NullHypothesis
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User ID: 2718
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
There are only so many novel ideas and viewpoints, and eventually you end up with the applications of those ideas and viewpoints, so I'm not surprised if you feel like you aren't seeing many new unique ideas and perspectives. The posts with the most activity is the weekly culture war roundup which by its nature will be around current day events.
I like this space, even though I go long periods of just lurking. I too am admittedly not a good writer nor do I have much novelty to offer in unique/interesting analysis or perspective. Usually all I can offer is effort, but I'm glad to know some people appreciate it.
I still haven't found a better place on the internet with this level of diversity of viewpoints and ideas, even if the Motte seems to have shifted more rightwards over the years and prominent left leaning posters have left or were banned. Most places that discuss culture war topics spiral into low effort sneers, ingroup signals, and outgroup outrages, with very little intellectual honesty or posters with opposing viewpoints.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
So your evidence that the "Anti-ICE" shooter feeling like a school shooter and having no apparent motive is an interview with old friends of his that haven't had contact with him for likely at least 5-6 years? If anything, considering he withdrew from social life and got seeped more and more into the dark trenches of the internet, this story to me provides some evidence that he likely became more and more political and radical. Combine this with other evidence that had come out, and it paints the picture of someone radicalized by far left and anti-trump ideology.
It's easy to conveniently ignore evidence to the contrary and put zero effort into even explaining why that evidence might be flawed or invalid, but not even attempting that will do nothing to convince people on the other side that you may have a point, and makes you come off as intellectually dishonest.
as someone who moves through leftist circles, which are mostly extremely disorganized and very dedicated to specific issues (climate change, homelessness, worker empowerment)
You know, your experiences of moving through leftist circles could something really interesting to read about if you actually provided some details.
That being said, you're attacking a straw man. Who's claiming every leftwing organization/group is actively encouraging violence? Have you gone through a randomly selected sample of leftists groups (hint, you haven't) to be able to determine they are all in fact, actively disavowing political violence and banning people who do show any support for political violence?
How do you reconcile your personal experiences with the data indicating that 24% of very liberal individuals that say it's okay to be happy with the death of a public figure they oppose, or 25% of very liberal individuals that thing political violence can be justified? When prompted specifically with figures like Elon Musk or Donald Trump, that number rises to over 50% of people left of center. Is it possible that you are in fact, not really engaging with this segment of the population?
How about you provide some examples of people here "foaming at the mouth of some grand leftist move towards violence" instead of attacking an uncharitable strawman? If you are unable to summarize your opponent's position in a manner they find charitable, I don't think you actually understand what their argument or reasoning is. Or you're being intellectual dishonest.
Edit: Reviewing this thread and FoxNews over the past few days has made me realize that the red tribe has gone full retard and will believe anything the retards and losers in the White House say. Guess I'm just going to become a normie and hypernormalize like the rest of the people in my life. Been nice commenting here. Your boos have always meant nothing to me, because I've seen what makes you cheer.
This is a statement that says nothing. Here, let me replace some words
Edit: Reviewing Reddit, BlueSky, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, TikTok, (Insert your whatever social media/political space you want here) and MSNBC, CNN, (Insert your whatever news media you want here) over the past few days has made me realize that the blue tribe has gone full retard and will believe anything the retards and losers opposing those in the White House say. Guess I'm just going to become a normie and hypernormalize like the rest of the people in my life. Been nice commenting here. Your boos have always meant nothing to me, because I've seen what makes you cheer.
See how this did nothing to move your thoughts and position?
It is a legitimate political opinion, but I can't help but notice most people with that position are saying that only now despite ICE having done deportations in mass under Obama and Biden. At least in terms of the raw numbers, Trump is not deporting in rates surpassing the previous administrations.
There certainly are differences in how ICE is operating, like how the time frame for expedited removal increased to 2 years from a previous 14 days. The number of border encounters is also down significantly, so the fact that the deportation rates have remained to similar levels does support the notion that ICE is targeting a larger population than they previously had. However, the call for the complete abolition of ICE versus a reversal to the previous status and mode of operation (which had comparatively very little calls to abolish the agency) to me suggests the position is not derived from principled values but rather an anti-trump position.
I recently talked to someone that very much had a "fuck ICE it should be abolished they contribute nothing of value" attitude and when I pressed him on the issues I think his issue was more on Trump's rhetoric and framing rather than what ICE was actually doing. He even acknowledged that he wasn't necessarily against immigration restrictions or post-migration enforcement! But even when I asked about the numbers, his first response was to question if comparing the number of deportations even accomplishes anything. I don't think I changed his mind much, but I think I at least brought down the temperature from his initial anger towards ICE.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
If your argument did not have any major flaws, we should've been able to extrapolate 140 cops injured per 2.5K participants (the most generous assumption that supports your argument) to 40,000K to get 2240 cop injuries.
We didn't get 2240 cop injuries for the 40,000 protestors. Nowhere even close. So we now have real world data that demonstrate how assuming going up at the same rate is an absurdly ignorant assumption to make for this particular scenario, and you should not do that to try to make your point.
Just saying you agree with me that a larger crowd is likely to have less violence overall does not excuse the extremely poor logic you have used to make your argument.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
"If we went up at the same rate" of 1:400 then yes it would equal that.
The numbers should be self-evident why that assumption should not hold.
You should not extrapolate 140 cops injured per 40K participants to 16 million for the same reason you should not extrapolate 140 cops injured per 2.5k participant to 40K participants to get 2240 cop injuries.
I can do bad math too. Hey, we were able to add 37.5k to the total number of participants in a protest without needing to adjust the number of cops being injured, so let's use the rate of 0 cops injured per 37.5k added to scale to 0 cops injured per 16 million to get a final result of 140 cops injured per 16 million participants.
The reason why my bad math is wrong is the same reason why your math is wrong.
I agree that data needs to be taken a look at more closely to get a more accurate picture of the truth, and that outliers happen in data all the time. But you're the one that introduced shoddy analysis of data. I gave a good effort to give the most reasonable comparison, and I even gave criticism of that comparison.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
That $2.7billion includes a lot of things like costs spent increasing new security.
This amount reflects, among other things, damage to the Capitol building and grounds, estimated costs borne by the Capitol Police, the District of Columbia, and federal agencies, and estimated costs to address security needs and investigations as described in budget and funding requests, appropriations, agency estimates, and other publicly available information.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
It should be the job of the person making the claim to prove their position, not for the other side to prove someone didn't say something.
👉 Conclusion: On a per-participant basis, Jan 6th was vastly more violent toward police officers — by orders of magnitude.
No, it's not that simple. This is comparing apples to oranges. I'll try my best to make a more appropriate comparison.
Here is an article from the New York Times with the 140 number for police office injured on Jan 6th.
Here is a report from the US Government Accountability Office indicating at least 174 police officers were assaulted. Note that assaults and injuries are not the same, which could explain the different numbers.
A better comparison would be this statistic from U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley.
During the 2020 riots, more than 900 law enforcement officers were injured, including 277 officer injuries while defending the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, and 60 Secret Service officers defending the White House.
This source clarifies it's 277 injuries amongst 140 officers.
Here are some numbers from the DHS indicating that the crowd sizes were approximately 1000 around the federal courthouse in Portland.
This seems like a more appropriate comparison than using the entirety of the 15-26 million Americans protesting during 2020 BLM riots to the 2000-2500 on January 6th.
That being said, there are several reasons as for why even this cannot be a direct comparison:
- The 277 injury count is the total number sustained over a period of time and not on a singular day.
- The source indicating crowd sizes for 1000 in Portland show that only 7 arrests were made on one specific day.
- Different tactics were used to disperse the crowds. More effective dispersal will likely decrease officer injury rates. For example, it seems there were restrictions of using crowd dispersal tools by the capital police. I couldn't find anything about a similar restriction for police in Portland, and they were able to use pepper balls and tear gas to disperse protestors.
- Injuries per protestor participant count is not a good metric. A single person can injure multiple police officers. Multiple protestors can work together to injure 1 police officer.
If we were to have millions of right-leaning Americans protest on a level similar to that of the BLM riots, how much more violence would we see? I acknowledge the number of police injuries would go up just due to statistics. But I think the current right-wing response to Kirk's assassination is pretty telling. We aren't seeing cities being burned and looted to anything remotely close to the BLM riots after Floyd's death.
Wildly gruesome even more so because he got assassinated while talking during a public event. I think only JFK's assassination comes to the same level of shock because JFK got assassinated in a public parade. Meanwhile, others in American history that were assassinated I can think of like MLK Jr, RFK, weren't assassinated in such a public manner.
I looked through the list of assassinations in the US and these are the only ones I could see that I think would qualify as deliberate assassinations in public venues with many on lookers
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John F Kennedy on November 22, 1963 - Assassinated in a parade
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Malcom X on February 21, 1965 - Shot in front of 400 before beginning his speech
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James E Davis on July 23, 2003 - Politician, killed in front of the New York council and dozens of attendees
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Alberta King on June 30, 1974 - Mother of MLK, shot while playing the organ during service
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Dimebag Darrel on December 8, 2004 - Musician, shot by deranged fan during a performance
I'm sure there's some I missed since I picked this list based on the description on the table, but most assassinations, at least in the US don't take place during public events with many onlookers. Most happen at the victim's home, or it may be in public in a place like a hotel.
I honestly think if he was shot at his home, it wouldn't have been nearly as tragic. This was as public as you can get. It would've been in the same category as the assassination attempt on Trump, except Trump had the fortune to survive that one. I think after Trump having survived multiple assassination attempts, I began to think that assassinations won't actually happen, the attempted assassins are too incompetent, security will get better etc. Clearly, I deluded myself.
I've seen a lot of gore videos on the internet. Stuff with organs showing, beheadings, torture, etc. I had just seen footage of that Ukrainian girl being stabbed on the bus like a week ago. Watching the footage of Kirk being shot was the worst I ever felt. The location, the timing... I don't think anything I've seen compares.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
I didn't know that about Destiny. Interesting.
It seems like Destiny's campus videos is a lengthier version of the Crowder change my mind segments. That being said, Crowder has had longer conversations with students too. Kirk has also posted full length hour long + uncut videos. I don't think Shapiro has ever done the campus sit down style videos. The conversations on average does seem shorter but I took a quick look at Destiny's change my mind videos at the average seems more like 15-25 minutes per student which is still higher than the average for Kirk (5-15 minutes).
Kirk's format is different because the student can come up and talk about a topic of their own choosing, versus the change my mind format videos where there is a set topic to be discussed and debated. Kirk was also massively more popular, so I think there is a tradeoff of trying to let as many students speak as possible.
I feel like in general, the average left leaning student in a college campus tends to be less informed on the reasons for their position compared to right leaning students. I think right leaning students are more used to having to hold their ground and thus have the greater willpower to continue a conversation even if their arguments get dismantled. The intention to communicate from both sides matters. Did Destiny get many hostile students that are easily triggered coming to talk to him?
I think Crowder was also the pioneer of the format and had to enter much hostile territory compared to Destiny or even Kirk. Crowder was definitely the more crass one too so he had a lot of haters. I don't think it's fair to criticize the length of the conversation if the student comes in with hostile intentions. It's not easy to build rapport with someone that hates you and isn't arguing in good faith. Even more so if they get triggered by an idea and become unable to discuss said topic. I don't feel much sympathy for students that willingly come up to discuss if they can't even discuss the idea. Maybe Crowder could've tried to coddle them, but if stating basic facts is enough to trigger an individual, I don't think there's anything you can do. Maybe they do go in with the full knowledge that there are students like that that will come and create a viral clip, but what would their options be? Not create the event to begin with? I guess someone operating on pure principle could choose to not share said content, but I'm not naive enough to believe Kirk and the like is operating solely on virtue.
I've seen segments where the student does come in with an open mind or is wiling to actually engage in discussion, and these are the ones that lead to longer conversations.
Posting edited clips of the conversation, I think is a fair criticism, but if you're running a business you play the game algorithms gives you, and I believe 2017 YouTube really favored 10-20 minute videos. Nowadays, it's shorts and long form videos. From what I see, they post the full video but then create clips from that video for the viral moments.
I don't think I can decouple Destiny's twitter persona from his in person persona, considering I've seen clips of Destiny being confronted on his twitter takes, and not only did he not apologize or downplay it, he doubled down on it, and so I take his word for what he thinks about people on the right. It looks like he also stopped making the campus style videos which only strengthens my notion that Destiny has completely given up on reaching out to the right, so he's probably focusing on the left/far left bridge as you mentioned.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
Turning point USA was founded in 2012, so 13 years ago. He was 18 then so he pretty much went all in.
From Wikipedia:
In May 2012, 18-year-old Charlie Kirk gave a speech at Benedictine University's Youth Government Day. Impressed, retired marketing entrepreneur and Tea Party activist Bill Montgomery encouraged Kirk to postpone college and engage full-time in political activism. A month later, the day after Kirk graduated from high school, they launched Turning Point USA, a section 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization.Montgomery became Kirk's mentor, and worked behind the scenes handling the paperwork for the organization. Montgomery often described himself as the group's co-founder, although it was not an official recognition by the group or Kirk.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
I think part of the reason Kirk wasn't brought up here in the Motte despite his enormous popularity is that he's not known for having insightful, original thought, Instead he was good at getting ideas out to young people. His positions are mostly moderate republican and ultimately he's a political activist, albeit an effective one. So unless he's part of a culture war event of substance, there isn't much reason to talk about him. The only thing of interest I can think of that might have been worth discussing prior to his assassination would be his role in founding Turning Point USA and the role he played in helping get Trump elected.
I think normie leftists don't know him, but the one's that engage with leftist influencers probably did know him a little. I think you are right that most of them are regurgitating talking points, considering just how many of those talking points break down when you examine them in context.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
That is interesting.
I think the lesson is if you want to argue with flat earthers with the intent to win the argument and fail to do so, you should accept that you don't actually know why the earth is round, then spend some time learning some reasons for why the earth is round so that in the future you are better equipped to win that argument. Or, if you have no interest and time then don't bother. Flat earth discussion has very little productivity value.
If you are unable to argue your point or dismantle the opponent's, just accept you lost the debate. It doesn't mean you're wrong, or the opponent is right. Or, just listen with an open mind. If the flat earther has a solid argument, maybe they're right. Otherwise, you'll spot the contradiction or error. If you can't then maybe you aren't understanding their argument, so just admit you need to think about it more and move on.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
That is an intelligent observation. Really clever. I don't agree with being intentionally deceptive just to make your argument stronger. That's manipulation, not truth seeking.
I suppose in the context of the debate, Sean ought to have been better prepared with actual stats of his own for the particular claim. It let Destiny set the frame.
For what it's worth, I think Destiny was right for the wrong reason. The numbers he's quoting are different from the numbers Sean was thinking of, but the numbers Sean probably was thinking of to support the idea that federal funding on defense is higher to the degree that it would tip the scale to make his argument was also wrong. So Destiny uses invalid stats to prove his position, which means it doesn't actually disprove Sean's point, but he was right by default because Sean was wrong to begin with.
Thank you for the solid feedback. I guess I should've made a stronger argument.
The reason I didn't make a more substantial argument is because it's been two years since I last watched Destiny, and I didn't want to spend hours looking through past debates and effort posting about Destiny to justify a minor point I made. I still don't feel like it. If I felt like it and I had the goal of trying to convince people something about Destiny I would've made a top level post with the appropriate amount of effort and evidence.
But I'll acknowledge you have brought up some valid points, and perhaps I was too charitable in assuming Destiny's motive around 2022/2023 when he was engaging in debates with popular figures from the other side, which caused me to react more negatively to his subsequent behavior within the last year than I would've if I hadn't had that charitable impression of him. I'll adjust my parent comment with an edit.
Are Crowder, Shapiro, and even Kirk trying to change people's minds via debate at their events on college campuses? No, they are there to rile up lefty college students that have never in their life actually had their beliefs challenged and completely fail to defend them to clip farm. I think Destiny approached it more honestly and wanted more real engagement than they normally do, but I see this as very weak evidence of Destiny's persona and ethos.
Kirk founded an organization with the purpose of advocating for conservative politics amongst a younger generation, and you don't accomplish that without changing young people's minds about politics. Even if I were to grant you that they are there to primarily clip farm, that does not constitute evidence that they are not trying to change people's minds via debate at their events.
I disagree that Destiny approached it more honestly on the grounds of his attitude towards the people he is engaging in. Nothing Kirk has said comes remotely close to the inflammatory description of the regular people of the other side that Destiny has. If there has been, then it would've already been used as ammunition in the current campaign to bring down his image. I don't know about Crowder or Shapiro, but I doubt there's anything to the same degree either. Why do you think Destiny approached it more honestly and wanted more engagement than Crowder, Shapiro, or Kirk?
That is fair. Let me clarify. If you try to paint yourself as someone extending an olive branch to the other side and try to get them to see your side via debate, only to change your tune and start celebrating the death of regular civilians just because they are on the other side of the political side of the isle, you're no longer trying to convince people via discussion. Evidence for him extending out the olive branch is him going around the right wing circuit engaging in debates without him talking shit about the people he is reaching out to during the 2022-2023 time period.
Destiny's attitude towards regular people on the right has completely shifted since. On numerous occasions he's celebrated or made fun of the deaths of regular ordinary citizens (the fireman at Trump's rally that got killed, the children that died in the texas flooding, and now Charlie Kirk to name a few examples). The only reason I can think of that he would do this is because this is rage baiting and that gets him more attention, which is how he makes money. The way I see it he wasn't able to increase his viewer count from people on the right to the level he wanted otherwise he wouldn't have changed his tune. It would be one thing if he were to talk shit about the people he debated, it's another to start insulting the population you were once trying to reach out to.
As for bad faith tactics in debating, I'm going to point to one example that soured my impression of him. https://www.themotte.org/post/752/smallscale-question-sunday-for-november-5/158604?context=8#context
To summarize, Destiny's debate opponent made a claim, then Destiny proceeded scroll through his phone trying to prove the opponent wrong, while the opponent is still talking. He pretty much picks the first statistic he can find that can prove he is right, but he does so by lying about the order initially to make it seem like the opponent was right, oh wait, just kidding it's the other way around. This is poor manner in a debate. Behavior aside, I also looked into the data and I walked away with more questions than answers, I certainly would not be comfortable using that particular stat unless my goal is to just win an argument in a debate at the moment
To quote myself
I like to think I'm a somewhat intelligent guy, but this exercise has shown just how untrained I am in information gathering and fact checking. I supposed to the next step is to call or contact experts or at least the authors of these articles but honestly I feel like that is a lot of work for something that at the end of the day is just a result of me wanting to find the source of a fact mentioned in a random two hour debate from the internet. I suppose for informal discussions this level of research is more than can be reasonably expected, and if you were trying to write a book or video or anything that you want to share to the public, you should do your due diligence to make sure you aren't spreading misinformation.
But in every speech and conversation, we are constantly referencing a bank of information we have accumulated in our life times. And we shouldn't have to walk around having to fact check every little thing we come across, because knowledge is near limitless. I think Destiny is one of the more reasonable twitch streamers when it comes to political content, and for him a 30 second google search was enough to decide on the facts for a point in a debate, while I spent 15 minutes looking into the data only to come up with more questions than answers. I'd rather not have to go through this exercise every time I'm questioning what someone is saying, and perhaps the answer is stop listening to that person, but at the same time I'd also rather not disengage in conversation just because I'm being lazy.
You can see I was far more amiable to Destiny when I made that post. I gave the guy a chance. Watched his debates. Lurked on his subreddit for a while. Sorry, but I don't want to listen to a guy that wishes the worst on those on the other side of the political spectrum, and he's a guy that primarily focuses on trying to win an argument, not seeking the truth. In essence, he's a guy that maximizes heat and minimizes light.
At one point, it seemed like Destiny was making good faith effort to engage in discussion with the other side. He went into debates with people on the right like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, Actual Justice Warrior, etc. Talking with high profile right-leaning individuals is in a sense more courageous than talking to random students. I haven't seen Destiny go viral for debating random students. Does he even do live open mic events? I've only seen him in on like discord calls.
As it turned out, it was not done in good faith and it was just an attempt to get more people over to his side. It seems Destiny is no longer interested in maintaining decorum with members from the opposite side. Destiny literally mocked the firefighter killed at Trump's rally. Kirk didn't mock anyone dying on the other side. I don't think Destiny has made any attempt to reach out to the right in a long while.
EDIT: See @eee solid criticism's below on my take on Destiny. I have crossed out my previous statement and updated with clearer statement.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
Kirk didn't die for flip-flopping on policy positions, though. Kirk died talking to college students. Even if you think he was arguing for a wrong point, discussion is the pathway to truth. In that sense, I think there is an argument to made for that he is a martyr for truth.
I'm not in disagreement that there are flaws or things to criticize about Kirk. But I feel like this is like calling Martin Luther King a criminal and thus an awful, bad person (which is something Kirk did say).
Considering protestors routinely show up at Kirk and other conservative speaker's events, there's bound to be people on the other side who could come prepared to debate. For the everyday college student that shows up with no knowledge ahead of time, entering the conversation with some humility and open mindedness would do wonders. I thought college and universities were supposed to be a place that helps students hone their critical thinking skills.
I've seen students with leftist point of views come in and because they don't show up being aggressive, there's an actual conversation and dialogue between Kirk and those students. The ones that go viral with the gotcha moments tend to be aggressive, close minded students that come into the conversation with intent to win an argument.
Edit: I just saw this video of the student that was talking to Kirk when Kirk got assassinated, and in it he says he was at the event because he noticed Kirk was touring American universities while scrolling his videos and one of the events was at his school, which is why he's there.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
At the same time, the time and place event is posted online, so students have time to do research and prepare their points of view. I don't think asking students at colleges and universities to come prepared for a discussion is too much.
If they aren't even capable of that, they shouldn't even be attending said universities, or at the very least willingly stepping up to the mic. The problem is, a lot of students come up to the mic convinced in their beliefs with little to no reasoning, so they get stumped at the slightest bit of questioning. A simple acknowledgement of "hmm, I don't know, I guess I'll look into it more" would paint them in a less embarrassing light. But because they're not approaching with the intent of conversation so much as wanting to oppose Kirk, they inevitably come off as foolish.
Also, the format is more along the lines of a conversation and less of an actual structured formal debate. Kirk has done actual formal structured debate. So yea, he's not engaging in a debate, he's engaging in conversation.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
A willingness to talk to the other side might be a low bar, but it seems to be a bar that so many have difficulty meeting. How many people in the realm of politics are making the effort to reach out to everyday people of the other side and have a discussion? Even if one were to think he's an intellectual hack creating viral moments by dunking on uninformed college students, do not regular everyday college students have the right to talk to someone with a different political perspective? What conservative voices exist in college and universities, which is populated by professors of increasing left-leaning ideologies? Universities invite left leaning speakers all the time without having to constantly worry about protestors against said speaker. Kirk died talking to students on campuses.
I don't know how I feel about flip-flopping criticisms. On the one hand, yes, a certain type of flip-flopping can be evidence of a lack of pillar of values shaping a world view. On the other hand, that's an uncharitable way of describing people that update their views and change their mind based on new information or changing circumstances. There's flip-flopping your core values, and then there's flip-flopping the results of applying your core values.
On Epstein:
Here is a video of Kirk saying all the Epstein files should be released. This was just a few days ago. https://instagram.com/reel/DOda98IEjzx/
Does this shift the needle in any way? Is he a flip flopper or someone that just kowtows to party lines? I guess this could be considered more evidence to the flip-flopping allegation.
Foreign Policy:
The Iran situation was not in the public consciousness when Kirk made his comment in April. His comment about a war in the Middle East is applied to a different set of circumstances than to that in June. If I recall, in the end the US did not deploy a large number of ground troops in Iran and the whole thing wrapped up relatively quickly compared to something like Afghanistan. I imagine when people say US involvement in a war in the Middle East, we're trying to avoid another Afghanistan or Iraq. It's hard to say the situation with Iran is similar in the reasons that might have motivated Kirk to say we should avoid another war in the Middle East.
TikTok:
This does seem like a valid example of flip-flopping. To play some defense though, Kirk's demand for banning TikTok is preceded by fan accounts being banned for hate speech, so I suppose he might have had a TikTok is not a free speech platform angle here. By the time he changes his mind, he acknowledges TikTok can be used to reach out to millions of zoomers. I think a more thorough examination into the reasons why Kirk may have wanted to ban TikTok can make this a better example of flip-flopping.
De Santis:
After a certain point you rally behind the candidate that has the greatest chance of wining. This is politics 101. I don't think this is a great example of flip-flopping. It's a stupid move to continue to support a weaker candidate in an attempt to be more principled, which would result in an increased likelihood a candidate from the opposite party who holds even less values you agree with becomes president instead.
Mail-in Ballots:
The article you linked does not strongly support your claim. Kirk made a post that he thought was evidence of mail-in voting shenanigans. I think a more valid criticism would be that he didn't do his due diligence to fully vet the source. It's absurdly stupid to make up something false because it can be so easily proven false, so it's more likely he jumped the gun on spreading a story that he thought was real.
I don't really know about Chase the Vote. Did they get people to do mail-in ballots? I checked Arizona and that state has early in person ballots. I guess if they ended up getting early votes via mail-voting this could be considered a strong example of flip-flopping considering how much of a role distrust of mail-in voting had for the republican side. That being said, nowhere in the article you linked does Kirk say should only vote in person.
Political Violence/Pelosi
Here's more of the Paul Pelosi quote
I'm looking at Politico.com, I looking at the New York times, I'm looking at all these places, and there's a little bit of mention here. For example, Politico says, ‘top Republicans reject any link between GOP rhetoric and Paul Pelosi assault.’ Of course, you should reject any link!
Why is the Republican party — why is the conservative movement to blame for gay, schizophrenic, nudists that are hemp jewelry makers, breaking into somebody’s home or maybe not breaking into somebody’s home? Why are we to blame for that exactly?
And why is he still in jail? Why has he not been bailed out? By the way, if some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out. I bet his bail’s like thirty or forty thousand bucks. Bail him out and then go ask him some questions. I wonder what his bail is? They’re going after him with attempted murder, political assassination, all this sort of stuff.
I’m not qualifying it. I think it’s awful, it’s not right. But why is it that in Chicago you’re able to commit murder and be out the next day? Why is it that you're able to trespass, 2nd degree murder, arson, threat a public official, cashless bail, this happens all over San Francisco. But if you go after the Pelosis, oh you're [???] immediately
Note the last line. Actual murderers and other high stake criminals go out on bail all the time. You're trying to spin this as evidence is his endorsement of political violence, but Kirk is making his statement in context of a city that literally bails out criminals all the time. I didn't see anything in here that endorses political violence.
NullHypothesis
8mo ago
I don't think Kash Patel literally believes in Valhalla so much as he's trying to create the image of Charlie Kirk being a warrior.
That's a maximally uncharitable take. I find the interpretation that Kirk is criticizing the selective usage of bible verses to be more plausible. I don't think Kirk believed gays should be stoned to death.
Why do I think Kirk doesn't believe gays should be stoned to death?
Quoting the bible often comes with interpretation of what said bible verse means, especially Old Testament bible verses. His quote is preceded by him talking about "telling them the truth".
Kirk has previously said "Also gay people should be welcome in the conservative movement. As Christians we are called to love everyone,". https://x.com/StephenKing/status/1966484038648021264
Kirk has platformed gay people.
Kirk doesn't make a call to action to stone gay people.
Kirk hasn't stoned any gay people.
Also, is there a source that shows what he says after where it's cut off? In all the previous quotes I looked at, there was stuff said afterward that clarifies or provides more information. Why is the clip cut off where it is? The best sourcing is to provide the full video and when no such source is given one should be suspicious of any editing and cutting that is done. Something tells me he probably said something along the lines of and no I don't actually believe you should stone people to death.
EDIT: I don't think anyone advocating for the stoning of gay people would say this: https://instagram.com/reel/DOmADH6EqoL/
This is fairly uncharitable given nearly all of these events Trump does have words of condemnation to say of the violence, so "nothing but" is inaccurate.
https://www.cnn.com/videos/tv/2015/07/02/donald-trump-presidential-candidate-charleston-south-carolina-shooting-obama-don-lemon.cnn
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-hails-quick-arrest-pipe-bomb-suspect-vows-swift-certain-n924871
According to Wikipedia's summary of the events trump says this first:
He starts attacking the media the day after. So I think your summary is uncharitable, unless the Wikipedia summary missed something Trump said before.
I do not tolerate ANY extreme violence,” Trump said. “Defending ALL Americans, even those who oppose and attack me, is what I will always do as your President!
He does dunk on Whitmer. He also said he condemns violence and that he defends all Americans, even his opponents.
I'm going to stop going down the list here, but I'm sure I could find an example of Trump condemning the attack and disavowing political violence for each one of these. Yes, I realize this doesn't fit your extremely narrow criteria you defined, which I will question below, but it does provide some context for your summary of the events.
Why is this the requirement? The issue a lot of people had with rhetoric from the left is there were a lot of people who wouldn't even condemn the killing of Kirk or of any political violence at all. At least Trump had the sense to condemn the events before he starts dunking on his political opponents. Is there one instance where someone on the left engaged in violence or violent rhetoric and the left or the media offered nothing but a full-throated, unequivocal condemnation? I'd also like to note trump dunking on his political opponents is not an endorsement or excuse for political violence.
Why does it not matter? None of these events are equivalent to the Kirk assassination. Nor are they equivalent to a literal expression of wanting to murder the other side. Nor are the reactions to these events equivalent. Has Trump been calling for the literal deaths of his opponents, especially by shooting them? It seems unfair to demand the absolute best behavior from Trump while simultaneously waiving off any bad behavior from his opponents by saying you're not interested. Can we at least demand the left match Trump's behavior of condemning political violence before dunking on their political opponents?
I'm not sure this type of messaging will resonate with the right at all. One side watched one of their own get murdered in cold blood and in the aftermath watch a pretty significant portion of the left actively cheer for it. Why is it up to the side being attacked to try to "turn down the temperature"? If one side has people calling for the literal death and murder of their opponents and the other side has Trump making jokes about his political opponents, which side has more heat?
There definitely is truth to the notion that many on the right seems not willing to want to reconcile with the left anymore. Most of this rhetoric was in response to the response to the left of Kirk's assassination. I do think long term if no solution is found this will only continue to divide America. That being said, willingness to reconcile has to come from both sides, with both sides being willing to addresses bad actors on their party.
Could I get a source for this? It does seem alarming for Trump to have said Right wing extremists are okay (assuming he's talking about violent actions from the far right are okay).
So when democrat states and cities were allowed to do what they want, was it a failure on Trump? What are your thoughts on Trump now using federal troops to enforce laws that these places refused to do? Was there anything Trump should've done to minimize the damages caused by the 2020 protests?
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