Don’t let them distract you. The perpetrators of this weekend’s two mass shootings might have held diametrically opposed party political views, but they shared two things: toxic masculinity and access to guns. White supremacy is not an inevitable destination for toxic masculinity but the latter is an ingredient of the former, and only one end of the American political spectrum is carrying on with the same rhetoric that grooms and radicalizes toxic (usually white) men into the violence of white nationalism.
They will try to both-sides this due to the Dayton shooter’s political views, but in truth they know that only the Republican Party has platformed a dehumanizing hate. Toxic masculinity, a threat in itself, doesn’t know a single party. White nationalism does.
Meanwhile, we’re going to need more moments like this where people inject these issues into unexpected and “inappropriate” places, because we’ve now reached the point where we will continue to do nothing unless the activism becomes as jarring as the shootings themselves used to feel.