How the Republican Party profits from mass shootings

    Americans live in a ridiculous media environment. One of the most bizarre elements of our modern time is the curious detente that exists between the Republican Party and various media outlets. That detente is enacted by the GOP providing a steady stream of politicians and pundits to appear on cable news programs, and in return, the media agrees to judge the GOP by their after the fact prevarications, rather than their actions. Republican politicians appear on television news and spew the most disingenuous bullshit imaginable, and are not challenged on their lies. Once in awhile, a frustrated anchor, overwhelmed and aggravated by the nonsense might lash out, but the conservative politician just sits there with a self-righteous smirk, confident that management will have a talk with that anchor, and remind them that their multi-million dollar salary contract is contingent upon maintaining the terms of that detente agreement. 

    

    School shootings are an excellent example of the GOP-Media detente in action. If we take the GOP at their word, then school shootings are an unfortunate incident and we should all send our thoughts and prayers to the families of the victims but there's absolutely nothing that can possibly be done either in terms of stricter gun laws or improving access to mental health care because "freedom". If we take a step back, and look at the issue of school shootings more critically, the situation changes. If we look at the totality of the GOP's actions, it starts to appear that the Republican Party sees school shootings as beneficial for the party, and hopes that they continue, and even become more frequent in the future. 

    Every major school shooting has created a boost in financial contributions to the GOP. School shootings lead to an increase in donations to the National Rifle Association, and by extension, the Republican Party. The NRA broke a fifteen year fundraising record after the Parkland shooting in Florida. A study by the National Bureau of Economic Research has found a strategic pattern of political contributions after every major school shooting which has made them very profitable for the GOP. If the Republican Party were to take action against school shootings, they would end up giving up a substantial part of the party's funding. There is really no room for the GOP to equivocate here. Currently available evidence shows that Republican politicians are eagerly trading the lives of children for campaign contributions. 

    School shooters emerge from a very online community of conspiracy theorists that frequent sites like 8Chan, Infowars and "red pill" Youtube and TikTok. It appears that those who don't carry out their school shooting fantasies grow up to become part of the GOP militia movement. These are the people that show up at protests carrying firearms, and, at Trump's direction, make waves of death threats against health clinics, "woke" companies and Democratic politicians. In 1930s Germany, the German Sturmabteilung were a paramilitary organization that attacked meetings of opposing political parties, beat up opposition leaders, and made death threats against leaders of opposing political parties. The similarities between the GOP's school shooter/militia pipeline and the German SA are obvious. This is based upon observed patterns of behavior, as it's not likely anyone will ever be able to do a successful survey of militia members to ask if they spent their teenage years fantasizing about shooting up the schools they attended. Nonetheless, it seems a safe assumption based upon the shared online spaces. The GOP does not want to give up their school shooter/militia influence operation, because doing so would rob them of a source of paramilitary power. 

    When individuals perceive that they are threatened they tend to adopt a more conservative view in the near term. Threats of physical violence have been linked to a tendency towards right-wing political beliefs. Given this observation, it should come as no surprise that a generation that has grown up in an era where school shootings are a regular occurrence, should skew more conservative. By trading the lives of school children for campaign contributions, the GOP has also created a persistent threat environment that leads to chronic low level anxiety for many young people, and drives them towards conservative political beliefs. This dark form of exploitation means that young people are effectively drawn to the political party that has turned them into pawns ready to be sent to slaughter. 

    The Republican Party clearly profits from school shootings and sees them as beneficial to the future of the party. Political contributions to conservative politicians normally spike after every major school shooting, and patterns of 'strategic political contributions" have become readily apparent. Examination of the habits of school shooters have repeatedly shown that they are very online people who occupy the right-wing fringe of the internet, a space characterized by sites like 8Chan, Infowars and "red pill" Youtube and TikTok. Obsession with conspiracy theories, obsession over violent attacks and a preoccupation with firearms appears to indicate that those youth who don't go forward with their school shooting fantasies often grow up to become members of conservative militia groups. Living under the constant threat of school shootings appears to have created a sense of latent anxiety among younger generations, which is driving larger numbers of young men to become the Republican voters of the future. Today's GOP very clearly uses school shootings as a means of enriching themselves financially, engaging their base, and driving young people towards more conservative thinking.