I haven’t written about the tragic shooting in Aurora, Co. I really can’t think of much to say about it, so I’ll go ahead and move on to the tangentially related story of reactions to it. This shooting has been especially bizarre in that the main media narrative hasn’t been whether or not we should have more gun control to avoid more things like this happening, but whether having a conversation about it should happen. I have to admit that the right-wing did some masterful work here in rapidly boxing Democrats in on this issue. Somewhat less effective, though, in convincing the public that the left is the side politicizing the issue when the right has rushed so rapidly to politicize it. I always try to imagine what a politically disengaged person will think about political controversies and current events, and if they were paying attention, I tend to think that a deadly shooting, followed immediately afterward by right-wingers blaming the victims or gun control regulations (thanks, Rep. Gohmert!), somehow, just isn’t going to sit well with them. It’s bizarre, it doesn’t make sense, and it’s evidence of a faction too used to being on the attack, relentlessly beating back threats, that it can’t hold back and take the prudent course. And then there’s this, via the Maddow Blog:

Apparently Warren has done some hedging since then–he’s a bit more image-conscious than a Pat Robertson–but no matter. What this is, basically, is an attempt to shut down public debate. There’s no way to respond to this logically, because it makes no sense. Europe has far less religious observance than America, for example, but not a higher level of indiscriminate violence (Anders Breivik notwithstanding, though that sort of proves the rule). The point isn’t to win an argument, it’s to ensure that no argument takes place. To turn this issue into another emotionally charged culture war skirmish, with the same old dynamics. That’s where they’re comfortable.

Thing is, though, that the right-wing response to Aurora hasn’t really depressed me. It’s actually reaffirmed my belief that the right-wing is in decline in America. Factions that are vibrant don’t try to shut down debates, they try to win them. But virtually every media institution on the right tries to keep debates from happening, and they’ve developed a number of sophisticated techniques to do it. Of course, the combination of opportunism, media manipulation, and a bad economy has given the right-wing a new chance to do the same old things, but the best you can hope for with this type of strategy is to bottle up these debates and the inevitable changes that come with them. Southern conservatives, after all, managed successfully for decades to avoid having a real debate about civil rights, but in retrospect their actions were clearly just delaying tactics (and, actually, were recognized as such by those doing them).