Mincing

Florida Governor, and (allegedly) Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis does have some sympathy for the Jacksonville community in which three people were killed in a shooting. Not that you would guess from looking at much of the news coverage of the event thus far. If Governor DeSantis is mentioned at all, the focus in on his macho condemnation of the shooter and his actions. To get to the part where the governor speaks to the community itself, one has to watch the video of his statement.

Governor DeSantis may have some of the responsibility for this; he does seem much more focused on demonstrating his disdain for the shooter than he does on speaking to the community. But he is, as they say, simply following the script. Statements like this are generally expected to be geared more towards expressing outrage and disgust over the act. Especially given that Governor DeSantis, who is very much the model of a modern Republican officeholder, couldn't take the sort of actions that gun-control advocates would call for. The shooter has to be the sole person at fault; as to imply otherwise would raise questions as to why nothing is being done. And the governor's well-known antipathy for all things "woke" (which, for many Black people, includes an awareness that things like this are simply part of life in the United States) doesn't lend him an air of caring about the concerns of Florida's Black population. Not to mention that Southern populism (and maybe Right-leaning populism more generally) tends to cast non-model minorities as enemy "others," favored and coddled by hateful "élites."

Be that as it may, Governor DeSantis didn't simply ignore the community. His comments seemed somewhat perfunctory, almost an afterthought, but he did offer condolences to the people impacted by the event. And that should also make it into the news coverage of the event. I can see why the macho posturing would be of interest, especially for Left-leaning news outlets looking to show how empty and banal that posturing is. And I can also see Right-leaning outlets placing their focus there, too; it makes the governor look tough. But, either way, it's not the complete picture.

I watched Governor DeSantis' video statement. I didn't expect to be impressed, and I wasn't. I understand, however, that something that would have impressed me in this would likely also have been a grievous act of political self-harm, if not suicide. For the governor to have been open and candid about why things like this happen, and the fact that he's not prepared, or not in a position to, really do anything about it would have made him the target of people's ire. The governor understands, correctly or not, that people's feelings about this situation are anger and sadness, in that order. Or, at least that more people are angry about what happened than are sad about what happened. (Although, personally, I suspect that the majority opinion on this is one of indifference.) And the timing of, and time spent on, words addressing those reflect that.

Reactions to violence in the United States are hampered by the fact that there are so many competing interest groups. The each have different goals, and there are pretty much no actions that can be taken that will please all of them. Indeed, any action that one group approves of will be met with dismay and anger from another. All of this is a barrier in situations in which the role of a chief executive, whether they be a governor, mayor or the President, is to "bring people together" after a tragedy. Thoughts, prayers and condolences are all expressions of an inability (or unwillingness) to do anything more substantive. And offering them has become understood to be a way of admitting that nothing more significant is in the offing. For those who understand that the fact that something should be done means that something can be done (for all that Immanuel Kant would have found their logic backwards), those words are hollow and insincere. The need to appear to be vigorous and active in the face of events that frighten people (even if they'll be forgotten before too long) means that the tough-sounding language has to lead, even when it's going to be seen as just talk. If it's all just talk, however, then none of it is particularly more newsworthy than the rest of it.