CLINTONS AND OTHERS: What was the resident talking about?

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 1, 2023

"Diversity" comes to Maine: On October 25, a 40-year-old man named Robert Card shot and killed at least 18 people at two separate locations in Lewiston, Maine.

It has been said that Card had been "hearing voices" in the months leading up to this brutal event. 

As far as we know, this claim hasn't been verified or confirmed. But according to the leading authority on such matters, the phenomenon may be a sign of a (severe) mental illness:

Auditory hallucinations

An auditory hallucination, or paracusia, is a form of hallucination that involves perceiving sounds without auditory stimulus. While experiencing an auditory hallucination, the affected person would hear a sound or sounds which did not come from the natural environment.

A common form of auditory hallucination involves hearing one or more voices without a speaker present, known as an auditory verbal hallucination. This may be associated with psychotic disorders, most notably schizophrenia, and this phenomenon is often used to diagnose these conditions...

Further discussion continues from there. If you're willing to click the links, the discussion goes on at substantial length. In all likelihood, you'll see few discussions of this matter in the high-end mainstream press. 

We can't tell you why our high-end journalists, and our top news orgs, seem disinclined to interview medical specialists about such significant matters. That said, we'd say that the Auburn, Maine resident whose son was shot and killed may have had a strong point when he spoke to Poppy Harlow on CNN two days after the killings:

HARLOW (10/27/23): I'm struck by your remarks yesterday that you do not harbor hate or anger for the man who took your son's life. And I wonder how that's possible despite your grief.

AUBURN RESIDENT: Uh, you have to put that part of it—you have to put it out of your mind. You have to let the Lord do whatever needs to be done. And if this person was, at the time, in his right mind, I believe he would have been a loving person just like we are. There's something that went wrong.

[...]

And I'm sure this man— Whatever happened to his mind, I'm sure he wasn't born to be a killer. And he's got, I'm sure, a father and a mother that would have never believed this would have happened with him. So all I can say is, I'm sorry that it's happened to all of us, and I'm sorry what may happen to him. And God will prevail.

Borrowing from the language of Hank Williams, the killer had been born as "some mother's darling son." At some point, something had gone (badly) wrong in his mind, this grieving father now said.

We're inclined to assume that this grieving father had a very good point. 

We can't explain why our major news orgs are so reluctant to discuss the role which is often played in our public lives by (severe) mental illness. That said, the grieving father refused to hate. As we noted yesterday, the views he expressed struck Harlow and her co-anchor as being highly enlightened.

The views the grieving father expressed struck us that way too. But as we noted yesterday, he made a somewhat odd remark in the course of stating those views:

AUBURN RESIDENT: We have—we really have a loving community. We have two cities here—sister cities. They both believe that their city is the best city, and that's the way we are. But we love each other.

We travel back and forth to all businesses. We make plans together. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. And as a city councilor, I know a lot of their feelings and they know a lot of mine. The two cities try to make the cities the proudest place to be. 

Diversity, of course, is here and we know that, but we don't go around shooting each other. So you know, I just hope we can move on through this and get it behind us so that we can start healing. And thank God we have you people to keep our loved ones alive for a few more days.

HARLOW: Your son—it is clear that all the good in him came from so much good in you. Thank you for sharing about him with us this morning. And we're here for whatever you need. 

Say what? "Diversity is here, and we know that, but we don't go around shooting each other?" 

Harlow didn't address this throw-away comment. But as the term is commonly understood, "diversity" seems to have played no role in this latest mass shooting event. What could the Auburn resident have meant by that odd remark?

Presumably, the "diversity" to which he referred involves the widely reported way Somali immigrants have moved to cities like Lewiston in the past twenty-odd years. We don't know that that's what he meant, but it seems like a fairly obvious supposition.

As readers may know, Maine has always been a heavily "white" state. Asa of July 2022, the Census Bureau offered these estimated for the state's population as a whole:

State of Maine, July 2022
White: 92.2%
Black: 2.0%
Hispanic: 2.1%
Asian-American: 1.4%

The state of Maine, on the whole, is still quite heavily "white." But back around the turn of the century, Somali immigrants began moving into some of the cities in southern Maine—into cities like Lewiston and Portland.

According to an array of reports, these communities have largely been successful at the task of assimilation, acceptance, integration, welcome. Two years ago, to cite one example, CNN offered an upbeat report about South Portland beneath this upbeat headline:

A Maine city that’s 90% White now has a Somali mayor

That sounds like success to us! Two years earlier, Cynthia Anderson had offered a lengthy essay in the Christian Science Monitor concerning the way this project has unfolded right there in Lewiston, her home town.

She offered a very thoughtful portrait. Headline included, we'll offer a few brief excerpts:

Refugees poured into my state. Here’s how it changed me.

[...]

In spite of occasional news reports to the contrary, things have mostly gone well. But Lewiston is not Utopia. The city’s challenges mirror those in other places with large refugee communities. It has struggled financially, especially early on as the needs for social services and education intensified. Joblessness remains high among the older generation of refugees; many elders still speak little English. The trauma of wars new immigrants escaped—loss of loved ones, sexual assault, years of privation – means that many bear heartache. For some in Lewiston, the long-term effects of trauma hinder acculturation, both for them and for their children. 

Yet Lewiston is more vital than it was two decades ago. Of the city’s 36,000 residents, 6,000 are now African refugees and asylum-seekers. New immigrants work in health care, retail, industry, and food service. The first Somali American kids born in the city are high school juniors, and a new elementary school opened in September with a 900-student capacity—among the largest K-5s in Maine.

Things have mostly gone well in Lewiston, Anderson wrote. She also offered this:

A sizable minority of Mainers remains unhappy about the presence of the city’s newest residents. Lewiston sits in the state’s 2nd Congressional District. Mr. Trump won here in 2016, giving him his only electoral vote in New England. The expansion of the city’s services to include translators and English as a second language instructors is anathema to many, as is coexistence with Islam. In recent years, the region’s anti-Islam faction has gained momentum and new followers. 

We can't judge the accuracy of Anderon's overall assessments. That said:

For what it's worth, Trump didn't win in Lewiston in 2016. He did win in Maine's much larger, encompassing 2nd Congressional District, but he lost to Hillary Clinton in Lewiston by a fairly substantial margin. 

It's also hard to square Anderson's population figures with Census Bureau estimates. Here are the Census Bureau's figures for Lewiston in 2022:

Lewiston, Maine, July 2022
White: 82.7%
Black: 7.3%
Hispanic: 2.2%
Asian-American: 3.0%

According to the Census Bureaus, Lewiston was still heavily "white." But as compared to the state as a whole, those figures make Lewiston a melting-pot. Presumably, this was the diversity to which the grieving father referred.

Nothing about the mass killing in Lewiston seems to be connected to "diversity" or to "race." Why then did this seemingly enlightened man insert that odd remark?

Harlow didn't ask about the remark, and we can't answer that question. But as we noted yesterday, the resident had made an even odder set of remarks back in 2021—an even odder set of remarks with an explicitly racial backdrop.

Did those remarks make him a "racist?" Should we regard the Auburn resident as one of the deplorables? 

Should we conceive of him as an Other? With "national survival" at stake, what can we learn from this grieving father's collection of remarks?

Tomorrow: Clinton and Clinton and others