Alexandria, Virginia, U.S.A.

The attack on the baseball field by James T. Hodgkinson was designed to turn Congress upside down. It was a terrorist attack to force abrupt change in government process and weaken the sadistic policies favoring the oligarchs and their next of kin. Hodgkinson was easily able to execute this attack being that he was a licensed gun owner and he did not fit the general profile of a terrorist attacker. Even though he was parked by the ball field conspicuously in a heavily window draped van he was living in and actually asked an elected official there which political party all those practicing on the field were. The one he hit, Steve Scalise, Republican, was one of the highest members of Congress being the House Majority Deputy Whip. He is vehemently against gay marriage and illegal immigration, the latter most recently becoming a major mission in DC that is having difficulty trying to enforce because of the tactics and manpower being used.

In the last months of his life, he embraced what’s considered to be leftist beliefs and causes. He volunteered to campaign for Bernie Sanders. He railed against Donald Trump on social media as did everyone else from the grass roots to the celebrities. He was very active in his participation to bring fairness and accountability to DC. He was disturbed, like millions of citizens, of the widening disparity of personal wealth.

He drove hundreds of miles to dwell in that town for months. He practiced shooting cans by homes in the woods back in March and the cop just gave him a warning.

He was a building inspector who lost his license and his career. He had nothing left to live for and clearly nothing to lose.

In his misguided and deranged mind, he was looking for the ultimate justice and figured that the only way to staunch the chaos getting worse every day in the short 5 months of Figurehead Trump’s presidency, is to take as many elected Republican representatives out at once. And he could have, if it wasn’t for 2 officers stationed there in Scalise’s security detail, when after getting hit and wounded themselves, shot him dead and thwarting what could have been the biggest assassination in American history.

James T. Hodgkinson’s ordeal and demise immediately brought to mind a very overlooked film of misplaced rage and vigilantism from almost 25 years ago, “Falling Down”. It followed the day of the protagonist known as D-Fens, a defense contractor, who while stuck in traffic, has a break down and abandons his vehicle and roams around Los Angeles and has various encounters with people and annoying customs that have had a deleterious effect on his life (and surely everyone else), gangs, the economy, personal freedoms, and what initially set him off, road construction. Along the way he winds up with automatic weapons and a bazooka and uses them to mete out justice in the last hours of his life, which ends when Robert Duvall playing a retiring cop, shoots him dead in what looks like a mercy killing.

Notable scenes in that film are when after D-Fens procures those weapons from that gang, he gets hassled by a derelict who’s begging him for cash and gives him his briefcase. The bum opens it and finds it empty except for a sandwich. The other one was when an African-American is protesting in front of a bank that refused to give him a loan for his lack of “economic viability”. It ends with D-fens making eye contact with the protester and nodding with approval.

Hodgkinson’s own frustrations from his perceptions and his comparable empathy for the dying middle class, poor and disenfranchised and even the reproductive rights for women and civil rights for gays, that millions of this country share, manifested and exploded that day on that baseball field. On the supposition to foment a change in attitude in the halls of congress and in the nation itself.

But the only changes that happened was more security and protection for the officials. As they decided to play the game anyway as patrons became suspects, were patted down and went through metal detectors. It did bring a moment of solidarity in congress as the likes of Nancy Pelosi and Paul Ryan rightly denounced this attack by a disgruntled pyschopath. Even Trump went on his lame ass social networking account to denounce it and call for unity and bipartisanship to seize the day. Alas, for one day, since Trump reverted to “normal” and went on his tax-payer funded trolling feed again. And the Republican dominated House and Senate are still trying to destroy and bankrupt the nation with terrible legislation involving healthcare and distribution of taxes.

It’s been a week since the shooting, and nothing’s changed. So Hodgkinson’s stupid attempt to upend the system failed immensely as it should. But this might be only the beginning and his idea to rub out an entire hall of Congress is out there now. Ready to be employed by another maniac with a warped sense of administering swift justice. This proves again that terror is not a weapon or a standing military, but an idea. Hodgkinson had a very shitty and deadly idea that he could force progress and progressive policies.

This isn’t Isis, this is us.