely contain their glee when defense attorneys for the suspect in the deadly assault on Club Q, an LGBTQ night club in Colorado Springs, submitted court filings asserting that their client identifies as non-binary.
Seizing the opportunity to deflect attention from the right’s long and sordid history of hateful rhetoric toward gender nonconformity, and shame mainstream media’s speculation on the shooter’s motives in the bargain, NewsBusters relished taking CNN to task for “smearing conservative Christians for allegedly inspiring this apparent attack against gay people.”
Rush To Judgment
Right wing pundits have got a point. Media outlets across the political spectrum routinely rush to judgment in vain, and frequently partisan attempts to make sense of “senseless” violence. But prosecutors need time to build their cases, especially for hate crimes. Editors and reporters should refrain from assigning motives for crimes without hard evidence.
What is beyond dispute is that the Club Q assailant used automatic weapons – so-called “ghost guns” reportedly – to carry out a bloody attack that claimed five lives and injured 20. According to the AP, it was the 40th mass shooting this year – and counting, with the slaughter at a Walmart Supercenter in Chesapeake, Virginia on the night of November 22.
It’s here that right wing media’s refusal to acknowledge the nation’s epidemic of gun violence highlights the fallacy of Republicans’ tough on crime talking points.
Law & Order: Special Dispensation Unit
Despite their historically anomalous and decidedly underwhelming performance in the 2022 midterms, Republican politicians and pundits continue to recite well-worn talking points on crime, unsecure borders, and national security.
Look no further than the twice-impeached former president’s 2024 campaign announcement, teeming with calls for law and order – none more apropos of the savagery in Colorado and Virginia than this: “The blood-soaked streets of our once-great cities are cesspools of violent crimes.”
But don’t count on Trump, DeSantis, Abbott, Pence, Pompeo or any other Republican presidential hopeful to address gun control in anything but hyperbolic and hyper-partisan fashion.
Mind you, this isn’t a blind spot. It’s a soft spot. A safe space for the armed and dangerous who constitute the Republican base.
Holiday Massacres and Political Footballs
Mass shootings typically dominate the news agenda for days on end. Until, of course, the next tragedy pushes yesterday’s news out of mind. It remains to be seen if the crimes in Colorado will continue to make headlines in the wake of the Walmart massacre in Virginia.
The bigger question is this: When will the so-called party of law and order finally come to terms with the death cult it continually panders to, even as the body count reaches epic proportions?
This much is certain. Right wing media will exploit their audience’s fears and anxieties to achieve shortsighted political objectives, ridicule gun control advocates, and lionize vigilantism. All the while doubling down on law enforcement that has proven, time and again, unable to stave off violent atrocities enabled by woefully inadequate gun laws.
Kevin Howley is a writer and educator whose work has appeared in Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, Social Movement Studies, and Interactions: Studies in Communication and Culture. His most recent book is Drones: Media Discourse and the Public Imagination.
Interested in more news about right-wing media curated especially for mainstream audiences? Subscribe to our free daily newsletter.
When will the Republicans, the so-called party of law and order, finally come to terms with the death cult it continually panders to, even as the body count reaches epic proportions? (Photo: Pixabay)
