Will Bunch: Three forgotten words explain America's recent troubles - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

In the middle of a crazy week signaling another long American winter of discontent, former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock — that rare Democrat who could win an election in a blood-red rural state — published an op-ed in The New York Times. Mr. Bullock urged his party, which has seen its rural support plummet toward zero, to get out more and tell voters how Obamacare can save rural hospitals, or about the wonders of universal pre-K — because at the end of the day, “we generally all want the same things.”

Do we, though? As I read the essay — which struck me as both nostalgic and Pollyanna-ish — I couldn’t help but wonder how his message would play in the rural Kentucky district of U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, who just sent out his 2021 Christmas card showing his entire family, including his wife and four children, posing with assault-style weapons (the Republican congressman is holding what appears to be an M60 machine gun). It includes his cheerful holiday message: “Merry Christmas! ps. Santa, please bring ammo.”

The Massie family Christmas (remarkably, not an original concept) would have been creepy under the best of circumstances, but as most Americans with a semblance of a soul are well aware, these have not been the best of circumstances. Just four days before the right-wing Kentucky congressman posted the grotesque image, a different gun-worshipping family from the Heartland — the Crumbleys, of Oxford, Michigan — imploded as their 15-year-old son Ethan took the 9mm...

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