When President Trump was first running to be President of the United States, he told an audience at a Christian college that “”I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, OK?” I doubt he would have lost Bernie Goetz’s vote.
Goetz, for readers whose knowledge of those alleged to have indulged in vigilante justice needs refreshing, shot several African-American youths on a New York City subway on December 22 1984. Considering the severity of Goetz’s attacks on his victims, it was a bit of a shock to me at the time that he got off fairly lightly in terms of his criminal record and time served in confinement.
A new book on Goetz was published in early 2026 about Goetz entitled “FEAR AND FURY: The Reagan Eighties, the Bernie Goetz Shootings, and the Rebirth of White Rage.” The photograph by Peter Morgan could not have been better chose. To the left lof the roughly six by four inch image, a handprinted sign blares out is message above a white man’s head: “CONGRATULATIONS! Bernie Goetz wins on for the GOOD GUYS!” In the foreground, facing the man, are a pair of African-American individuals, with anguished disbelief buffeting their features.
If anything reveals how out of touch the Weather Underground was with the inclinations of the American populace in the 1970s and early 1980s, the Goetz case has to be in the top five instances. It would be a mistake, however, to isolate Goetz from the foreshadowing that one can find in popular culture in the decade before Goetz engaged in his assault on young African-American men. If Trump would not lose Goetz’s vote, neither would he have ever been in danger of losing Archie Bunker’s vote. Bunker’s vote is merely a thought experiment, of course, but the world view he articulated in ALL IN THE FAMILY from 1971 to 1983 leads one to suspect would have been one of the people who called the police hot tip phone line and expressed support for Goetz’s actions.The fact of the matter is for every Michael Stivic, the liberal son-in-law of Archie Bunker who might have harbored some secret admiration for the Weather Underground, there are two dozen men who identify with Archie Bunker. At least a few of those in the viewing audience went on to have real life children who joined the “Proud Boys” whose notorious support of Donald Trump only served to amplify Trump’s street level credibility.
Goetz may not see what he is responsible for, but that will not lighten the penalties that history will impose on him. While guilt by association may seem like arbitrary collage, I see no other way to underline the continuity of the factors at work in undermining any possible redemption of social life in the U.S.A. The extent to which Goetz feels no shame about what he did on that subway car in 1984 is proportionate to the lack of shame felt by the Proud Boys who championed Donald Trump for president.
About Bill Mohr