27 May 2022 — 1013 mdt
Friday roundup: Uvalde, & the Flathead GOP’s war with itself
By James Conner
The fog of war is slowing the emergence of a clear account of the events of the Uvalde, Texas, mass shooting. Meanwhile, the largest, most intense intraparty political war in 18 years has broken out among Flathead Republicans.
Uvalde massacre followup
Did or did not law enforcement officers encounter or try to stop Salvatore Ramos from entering the Robb Elementary School? Did he enter through an unlocked door? Could lives have been saved had LEOs stormed the school immediately instead of waiting for almost an hour?Not surprisingly, there are no clear answers to these questions. And there will not be for quite some time, I suspect. As John Marshall noted at Talking Points Memo, a fog of war factor is involved.
It’s beginning to appear that outgunned LEOs (they had sidearms, Ramos had an AR-15 genre assault rifle) waited for the SWAT teams instead of running into the building to try to take down the shooter. Current tactical doctrine requires going after the shooter right away, but their instinct for self-preservation may have prevailed. I suspect some may not be telling the truth to the Texas Department of Public Safety. And some DPS operatives may be stepping on their weenies.
Note. Not everyone I know agrees with my use of the term “outgunned.” I think most readers of Flathead Memo agree that a man with a pistol is at a considerable disadvantage when facing a man with a military style semi-automatic rifle. That’s true even of a pistolier trained to rescue hostages — and that truth underscores the courage of outgunned men who do rush the shooter instead of taking cover while waiting for the SWAT team.
Eventually, that question will be answered, as will whether the door was unlocked, as witnesses are interviewed and surveillance camera footage is reviewed.
Whether a faster response could have saved lives may never be known. It takes only a few minutes for a man with an assault rifle to kill and wound tens of children and adults. Even if the first LEOs to arrive at the school had run inside without hesitation, they might not have arrived before Ramos was finished shooting. But it does seem possible that a faster response might have gotten some gravely wounded to the hospital in time to save their lives.
Did Ramos run amok? The word, of Malaysian origin, describes a murderous rampage by an individual following a period of brooding over a grievance. Eugene Burdick’s novel, The 480, gets off to a fast start with a vivid description of American engineer John Thatch successfully defending himself against a man run amok. A similar word/concept berserk, derives from Norse legend, although it’s more associated with a group’s whipping itself into a battle trance than with an individual’s brooding that culminates in a crazy homicidal rage.
Could the concept of running amok be of some use in describing what Ramos and similar shooters did?
I pose the question because I think the idea merits discussion, but I’m not convinced it explains what happened. Ramos was bullied and humiliated, but millions of schoolchildren are bullied. A few try to kill the bullies, sometimes succeeding. But Ramos did not target those who bullied and humiliated him. Instead, he chose to kill small children. That’s the act of a sociopath. Still, I doubt we will ever know for sure why he committed such a terrible crime.
Flathead Republican wars
Not since 2004, when business oriented Republicans led by, among others, the late Paul Williams and Chuck Mercord, paid for double truck newspaper advertisements endorsing Democratic county commissioner candidate Joe Brenneman, a dairy farmer and volunteer fireman, and denouncing his Republican opponent, Denise Cofer, as too extreme. Brenneman won by approximately 135 votes after a recount that didn’t change the numbers appreciably.
Six years later, in the Democratic debacle of 2010, Brenneman lost to Pam Holmquist by 10,000 votes. Brenneman, who died a few years ago at 60, returned to farming, firefighting, the ski patrol, and chaired the Kalispell school board.
Now Holmquist’s run for the nomination for a third term pits the authoritarian Christian nationalists and functional Birchers who control the Flathead’s GOP against the business oriented Republicans who prefer governing to gumming up government.
The result? This cultural warrior attack card from the Flathead Republic Party dumping mud on Fallon and singing the praises of Holmquist, a known friend of real estate developers. It’s as ugly an attack card as I have seen, especially coming from a major political party.
If Fallon were a liberal, he’d be running in the Democratic primary. He’s a solid conservative, but he’s a decent man — and most important, both to supporters of good government and the puppeteers who pull Holmquist’s strings, he’s his own man.
Holmquist and Fallon, and the political action committees supporting them, are raising and spending tens of thousands of dollars. Tomorrow, I hope to provide you with the numbers.