The gun

& the MAGA collapse

I continue to follow the murder of Alex Pretti and the political fallout with particular interest. Before I begin, though, I’d like to quote Charlie Collier—full disclosure, he has been my editor, and we share a commitment to Christian nonviolence—on the sudden reversal of Trump supporters who are “Second Amendment purists,” because members of the Trump administration have engaged in such bald hypocrisy in their smear-denunciations of Pretti as “a man who showed up at a protest with a gun.” Charlie sums up my personal feelings about the Second Amendment pretty damned well:

The Second Amendment has never really been about resisting unaccountable governing authority; it has been about preserving and extending a particular, narrow vision of it. The flip-flopping by 2A enthusiasts in the wake of the killing of Alex Pretti comes as no surprise to those who know a little history.

Christians, we do ourselves and our neighbors a disservice if we join the gun rights chorus. Our freedom doesn’t come from the barrel of a gun. The one who “had done no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth” (note the prophet’s linkage of violence and deceit) made the way we’re called to walk. Protest we must, but part of that protest must be against the notion that guns set or keep us free.

Please do not misunderstand: I’m not blaming Alex Pretti for his death. I think he was murdered by people drunk on the illusory power of violence, and the blatant lies and deceptions spilling forth from their mouths give them away.

Anyway, being unarmed is no guarantee we won’t be gunned down just the same. Renee Good was unarmed. They killed her and lied incessantly to justify it. They know violence, and deceit vomits forth from their mouths.

We have a better way to walk. Not because we know it will keep us safe or get the results we want tomorrow. But because we believe it is true. Nonviolence is true to the shape of God’s life in Jesus Christ. And this truth sets us free. His is a way that leads to life, a life that exceeds and cannot ultimately be held down by the lying and flailing forces of death. The long view is the coming kingdom of heaven, where there will be no wars or rumors of wars, civil or otherwise. On earth as it is heaven, Lord, give us this day.

Preach! (Now I’m on record . . . on guns and the eschatological horizon. Thank you, brother Charlie.)

That said, and in a totally different register—putting on my here-and-now political analyst cap—the backlash from even spokespersons at the execrable National Rifle Association is part of a watershed in the breakup of MAGA.

It’s a development I can welcome without co-signing the particulars, and its situated within a more general crack-up of the American empire, which Trump—with his special brain-rotted earnestness—is accelerating like Andy Green ripping across the Black Rock desert.

When Ron Paul castigated the Orange Man for kidnapping a foreign leader, the handwriting was surely on the wall, given the importance of libertarians—many of whom are 2nd Amendment people—to the Republican coalition.

I mark the watershed with the defection of Marjorie Taylor Green. And I welcome the flip-flop of the 2A purists, because while I disagree with their principle, and the principles of libertarians, they at least have some principles . . . which, as they’re finally discovering, they can’t tactically advance through a leader who’s never met a principle with which he wouldn’t readily wipe his greasy ass.

Gun idolatry is part of the 2A cohort—including among the fascist thugs murdering Minnesotans—but part of it is Tea Party fantasy, and part is that libertarians hold “liberty” to be the supreme political value, with guns as an imaginary guarantor. ← That principle thing.

There’s going to be a government shutdown in the near future, and the level of outrage has put a bit of steel back into the ductile spines of establishment Democrats. That shutdown will be over ICE, and while abolition is not on the table, we’re going to see simultaneous demands for these thugs to remove their masks and wear body cams, as well as for the impeachment of Kritsi Noem. This issue has gained such volatility in such a short time that even Trump is withholding his usual co-signature and measuring his remarks. (Be very fucking afraid, Kristi, because the statute of limitations isn’t running out; and state violations are ineligible for Presidential pardons.)

The probable action to back out of the shit-storm they’ve created, already being flouted by the likes of Megyn Kelly, is to abandon Minnesota and begin—redux Republican antics during the Biden administration—shipping thousands of immigrants to Minneapolis. ← This is how Trump can declare victory before the midterms which are looking more dismal for Republicans by the hour.

Hint hint, Minnesota: get ready, they’re coming, be prepared to take them in, hide them, nurture them, or transport them back to where they need to be (see my series on doing a kind of underground railroad titled Off-grid, parts 1-9). (Did you know that many libertarians call for open borders?)

“Imagine if one of our MAGA independent journalists or even just a MAGA supporter stood in the street outside a J6’ers house while Biden’s FBI carried out a law enforcement operation, home invasion, and arrest. Then Biden’s FBI goes to the MAGA guy videoing it all and shoves a woman with him to the ground and sprays them with bear spray then throws the MAGA guy to the ground as MAGA guy was trying to help the woman off the ground. Then Biden’s FBI beats MAGA guy on the ground, disarms MAGA guy, and then shoots him dead. What would have been our reaction?” (Marjorie Taylor Greene, X post, January 25, 2026)

This from what was one one of the bat shit craziest, most rabidly unhinged Trump supporters in Congress (and someone who apparently still cleaves to the J6 lunacy)!

Trump razor-thin electoral coalition had two major hard-shelled blocs that formed an internal majority: evangelicals and Tea Party libertarians. The Libertarian Institute is openly calling the death of Pretti a murder, and Reason Magazine—the flagship libertarian publication—has called administration lies “a betrayal of gun owners and the Second Amendment.”

Steven Nekhaila, the chair of the Libertarian National Committee, said, “Do not be fooled. Every justification for state violence will be depersonalized, amplified, and systematized until it is a permanent feature of governance. Abolish ICE. . . . Do not give the police state an inch.” State libertarian parties are joining the call for abolition. The NRA—which has consistently supported Trump’s heavy-handed anti-immigrant tactics—is now calling for a full and impartial investigation.

People as powerful as a President Trump are seldom taken down from the outside—as we’ve seen again and again. The “system” was unprepared for his level of disregard for norms, no matter how hypocritical or badly enforced. A deranged bully with a personality cult numbering more than 60 million people moves far faster than such a sclerotic system can respond, especially when one’s method is sowing chaos and division among an insecure and resentful public. What will take down Trump—and it is happening in real time—is Trump; because he can’t see past his own venal and narcissistic pathologies, and he’s frankly not smart enough to discern anything more complex than raw power.

Political tactics may not overcome that power directly, but they can operate within our limited capacities by applying them in the right places and times to hurry that self-destruction along.

People remember the American “Saving Private Ryan” version of World War II, but the US made an alliance with Stalin, who was not a very nice guy; and the truth is that Hitler wasn’t defeated in terms of that pre-finale mathematical certainty on D-Day. The Nazis crossed that bridge in Stalingrad (the Soviets lost around 26 million souls in the war).

Neither history nor politics (theoretically or realpolitik) happens apart from the brokenness of the world, and never on some clearly-marked moral template. Our participation—meaning the relatively powerless—is lined out as present by circumstance, by historical contingency.

As for Christians—and I know many readers are not—we find ourselves in that worldly predicament no less than anyone else. Our actions are determined—after reflection and consideration—not by some Benthamite utilitarian calculus, but by a call to answer suffering as best we can with what we have, and to pursue peace. There are times when our God-given reason tells us that means working in concert with others in what may be, if not utilitarian, at least tactical/instrumental ways, e.g., seeing the back of a dangerous would-be despot who promotes cruelty as both policy and virtue, and runs the most kleptocratic administration in US history. We needn’t agree with those who want to see the back of him for reasons we don’t share to know and apply a common tactical purpose.

You’ll never see me advocating for unrestricted gun access—both as a matter or Christian conviction and plain common sense—but I can agree with libertarians when they say, we don’t kidnap foreign leaders, we don’t make war abroad in the absence of some actual threat to the US, we don’t sanction murder, and we don’t support a police state.

Trump’s support is calving off from several directions at once right now—from Epstein to Gaza to warmongering to tariffs to these ICE Gestapo thugs—even as the world at large has come to the abruptly disconcerting realization that the US is no longer capable of any kind of world leadership, as well as being a pretty dangerous financial investment. Even our own financial elites are looking askance at Donald Trump as he drives the national debt to the point where we’ll soon spend more appropriated funds on debt interest than we do on Social Security, and US Treasuries—80 percent held by American investors—are bleeding purchasing power like a stuck pig.

I believe there’s one more arena where MAGA can be turned against Trump as well and the most mercenary charlatans of both parties right now, and that is in the fight against the tech oligarchs, AI, and data centers.

The question, then, is what do political organizers and activists do, and again I refer back to my previous post on political efficacy. Things are happening fast right now, and the midterms are inbound. Everything hinges on that, because realistically—unless Republicans lead a charge to impeachment or Trump has a massive coronary—the only way to decisively curb his power—while we resist it in other ways now—is by destroying his political trifecta. But the electioneering can only be one part of that. Elected officials only respond—in most cases—to clear popular threats to their own power with clear demands. That doesn’t just mean Democrats. In safe Republican districts, I will argue, it means supporting libertarians against ICE apologists.

Meanwhile, join the efforts to expand Minnesota’s campaign against ICE—peacefully and courageously—and join the organizing for a General Strike. (And re-post, every single day in every possible way, Epstein, Epstein, Epstein!)

Oh well, there I’ve gone again and ripped out a reaction . . . I’ll leave you again, dear readers to get back to your lives.

Peace.