“I don't know what the answer is,” Kacey Musgraves shouted during her set at Lol lapalooza on August 7, “but obviously something has to be fucking done.”
The country music star then led her fans in a chant that perfectly encapsulates the future of American politics: “Somebody fucking do something!” she screamed. “Somebody fucking do something!” the crowd screamed back.
Musgraves was, understandably, upset about the horrific backtoback mass mur ders that took place the first weekend of August in El Paso and Dayton. She did not offer a specific something to be done. This may have been an attempt to appear non partisan, it may have been honest uncer tainty, or it may just have been a sensible intuition that the middle of a music fes tival was not the right place to workshop public policy.
But the something matters an awful lot. In this case—and in so many others—“do something” actually means “do some thing to other people.” It means “force other people to do something they don’t want to do, even if you’re not sure it will actually help.” The call to “do something” privileges action over analysis and man datory onesizefitsall solutions over incremental, local, and voluntary action.
This story is from the October 2019 edition of Reason magazine.
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This story is from the October 2019 edition of Reason magazine.
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