by Don Hall

Back in 2014, September, as Dana and I were on our first trip to Las Vegas to get hitched, we walked into the Flamingo in the morning. We were touristing, checking out different places, and walking the Strip.

At the time I had never been in a major casino and the sights were completely alien. We took a stroll and ended up at a craps table. There was a single player, obviously drunk and disheveled as if he’d been there all night playing and sporting comp drinks. He took a long peek at Dana.

“Hey! Where’ve you been?” he slurred.

Dana laughed and I replied “She’s been with me. We just got married.”

His alcohol-soaked attention took that in. He looked down at his dwindling bankroll. “Agggghhh. There’s gotta be a better way!” He then stumbled off to another corner of the casino maze.

That phrase has stuck with me ever since. There’s gotta be a better way.

Trump in the White House and the American population divided in partisan ways unseen since the 1960’s? There’s gotta be a better way.

Sitting in Chicago, paying 60% of my income on rent? There’s gotta be a better way.

Watching the Left eat itself alive with a newfound fealty to the Politics of Grievance and Victim Status? There’s gotta be a better way.

Another phrase that I heard from my grandfather back when I was not quite tall enough to ‘ride this ride’ was:

“If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s gonna want a glass of milk.”

The Left are in a bit of a pickle. When the protests against police brutality in the wake of the George Floyd murder hit the streets, it was the party line to make the excuses for the looting that seemed to pop up following relatively non-violent demonstrations. The looting was ‘acceptable’ and ‘not a part of the protests.’ The looting came from ‘agitators’ and ‘white people’ trying to paint #BLM as a destructive rather than constructive movement. 

I use the word “excuses” because that’s what they sound like. The arguments about a simmering rage in black communities over being intentionally stomped down for the better part of the last century are not to be ignored. The disparities in education, affordable housing, healthcare, job security, income inequality, and any sort of honest representation in media add up to a dark truth and, on some level, requires a release of genuine rage.

In the first wave of protests most of the property damage was focused upon police structures: precinct buildings, police vehicles, government strongholds. Targeted even within the chaos of confrontation. It expanded to a certain amount of indiscriminate mayhem that included businesses unrelated to the cause at hand yet still available for destruction.

This past week in Chicago, my home of thirty years, after a twenty year old black man was shot by police (because he had a gun and used it against them) and the TwitterBots fictionalized this as the police killing an unarmed fifteen year old followed by calls for looting downtown, caravans of black residents looted. Driving cars into storefront windows, running into businesses and loading up on luxury items by the armload and, in some cases, truckload, there was no protest in tandem.

This looting can’t be excused as any sort of protest against police brutality. This was the action of people with one agenda in mind: steal stuff they couldn’t otherwise afford. No one smashed into a Nike store because they were hungry. No one grabbed handfuls of Macy’s shirts and dresses to feed their impoverished kids.

“I don’t care if someone decides to loot a Gucci or a Macy’s or a Nike store, because that makes sure that person eats,” said Ariel Atkins, a BLM organizer, according to NBC Chicago. “That makes sure that person has clothes.”

“That is reparations,” Atkins continued. “Anything they wanted to take, they can take it because these businesses have insurance.”

If you give a mouse a cookie, he’s gonna want a glass of milk.

There’s gotta be a better way.

The Left has a dilemma. Continue to excuse nights of non-protest looting couched in the language of civil rights activism or begin the inevitable fracture from the most strident of #BLM activists who will justify any old bullshit as a response to racism. The rhetoric that categorizes random, disinformed theft and mayhem as ‘reparations’ accomplishes exactly two things: scares the shit out of those white voters unhappy with Trump but not frightened by him and completely tosses the legitimate arguments in favor of serious reparations out the fucking door.

I have hope the choice is apparent. After all, Uncle Joe picked Kamala for his running mate which means while the extreme social justice stigmata-tized will influence the Democrat side of the two-party behemoth they won’t be able to capsize the ship.

Fluidity of memory and a capacity to forget is perhaps the most haunting trait of our species. So easy to misremember why Trump is in office. No effort is required to reframe why Reagan got there or Nixon before him.

If you give an activist a protest, she’s gonna want a Gucci bag.

There’s gotta be a better way.