Not much has been said in the mainstream media about Florida State University shooter Phoenix Ikner’s racist views, particularly his feelings that Rosa Parks “was in the wrong.” Moreover, the accused expressed views in keeping with those often espoused by Trump and his socio-economic policies.
According to several news accounts, Ikner, 20, voiced opinions that were so disturbing that even his classmates wondered if what they heard was true. One classmate, Lucas Luzietti, told USA Today that he often got into arguments with Ikner “over how gross the things he said were.”
Another former student at FSU and at one time a member of a political discussion group with Ikner recalled that he expressed so much “white supremacist rhetoric and far-right rhetoric” that he was eventually kicked out of the group.
We do not know yet if Ikner’s views were shared in the household with his father and stepmother, whose gun was used in the shooting death of two and the wounding of several others. Even if he was alone in his beliefs, some of them coincided with Trump’s, particularly the lie that President Biden did not win the 2020 presidential election. He also reportedly worshiped Trump.
In a statement about the incident, Trump said it was “terrible…and a shame,” but then said he planned on looking at stricter gun laws. “As far as legislation is concerned,” he added, “this has been going on for a long time. I have an obligation to protect the Second Amendment.”
I have no information about Ikner’s motivation, though it’s hard to dismiss the notion that some of it was about his racist views and those held by Trump. The issue before the American public is the extent to which this right-wing ideology permeates the nation’s young.
We know that such a tragic occurrence usually is followed by copycat shooters, and with a man in power with less interest in gun violence than previous presidents — and one who has pardoned the rioters of Jan. 6 — we can almost bet on another “terrible” moment, not that we are not already enduring a raft of them from his erasures.
With a felon in the White House, how are we to believe that anything will be done to stop his determination to invoke his own “rule of law” or lawlessness? Under his authoritarian governance, to quote the title of a popular film, there will be blood, and too many of the fatalities can be brought to the Oval Office.
This piece was originally published in the Amsterdam News. For more information, visit amsterdamnnews.com.