The story of Ahmaud Arbery’s lynching and the story of Elon Musk daring the police to arrest him for flouting lockdown — they’re the same story, the story of a country that is no republic but merely a monarchy (and a pretty crummy monarchy at that).
Due solely to their connections to power and the race of their victim, the two vigilantes escaped arrest. Musk, too, despite his flagrant violation of the law, will also escape arrest. He, too, has all the connections he needs to escape justice.
In the dreadful Arbery case, only a leaked video forced the state, 74 days later, into action. But then (of course!), a prosecutor, in his recusal, muddled the case, making it harder to prosecute. As for Musk, being a billionaire and a celebrity, it will take a lot more than video evidence of a shooting to get him into a jail, even if, by defying the lockdown, his facility could likely serve as a vector for countless numbers of infections and deaths.
The Arbery killers and Musk demonstrate that we are, and have been for a very long time, a nation of men. Those men are invariably white, invariably connected to power, and many of those white men are richer than anyone can rationally imagine. As for law? What law protected Arbery? What law will protect Tesla’s workers, or those in the meat plants? There’s actually a law empowering vigilantes in Georgia — oh, excuse me, I meant Georgia’s got a “citizen’s arrest” law. And Trump and his cronies are doing all they can to indemnify companies from liability during the pandemic.
These men, not us, can do whatever the fuck they want, whenever they want, to whomever they want. And barring the occasional random video, they will get away scot free with lynchings, spreading contagions, and other heinous crimes.
There’s just one problem. The US does not have what you call a sustainable model of governance. Any country this unjust, this unequal, this corrupt and this goddamm stupid is headed for a reckoning. Unless things change course very soon (November, if not sooner). I’m deeply afraid that as bad as it is, the US response to the pandemic is not even close to the reckoning all of us, the pawns of these few despicable men, will have to endure.