Defeating our enemies. That’s one reason to join the National Rifle Association, according to a recruitment video that is going viral this week. But the enemies in question aren’t Isis or the perpetrators of school shootings. No – they are Barack Obama, Hollywood award shows, school teachers and liberals with the temerity to criticize our government.

In the video, Dana Loesch – a conservative radio and television talk-show host and NRA spokesperson – glowers into the camera and in a strident tone, nearly quivering with righteous anger, explains why it is so important to join the NRA. As images of tranquil American towns, the White House, angry political protesters and stalwart policemen flash by us, Loesch intones:



“They use their media to assassinate real news. They use their schools to teach children that their president is another Hitler. They use their movie stars and singers and award shows to repeat their narrative over and over again. And then they use their ex-president to endorse the resistance.



All to make them march, make them protest, make them scream racism and sexism and xenophobia and homophobia and smash windows, burn cars, shut down interstates and airports, bully and terrorize the law abiding — until the only option left is for police to do their jobs and stop the madness. And when that happens, they’ll use it as an excuse for their outrage. The only way we stop this, the only way we save our country and our freedom is to fight this violence of lies with the clenched fist of truth. I’m the National Rifle Association of America and I’m freedom’s safest place.”

Interestingly, the video makes no mention of the NRA’s traditional role: to preserve the American citizen’s right to bear arms, a right guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the US Constitution. Perhaps this is because Loesch is encouraging her viewers to deter other Americans from exercising their Constitutional rights.



The First Amendment guarantees – the protection of freedom of speech and freedom of assembly – are characterized as disruptive and seditious, not as fundamental liberties but as dangerous threats.



So when Loesch emphasizes the necessity of saving “our country and our freedom,” we may wonder what country she means. Certainly not the nation envisioned by the Founding Fathers who authored our Bill of Rights.

Yet even those who are unclear about what the Constitution says will have no trouble identifying – and responding to – the divisiveness of Loesch’s language and the intensity with which she demonizes the media, the so-called cultural elite, and the political opponents of Donald Trump, whose name is never mentioned but whose presence is invoked as Loesch imagines teachers indoctrinating children with the idea that “their president is another Hitler.”



In her brief speech, Loesch repeatedly uses the words they, their and them, hammering home the message that they are not us. Surely, assassinate is an unusually strong (and loaded) verb to describe what Loesch believes the media does to “real news.” And to suggest that we oppose “the violence of lies” with “a clenched fist” is to propose an unfair fight.



That fist (and the pummeling it promises to deliver) seems like an excessive response to a political joke made by an movie star at the Oscars ceremony.

Ultimately, one wants to ask the simplest and most obvious questions: why would anyone want the American people to be more at odds than they already are? Why would someone wish to exacerbate our grievances and resentments? Whose interest are served by turning us into warring stereotypes – conservative v liberal – with no consideration of the nuances and the subtle differences that make us individuals?



When we are facing so many problems - poverty, unemployment, opioid addiction, large and small wars all over the world – why would it not be wiser and more practical to encourage us to come together and try to find solutions for these crises?



And why, during the upcoming holiday – celebrating our independence, commemorating the founding of a country by refugees and immigrants seeking freedom from religious persecution and economic hardship – don’t we pause from our flag-waving, parades and backyard barbecues to consider our ideals and the reasons why people still come here in the hope of leading better lives?



I believe in sensible gun regulation, my family owns a gun. We live in the country. Last summer, a rabid fox staggered onto our front yard, behaved menacingly, and, when it refused to leave, my husband reluctantly shot it.



Many of our neighbors are hunters, and over the years we have been grateful for the venison they have shared with us. So I understand why someone might want to have a gun: to protect and feed themselves and their families.



But what I cannot understand – and what, it seems, also mystifies the decent men and women who belong to the NRA and who have spoken out against this new recruitment video – is why someone would suggest using a gun to intimidate, silence, or even shoot innocent people whose only crime is the harboring of different political views and a continuing faith in the essential and inspiring principles on which our nation was founded.