by Eric Wilson

Watching these brave young Americans go up against the NRA and their paid-for GOP representative mouthpieces is truly inspiring. Watching that effort ultimately fail to garner any substantive change will be especially cruel — for all of us.

I shed tears of anguish like many of you, when Emma Gonzales cried, “We will be the last mass shooting,” mostly,  because I knew it would not be true.

I am not trying to steal her beautiful thunder, or bang the tired drum of “If we couldn’t after Sandy Hook,” but the hard truth still remains, if we couldn’t get any sensible gun legislation during the Obama years, we will have to suffer through a school shooting every single day before the NRA will even think of giving up an inch of ground during this administration’s filthy reign.

I have never wanted to be more wrong.

Unfortunately, Trump and Co. aren’t even morally approachable like some members of the GOP; this administration is driven purely by greed. This administration would sell its own country if they could turn a tidy profit — and they have; so unless the pressure comes from powerful republican donors, Trump won’t do jack shit about dead kids.

Certainly not with Don Jr. whispering sweet nothings about staying strong on guns in his ear. Don Jr. also mentioned this week how much he adores how the poor of India always smile. Isn’t that adorable? Don Jr. is the ideal candidate in my mind when I picture the white collar criminal in the old “Do you want to be the husband or the wife” prison joke.

If you are interested, the punchline is, “OK, Don, then get on over here and suck your wife’s dick.”

Don Jr. certainly merits his own feature — and I will address him fully in this column eventually — but for now, I would just like to say that the Trump brood, once suspected, now for certain, are what the Children of the Corn would grow up to be if they spent their salad days murdering big game in Africa, playing at billionaire business ownership and shitting on gold toilets. Don Jr. in particular, reminds me of that special breed of entitled plutocrat: the eternally oblivious lemming.

So blinded by their own shiny baubles and bangles, they can’t see the cliff they are hurtling us all toward.

Which brings me back to the previously mentioned billionaire donors, and possibly the silver lining — a prominent member of the conservative ruling class has broken rank, demanding a ban on assault weapons. Al Hoffman Jr., one of the most generous republican donors, has not only declared he would not provide a single dollar of support for any republican candidates not on board with an assault rifle ban, but he would also contact all of the other major GOP benefactors and implore them to join him in his effort.

Now, I’m not saying this is going to mean anything to Trump, who received unprecedented support in campaign contributions from the bottomless NRA coffers. But it is the sort of pressure that means something to his kind. The players in this game that matter consist of a handful of billionaires that don’t make statements very often — and when they do, it means something.

Let me give you a very recent example. When Rebekah Mercer — acting in her billionaire father’s stead — stared down at the chess match that is our American lives and announced that Steve Bannon was being removed from the board, it might as well have been a message delivered from the gods. Bannon, the mighty disheveled rook, immediately disappeared from the game.  

So it matters that Hoffman Jr. made his intentions public — at least in that it is different; and we all remember from Groundhog Day, that anything different is good — it matters that a prominent billionaire has broken ranks with the NRA, and challenged their stranglehold position on the GOP.

Congress certainly isn’t going to do fuck-all about this on their own — not without instruction from their handlers. Republicans control congress, and they aren’t going to bite the scariest hand that feeds them.

Besides, most republicans don’t give one iota of a fuck about your dead kids, your dead friends, or your dead family. You think that fuckface Paul Ryan gives a shit about dead babies? Not one iota of a fuck about suffering Americans is given by these greedy assholes.

You need look no further than the lack of support for healthcare and for Veterans Affairs over the last 50 years to understand that unfortunate truth. Homeless veterans in the wealthiest country in the world? It’s fucking shameful. It’s a fucking disgrace — and it’s not a small problem either. The United States has thousands upon thousands upon thousands of homeless vets. Not one fuck is given about them by the GOP, even after they served at great sacrifice to their nation.

It is pretty clear most republicans couldn’t give a country fuck about homeless veterans, or dead kids.

So we will cheer as these brave children that have survived another horrific American school shooting, share impassioned pleas for sanity and meaningful action — even though we all fear their voices will fall on deaf republican ears. That nothing again will be done. Nothing that will have any effect, anyway. Certainly not with Trump in office. I am writing this as of Tuesday, a few days will pass before this posts, and their young, beautiful, powerful voices will fade into the background static as the news outlets are forced to focus on whatever new insanity emerges.

I would really, really, like to be wrong. It is a safe bet that I am not. Still talking about it on Thursday? Have no fear, the president will be back to golfing this weekend and we will be back to SNAFU come Monday.

What’s worse is that these brave survivors, these courageous children speaking up this week are making a valiant effort, and in the days to come they will be inclined to feel even more hopeless — and the kind of hopelessness we are fostering in today’s youth is yet another abusive, violent act perpetrated on their gentle spirit.

I can’t even imagine what it must be like to have the specter of fear and violence looming over you every day, in a place that is supposed to be a source of knowledge, growth, and security. In my time, I can’t recall a single day in my youth where I worried for even a second about gun violence in my K-12 schools. Or at university. It was only many years later that I would be so very close to two mass shootings.

So I would like to take this opportunity to express to you — dear young readers — if any of you have happened upon this salty screed, please don’t give in. I know I just said you’re going to fail, but you are not always going to fail. Do not fall into despair. There are forces at work that are on your side. We will find a way. We will outsmart the greed at the heart of this madness. Do not relinquish your will to fight for what is decent in this world. For what is right. For what is true.

I am sorry you have had to fight at all. I am sorry for your friends that you have lost. I am sorry for your needless suffering, but mostly I am sorry that the adults in America have so egregiously failed you.

That’s all I’ve got this week. My apologies as well for sparse discernible comedy, I just don’t find anything funny about dead kids.

Bonus Material

Yes, you read that correctly. That is a human response to the image of horrified children. This person is in fact, human.

I felt compelled to share this comment from the heavyweight troll of the world, and all around shit-biscuit Dinesh D'Souza for many reasons. Mostly because it is offensive on a level not yet achieved today, which is quite a feat to say the least.

This is conservative America. So again, fuck you, NRA.

It's early Thursday morning, and I just had to include this stunning capture of the president's crib sheet; one that he apparently needed for the White House meeting for survivors and parents of victims of gun violence. You can't possibly predict this kind of reality-fracturing image. This is unbelievable.

I hear you? So what's written down for Trump on the other side of the crib sheet, his golf schedule? I hear you. Unbelievable. This, and accusing the Florida kids of being actors. This is off the fucking rails insanity.