Moral movement vs. violence gains steam

catastrophe for America, but it’s contributing to a backlash against the systemic abuses of power on which so much of the violence in American life is founded.

The Parkland students are insisting that adults stand up to the immorality of the NRA. Corporations are responding. So are politicians. “We get out there and make sure everybody knows how much money their politician took from the NRA,” said David Hogg, one of the students.

Similarly, the #MeToo movement is insisting that America wake up to the immoral behavior of powerful predatory men. Trump’s personal history — 19 women have accused him of sexual misconduct — has helped fuel it.

The Black Lives Matter movement predated Trump, but our racist-in-chief, who attacks black athletes for protesting police violence, has given it new meaning and urgency as well.

The NRA’s position that everyone should carry a gun contrasts with the reality that a black man brandishing one is likely to be shot and killed by police.

The cumulative and growing force of these three intertwined movements comes from a basic premise of our civic life together, which Trump’s moral obtuseness has brought into sharp focus.

In order to survive, people need several things — food, water, a roof over our heads. But the most basic of all is safety. That’s why governments were created.

If Americans can’t be secure from someone packing an assault rifle, or from the predatory behavior of powerful men, or from the police, we do not live in a functioning society.

This is all about power — a powerful political lobby that has bullied America for too long, powerful men who haven’t been held accountable for their behavior, police who for too long have been unconstrained.

A moral movement is growing against the violence perpetrated by all of them. It is being led by people whose moral authority cannot be denied: students whose friends have been murdered, women who have been abused, the parents and partners of black men who have been slain.

It is already having a profound impact on America.