“Round up the usual suspects,” says Captain Louis Renaud at the end of the 1942 film classic “Casablanca.”  Of course, back then the U.S. was opposed to fascism, although it was a very potent political force in the country.  President Truman refused to release a report produced in secret that listed by name the two dozen Republican Members of Congress who used their franking privileges — a Member of Congress could send an unlimited number of letters using just their names rather than paid postage — to distribute Nazi propaganda.  It was “isolationist” propaganda workshopped by the head of Nazi lying, Joseph Goebbels, to try and keep America neutral.  See Jacob Heilbrunn, America Last: The RIght’s Century-Long Romance with Foreign Dictators (New York: Liveright/Norton, 2024).  Truman was concerned that an anti-Nazi purge, including prominent fascists, like Charles Lindberg, Henry Ford and William Randolph Hearst, did not fit the mood of the country and would, somehow, disturb the peace of the post-war years.  Republican presidential candidates had the hidden financial assistance of Nazi cash for their campaigns, and Truman knew it would be a scandal of unprecedented proportions.  It became yet another historical truth buried in an unmarked grave in the nation’s capital.

Now, of course, without any doubt, Trump and his right wing foot soldiers blame who they always blame for everything.  This is the fault of Democrats, liberals, leftists, antifa, socialists, communists, Black Lives Matter, the Hispanic Federation, the Human Rights Campaign, undocumented immigrants, transgender terrorists, windmills, sharks and above all the corporate news media.  Of course, none of them had anything to do with it, although Trump’s own supporters are not above suspicion.  One might ask: Who benefits from this?

The video of Trump going down behind the podium in Bethel Park, PA is on endless repeat and yet the news media has failed to make note of something obvious.  After the shooting legions of Trump supporters with hate in their eyes screamed violently and gave the middle finger to the news media covering the event.  To them anyone covering Trump verbatim is anti-American.

Allegheny County, where this took place, is the county within which Bethel Park is located.  It has more Republicans than any county in the state.  One is reminded of James Carville’s pithy remark that Pennsylvania is Pittsburg and Philadelphia with West Virginia in between.  Rural PA is Trump country, not exactly the lion’s den.

The shooter crawled up on a roof with with a rifle that was entirely legal, until he pulled the trigger.  His dad bought it for him.  The would-be assassin is a quiet white man in his 20s, as are virtually all mass shooters.  He identifies with the Republican Party, of which he is a member.  Where is the chorus of hopes and prayers that follow senseless killing in America?  The right doesn’t want understanding, they want revenge.  If Trump comes to power they will use this incident as a justification for killing American citizens who are protesting. The Constitution of course, allows them to do in authorizing aggrieved citizens to petition their government for a redress of their grievances.