Here’s what’s going to happen.
Everybody who’s anybody will condemn white supremacists. The men who murdered and injured people today will be aprehended by police who we hope will do their job with precision and care. They will be subject to the justice of the rule of law and afforded all the protections of the law in the process. Because we are a nation of laws and that is as it should be.
And the white supremacists will try again, emboldened by a vile president who is happy to use them to empower and enrich himself. They will march and tweet and speak, and so far as they do not perpetrate or incite violence we will allow them to speak. Not because we agree with them. Not to hear them out. Not even because we respect their right to speak. We do not. We will allow them to speak because we know better than to bestow upon the government the power to silence. Because we know it is a power that, while convenient to us in many cases, will be destructive to us in the end. So we will not empower the government to stop them from speaking. Instead we will drown out their voices with a united voice of our own. Many will suffer and some will die. But in the end we will win because we speak with the strength of the multitude, with the sword of truth, and with the shield of love and decency. And when we have won we will still be a nation of laws and we will still know that no man and no institution created by man has the power to silence The People, for better or for worse, and that is as it should be.
It sucks. But the alternative sucks more. So start speaking. It is our most precious gift and our most powerful weapon.