Apologies to my good friends at Tuesday lunch, but there’s no “shock” in the arrest of the Gilman graduate accused of killing a CEO. I’ll concede there’s something unique about it — the apparent targeting of a corporate executive in what looks like some kind of deranged payback murder — but none who’ve been paying attention should be shocked.
The Gilman lad is not the first shiny-bright to be arrested. He’s not the first child of privilege and wealth to be charged with murder.
More generally, why would anyone be shocked by anything that happens in this screwed-up, long-violent country? Murder and mass shootings have been common for decades. Even the slaughter of school children — Sandy Hook was 12 years ago this week — made no difference to millions of Americans and to Republicans in Congress, who believe that everyone is entitled to carry a gun, and guns of all kinds.
Deaths of despair have become more common; suicides are at their highest rate in history. U.S. life expectancy, higher than that of Mexico and Russia, remains significantly below that of the U.K., Canada and Japan, and lower than China’s.
Plus, one of the ugliest Americans gets to return to the White House next month as the nation’s chief executive, thanks to millions of citizens who voted for him over an intelligent, respectable, never-indicted woman. And his second presidency promises to finish what the first started — undermine the democracy by filling government positions with the worst possible people, creating chaos, putting the finishes touches on the American plutocracy and turning back the clock on efforts to arrest climate change. No one should be shocked by anything that happens in Washington after Jan. 20. No one should be shocked by anything at all, really.
In his farewell column in the New York Times, Paul Krugman wrestles with the loss of American optimism: “We’ve had a collapse of trust in elites: The public no longer has faith that the people running things know what they’re doing, or that we can assume that they’re being honest.”
That’s part of the condition I describe here. It’s one of the perils we now face as a country, as a society: If we can no longer be shocked, we can no longer be shocked into action. Unable to act — to move forward, to progress for the common good — pessimism sets in, people get angry, they look to leadership that validates their anger instead of vanquishing it. We are not in a good place, and I don’t know how we get out of it — not with what lays ahead.
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Dan Rodricks 
How did we get on this mess?
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Nicely done, Dan. I âhopeâ you are wrong.
Alex Short
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I always hope I’m wrong when I express pessimism about the country. But give me a reason for optimism . . .
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Your arguments are strong, Dan, even compelling (close parallels to the downfall of the Roman republic), but it is all the way one mixes the cocktail. Hope and very hard work may be all we have left which may not be enough. There have been very dark days before and somehow, we have sneaked free of them. Alex
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These dark days lasted a long time. Sandy Hook: Dec. 14, 2012, and everything since.
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One thing I will say is how much I admire you and what you have done for this community on the radio and with your commitment to speak the truth through your columns and elsewhere. Maybe weâll get a chance to talk more about this someday. Alex
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I’ve never not looked forward to a new year more.
The only thing that’s a tiny comfort is knowing there are a lot of us. I have to believe it might get a little better than it is right now. Maybe in a few years. But the guns and violence—maybe that’s impossible to fix.
Pamela
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I am also very pessimistic. My pessimism is fueled by the support that the murderer has received, with a sign hanging from the JFX bridge, with the sale of pro-murderer merchandise, and with the starting of a “go fund me” account to support his defense.
Is it morally right to kill people because they are wealthy and you disagree with their political positions or what their business does? Since the oil companies and coal companies pollute our atmosphere are their well paid CEO’s fair game? As much as we might disagree with the political positions of wealthy Trumpers, like Trump himself, Musk, RFK, Jr., Hegseth, and the others, is it a reasonable approach to shoot them like so many pheasants in the field?
What a juxtaposition………. Sen. Cardin’s farewell speech to the Senate, promoting civility, oration, negotiation, accommodation, understanding and compromise, and the online screed of those who justify murder.
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