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Two Israeli embassy staff were shot dead late yesterday night as they were walking just outside the Capitol Jewish Museum. The Capitol Police have identified the suspect as one Elias Rodriguez of Chicago. Reportedly, Rodriguez shouted “Free Palestine” as he executed the couple, who were engaged to be married.
I have been meaning to write a “Civil War vibe-check” top-level post. My intuition was that the danger of such a nightmare scenario was receding, having peaked twice, with the mass-shooting at the Congressional baseball team practice game, and the George Floyd Riot/January Sixth Riot forming a stockbroker’s double blow-off top before a consistent decline in risk.
Recently multiple events have made me question this. The Zizian cult killings, the suicide bombing in Palm Springs over the weekend, and now this, make me feel like something is perhaps coming. Maybe not a full Syrian Civil War, but at least another Days of Rage similar to the period in the 1970s after the great wave broke and began to recede. I would appreciate hearing anyone’s thoughts.
OK, antifa can smash some windows, break some jaws, maybe even kill a trivial number of people. But, uh, the non-federal government groups who've demonstrated the ability to support an army in the field are all conservative aligned. If the Cajun navy(and supporting sustained search and rescue operations is a very similar task to supplying a field army, that's why it's what peacetime militaries do with their time) was backing a militia army it would wreak much more damage than any non-governmental group the left can throw. Operation Lonestar, likewise, was an impressive demonstration of capabilities in 'can support a field army'.
The democrats of actual importance know this. They know if there was a civil war they'd lose badly, and they also know that the history of left wing victories in civil wars is all about the revolutionary leftists immediately killing off their suit-wearing allies. So they will not start one. Antifa and the john brown gun club will be cut off to face the consequences for their actions, on their own. Americans are fat and comfortable and they don't want to lose that.
Why would the Democrats want to start a civil war? Most of the smarter ones are probably aware that Trump is unlikely to manage to turn the US into a Fourth Reich or Gilead. They can just chill out till the mid-terms and hope that by then, the repercussions of Trump's tariffs will have hit the median voter. Nor will Trump manage to root out wokeness in his term. Sure, things are unfortunate, but not unfortunate enough to defect against the US political system which has served them well for decades.
The only way in which right-wing militias would matter is if every branch of the US military decided to sit out an open conflict. I do not see that happening.
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In a second American civil war there are no winners. I suppose, like, Hamas and Russia probably win but that's not really what we're considering.
Status is positional and some losers are smaller losers than others.
Every (ordinary) American would lose status in such a civil war. I mean, sure, Barron Trump might end up king, or presumably we'd just adopt Barron as the traditional title. But the ordinary Red Triber would be poorer and lower status globally after a Red Tribe win than they would be in a scenario where civil war is avoided.
Iran would win the American Civil War.
Yes, they would. I don’t see a civil war scenario where Alabama doesn’t fall down to, like, post soviet purchasing power.
But I also don’t see a civil war scenario that isn’t sufficiently polarized for the goal of the two tribes to be ‘most money for myself’ as opposed to ‘hurt and subjugate the enemy’. Alabama may wind up like St. Petersburg, but that’s a significant improvement on Denver winding up like Grozny.
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You are correct that the violence is currently sporadic and unlikely to escalate. What you are missing is that a precedent is being set here for the level of background violence "we" are supposed to tolerate, but that standard is being set largely by social institutions that are predominantly Blue and are sympathetic to Blue violence. At some point in the not-to-distant future, I think it is likely that it will be Reds committing the sporadic violence. When that happens, the Blues are not going to want to tolerate it, and the Reds are not going to accept an abrupt demand for a return to order and decorum. That is when things will go sideways.
I'm confident we could game out how the conversation goes, right here and now. Sometime in the next five years, a popular Democrat gets topped by an assassin. Someone comes in here and says The Culture War has Gone Too Far, we have to get a handle on the violence guys, sure things happened in the past, but now it's serious, it's time to crack down on the hate and radicalism! How do you think that conversation goes?
I think you are being a little unfair here. I do not remember anyone on the Motte (even Blue folks like me) reacting to the attempted Trump assassination with anything other than disapproval. Maybe I didn't express enough horror and disapproval for you, but no one thought it was no big deal or worse, something to be encouraged. And by and large, I did not see that reaction even among my most leftie friends. Sure, TikTok was full of people screaming in dismay that the shooter missed, but do you think that actually represents mainstream Blue tribe thinking?
I think more Americans of all political stripes think trying to assassinate politicians (even politicians they dislike) is bad, than you are willing to credit.
Here, seconded by another gray/blue-leaning Mottizen. I will not pretend that I would not be happy if Trump dropped dead from natural causes, but the erosion of political standards inherent to his assassination would not be to the benefit of anyone who likes peace. (Besides, I think a dead martyr Trump would be a great boon for the MAGA cause, while from what I have seen so far this year, a live Trump who might even insist to run again in 2028 is much more of a mixed blessing.)
That being said, the prime example for the left applauding a political murder is not Trump, it is that UnitedHealthcare CEO. I have to confess that while I am against murder as a policy, especially when it is unlikely to solve the underlying issue, I am also not particularly upset about that one. A drug dealer can at least defend himself by saying that he is simply serving the forces of the market, while someone offering health insurance to employers is serving a twisted parody of a market mandated by US law and kept in place through continuous lobbying efforts. So sure, I am slightly less sympathetic than I am to some homeless person who gets stabbed by a psychotic homeless, or whatever the median sympathy murder is. Mostly, it is a distraction, what is wrong with the US health care system can not be fixed by shooting any number of CEOs.
I will grant you that it is hard to measure the real level of support for that killing by the average person on the street, but left leaning social media generally rejoiced.
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Indeed not. The general social thread between wishing Crooks hadn't missed / donating to Luigi / donating to Anthony / winking and nodding at attacks on Tesla owners and dealers has no representatives here that I'm aware of. And likewise, many and perhaps even most Americans don't approve of it. That doesn't stop that social thread from being both notable and significant, though, or from it having knock-on effects.
There's a fundamental disconnect here. It does not appear to me that you or indeed other blues here failed to express sufficient horror over the attempted assassination or these other events. What horror you express or don't express is entirely orthogonal to the point I'm trying to make.
The assassination attempt is bad. The evident social approval from broad segments of the population is worse. I understand that you are not part of that approving population, but you disapproving doesn't make them stop existing, and it doesn't undo the effects of them existing.
I do. I have family whose serious opinion seems to be that it's a tragedy Crooks missed, and who think Elon probably needs to die as well. I joined an artists' discord recently, and within the first ten minutes on the group chat someone dropped a "man, it's gonna be great when someone finally kills those guys..."
But we don't need to rely on anecdotes. The riots and their handling were a national barometer. The Tesla attacks and the reaction to them are a national barometer. Donations to murderers and the reaction to them are a barometer. And in the same way, treatment of the J6 perps, on both sides, is likewise a barometer. The readings are not good, and do not seem to be getting better. Fatally, this is a trend lasting at least a decade, and in that decade nothing productive has been accomplished to combat it in any significant way.
The number of Americans who think lawless political violence is bad is much less important than the number of Americans willing and able to enforce norms against support for political violence. I am arguing that the latter number is too low, and has been for more than a decade. This is not a problem you or I or Trace or even the whole Motte collectively can fix, but it is a problem we should be able to recognize. Neither moderate blues, nor indeed moderate reds, have found a way to reign in the excesses of extremist blues. The best they've managed is to stick their heads in the sand and pretend it isn't happening. The problem is that they are not going to be willing to do this when extremist Reds start playing tit for tat, and worse, the mechanisms to coordinate an actual response won't be there either, because the toleration of extremist blue misdeeds in the past will have destroyed any willingness to coordinate against extremist red misdeeds in the present. We've seen this dynamic play out many, many times. We're going to keep seeing it in the future, because there doesn't seem to be a way to stop it. It's hard to argue that we should even try, if the only way to get consensus on norm enforcement is when the enforcement is aimed exclusively at Reds. That is not a social structure worth defending.
We had the dueling fundraisers recently: blues donated to a kid who murdered another kid, and Reds responded by donating to a lady who got videoed called a kid the N-word. We had a lively debate about that. What happens when Reds donate millions to the red version of a Luigi or a Carmello Anthony? What are the predictable social consequences of that sort of statement? That's the question I was trying to communicate. None of this is a demand for action. None of this is a claim you or anyone else could have or should have done other than as you have. It is not a criticism of you. Nor is it support for Kulak or Kulakism; unlike Kulak, I renounce hatred and am committed to working against it. Kulak wants blood and chaos as a terminal value, I want peace and plenty very badly, badly enough to accept significant amounts of injustice aimed at me and mine. But we have gone from tacit support for thugs beating protesters to nationwide riots to dozens of millions of Americans openly supporting political murder as a solution to their perceived problems. What we have here is the creation of common knowledge.
Right now, no one is trying to enforce a norm against political violence. But what I am trying to tell you is that, right now, no one can enforce a norm against political violence, because the norm is already gone. This is not obvious because no one is yanking on the lever, but I am warning you that the lever is in fact broken, and it will be obvious that it is broken the next time someone yanks on it. It's conceivable that we could rebuild the mechanisms that lever connects to before we actually need to yank on it, but it's very obvious that no one is actually doing that.
'Blues' and 'Reds' is doing a lot of work here- neither fundraiser is representative of even hardliners for either side. The mainstream blue tribe opinion of Carmello Anthony is 'he should be in prison', even for hardliners. And the typical red tribe opinion, even among deep red types who might privately use the N-word as a derogatory, is that Shiloh Hendrix is a trashy lady who doesn't deserve our money.
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One thing I will note here is that Australia is not as far gone; we have two major parties, and both are hardline anti-riot regardless of valence. I think part of it is that the SJ rioters are in the Greens, not the centre-left Labour Party which is one of our "two parties", and as such the latter is totally fine with cracking down on SJ riots. I think another part is that social media mostly riles people up against US targets rather than Australian ones. There's a notable constituency for "it'd be nice if Trump got shot", but obviously that doesn't mean a great deal with the Pacific in the way and it mostly doesn't extend to Australian rightists.
The arrangement of politics in Australia is different and so support of political violence usually takes the form of supporting political violence by the state against dissidents. Why would the Australian blue tribe want to take matters into their own hands when the police will do it for them?
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On one hand, anyone is a broad term. But they probably don't count.
More seriously, The Schism had less commentary on all three assassination attempts combined, between Trump and Kavanaugh, in an entire year, than it spent debating whether Trump was fascist in a single week before the 2024 election. (answer: of course, it's just a matter of how fascist). Tesla arsons, Paul Kessler, new phone who dis?
That's the subreddit that came into existence
because people here didn't downvote a post FCfromSSC ate a ban over hard enoughabout advocacy of violence. Maybe direct advocacy is not universal among Blue Tribers (though I'll point again to Ken White or my tumblr feed and its regular DenyDefendDepose fandom), and maybe it's not here (modulo whenever Impassionata makes their next alt), but they don't care enough to comment on it; does anyone think there's a Blue Tribe locale that's going to be any stronger?But the existence of guillotine tumblr is besides the point: conflating universal advocacy with the limited loud disavowal is still comes across as a dramatic move of the goalposts.
The problem's going to come about the next time that Blue Tribers want Red Tribers to care about this sorta violence aimed at Blues, and everyone involved promises that they've got examples somewhere, just left them in their other pants. The Blue Tribers might well have genuinely opposed it at a deep level, personally. Just, you know, not enough to do anything, or even hear about it.
This isn't some purely theoretical example, nor one specific to political violence. But it's particularly severe, here.
Hey, I recognize that guy! A little long-winded but I have it on good authority he's roguishly handsome. Could use a haircut though.
Outside of a history book, I find no use in the word. My proposal to ban the word "fascist" instead (or in addition) went over like a lead balloon, and I've been told the imp will continue to get long-term bans rather than permanent in the interest of "not creating a certain kind of martyr." I am admittedly surprised by Imp's commitment to that user name there, rather than alting it up.
Any sort of commentary on political violence in a timely manner will summon erstwhile mod Numbers to put an end to the discussion. His suggestion of when it would have been allowed does not escape notice.
As well, what would there be to say? We know how such conversations would go. There's all of, what, 10 active participants in the forum? Even that might be a mild exaggeration. There are things I might learn or things I might try to convince, but I think a conversation there on the assassination attempts would bear even less fruit than most.
While I don't particularly feel like digging for it, my memory is that /r/BlockedAndReported was better on that front. They did have some "wish he hadn't missed" types but considerably more seemingly sincere "left-wing political violence is a serious problem, don't be hypocrites" types. Of course how much that actually changes anything, how they talk with their Blue friends when not in the explicit heretic forum, who knows.
That probably doesn't meet a satisfying standard of improved conversation, but the bar is set so low!
Yes. Doubly so that it wasn't happening during the quiet Biden weeks, either, at a time that 'punch a nazi'-style discourse was pretty endemic.
It would be nice to have an explicit 'political assassination is wrong, even when it's someone we think is really bad'. Because we don't really have that, and I don't know that the conversation would go that way. I was optimistic, once, when I brought Lackey's cancellation up over there. I didn't have high expectations. I don't anymore.
Hm. Not been a huge fan of them in the past, but will take a look. Thanks.
Yes. A good part of the frustration, for me, is that I don't think I'm asking the world and the seven seas.
Definitely a different tone and culture than here or even the schism, and a particular focus that can be frustrating at times. A few other Mottezans have made rounds over the years.
Indeed.
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To be fair, TheSchism has less commentary overall on everything because they don't seem to have the numbers for people following, joining, or wanting to get involved in discussions. Plus, they have their own different interests and emphases on what they consider worth discussing, and I think they try to avoid anything too Culture Warry. (Impassionata of course is their own unique case).
That's fair. Do you have an example of a community that is a) left-leaning, b) claims to be fundamentally opposed to political violence in all forms, and c) exists?
Ending Nazi Germany was political violence. I think this is too strict a criterion.
If someone wants to establish a more narrow one, I'll work with them on that. Or, if it turns into another two-step of 'i hate violence'-'punch the nazi', where 'nazi' includes everyone to the right of 2015 Obama, point that out. But I need something to work with.
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I explicitly called out Impassionata's escalating advocacy and tolerance of violence on TheSchism and it was recognized as a quality contribution. There are still Blue Tribers who see the same pattern of escalations that @FCfromSSC does and who lament that too few of our "allies" seem to be taking de-escalation seriously and would rather risk violence in pursuit of power.
[sans deletes]
I'm going to start off by saying that I am glad you wrote that, and I am glad that it got a QC. I'm glad that Impassionata got banned then, and last week, and whenever theschism mods get tired of it and finally banned Imp permanently I'll be glad -- and I don't often favor bans.
But I'm going to point out that it specifically in response to claims of 'right-wing' 'fascist' violence supposedly incited by Red Tribers, in 2023 long after BLM had ebbed; it does not name Red Tribers that were hit (excepting arguably a rhetorical flourish about police stations), but neighbors and friends.
((It's also an example that predates two of the three assassination attempts I'm commenting on, and doesn't mention the third.))
Contra expectations, I don't keep an encyclopedic assembly of every poster on every ratadj forum, and the good reddit search is down. Maybe I've missed something you've said elsewhere; maybe you weren't active at the right times; maybe you just didn't have a great opportunity. But understand why this is more an example of FCfromSSC's point than a counter.
I didn't intend to counter FCfromSSC--I largely agree with his assessment of the current state and trajectory of support for political violence in the US. I've noted both the progression and the fanning of the flames from leadership before. If reddit hadn't made it impossible to search, I'd dig up the comments from my old deleted account discussing how the Blue tribe needs to take de-escalation more seriously in the wake of the Congressional Baseball Shooting. And perhaps most relevantly, I argued that Blue tribers needed to be willing to tolerate a second Trump term to electorally punish Democrats for continued escalation rather than de-escalation during Biden's term in (I think) the last thread you participated in at TheSchism.
What I disagreed with was your assessment of TheSchism. As HereAndGone noted the primary reason (from my perspective anyway) we didn't discuss the assassination attempts wasn't a lack of caring but rather the inappropriateness of the forum. TheSchism was created for other topics. When political violence does come up, as it did in the thread I linked, we reject it. There's also little need to discuss individual instances of it given there's not a lot of difference of opinion on the topic among the regulars.
And I'll point out that (1) I live in an outer suburb with quite a few neighbors you would probably consider Red tribe and (2) I was explicitly arguing that the (Red tribe) J6 rioters should be taken much less seriously than the (Blue tribe) BLM rioters rather than the other way around. But if you really want to see me 'name Red Tribers that were hit', see the first two links above.
Fair.
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I stopped taking Impassionata seriously a good while back and now it's very difficult to parse out how much they genuinely mean, how much is a performance, and how much is them caught up in all the alts and clashing viewpoints to the point they can't remember what they mean now.
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I specifically said I don't remember, because I was pretty sure you'd post a link to something a banned troll said once.
Does the Schism care more about debating whether Trump is a fascist than whether shooting Trump is a bad thing? Yes, color me surprised. (And color me unsurprised your mad hate for Trace has you still harping on a nearly dead subreddit years later.)
I don't know if this is a dig at me or at the Schism or Blues in general. What, specifically, would you like me to have done about the attempted Trump assassination? If I tell you that indeed, I have gotten into fights (and been blocked/defriended) for arguing with lefties about how fucked up it is to cheer on political violence directed against people we don't like, I assume you will not believe me because I'm not giving you links so you can enlarge your dossier on me. *
You and FC are claiming Blues basically don't care about political violence until it touches them, and then they'll cry real loud about it. I think every tribe cares a lot more about their own side being hurt and the degree to which they object to violence done to the other side depends on how opposed they are on principle to political violence and suppressing other people's rights.
The popularity of Trace on X gives me some hope, the popularity of Kulak gives me less. I suppose for you those values are reversed.
* Yes, this happened. A small number, and most of my leftie friends agreed with me it was fucked up. But I've seen it.
"There's a big difference between all dead and mostly dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive."
Up until J6, and even then it's a hazy thing, Blue tribe has been famously more tolerant- supportive, even- of political violence. Left-terrorists get professorships, and that's if they even get called terrorists and not just "fiery but mostly peaceful demonstrators." Right-terrorists get the death penalty, assuming they survive whatever happened at all.
I don't want right-wingers to start getting professorships and scholarships and sinecures for being violent and destructive. All I want is recognition that actually, this is an important and real difference, or a better explanation of why it's not.
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Yep. I'd have linked two or more of I didn't have a class of students starting in ten minutes. The difference between didn't happen and don't remember it happening is kinda the point.
Yes, I'm rather titchy about the people who dressed themselves as paragons of Respect, Truth, and Peace, then instead grew up to throw around words like "moronic", are quite proud of 'pranking' into the epistemic waters or promoting Matt Yglesias, and not only can't find any reason to comment on attempted political assassinations or a guy getting beaten to death for political protest, but didn't wrangle up anyone who'd have a burning need to do so.
Do you have some better example? Going to explain why it shouldn't matter? Or are we just supposed to pretend history started yesterday?
Two years ago I told ChrisPratt that it's a problem that "Yet there's no TracingWoodgrains the news network; I don't think there's even a TracingWoodgrains the famous news caster." If it turns out that there's not actually a TracingWoodgrains the Redditor, on this topic, what am I supposed to be pointing at instead?
Blues in general. If it were just you doing it, I'd throw another reference to a recent post of yours. If it were just some people doing it, this wouldn't be a problem. Even if it were just the people here doing it, it wouldn't be a problem.
In the narrow sense, not try to hide a falsifiable and meaningful claim (did anyone here do X) behind a unfalsifiable and meaningless one (do you personally remember anyone here doing X). In the shallow one, it'd have been embarrassing for me if I'd had opened that link to the Butler shooting thread, and there was a big Amadan post talking about how this contextualized and heightened their concerns about political radicalization on the left, and I'd have liked to be embarrassed. I guess ChrisPratt tried? In the I'm-going-to-be-repetitive-and-obnoxious sense because dodging this matters here like every other time before, I'd have liked you to not moved the goalposts from FCFromSSC's "sure things happened in the past" to your own "no one thought it was no big deal or worse, something to be encouraged."
I'm sorry that you had that sort of encounter, and I give my sympathies and empathy if you lost friends over it.
I do, yes, think it would be stronger if you had something you could actually show, or a reference here contemporaneous to it happening instead of suddenly revealing under challenge, or if you didn't duck from 'it doesn't happen in real life' to 'a small number' where 'most' of your friends didn't agree, but again if it were just you I'd just be throwing a reference to a recent old argument.
More critically, I think it would have been stronger to start with that, than to start with "TikTok screamers" like this was only a problem in one website that doesn't really count.
No, I think that one tribe makes very very loud noises about how they are opposed on principle to political violence and suppressing other people's rights, all the time. They just don't act on that principle.
On the extreme side, the SLPC isn't shutting up about subtle threats motivating violence; they're just spending time focused on "male supremacy". (bonus points: did you know their podcast Apathy Isn't An Option? Betcha it doesn't have anything on this topic in a week!). Nina Jankowicz didn't crawl under a rock to surface in seven years time; she's quite happily promoting her brand and will never, ever, ever mention Tom Fletcher.
But if those are the nutjobs, where are the sane, reasonable ones? ChrisPratt tried after the Butler County attempt, but he's an army of one: most of the time people had literally nothing to say. What person terrified by the ultimatium thrown at Harvard yesterday ever spoke against Harvard-affiliated orgs doxxing Red Tribers? I'm not demanding that we find one individual that has such an opinion on all broad topics, or even that we find anyone willing to answer every single offense ever, but I'm feeling a lot closer to Diogenes than Lot, right now.
... I am going to be very, very polite here, because my first reaction to this bit involved profanity. I am not a KulakRevolt fan. I have never been a KulakRevolt fan. I have specifically highlighted him -- well before he went completely off the deep end and got braincored by Twitter! -- as an example of the sort of problem that actually contains what you and yours falsely accuse FCfromSSC or I of.
No. I think both the guy promoting rando violence, and the guy who says he hates rando violence enough to split apart communities for (banned!) comments, but only really can write about it when it's against his side are both bad, and I think it's actually a pretty serious indictment of society in general that they are getting anywhere near the coverage that they are, while anyone that really cares at best gets shoved into some third-rate Red Tribe rag.
This is why I often find the barrage of accusations you throw at me disingenuous. I do not claim history started yesterday or claim things "shouldn't matter." You are as usual throwing a tossed salad of vaguely related insinuations - Trace therefore lack of comment on political assassinations therefore something about a years-ago prank against LoTT (which I joined in condemning at the time, btw)...
I disagree with @FCfromSCC that we are at a point where there is no longer a norm against political violence, that this norm was destroyed by Blues, or that Blues in general are pro-assassination. I believe him that he encounters Blues on the regular who say things like this. If you say you do, I will take your word for it. While I probably am in a much more Blue bubble than him, I don't encounter them that often but it does happen. I think political violence is bad all around and I think most sane (not-on-the-Internet) people agree.
Now it's possible I'm wrong. Some Happening may prove me wrong in a tragic and terrible way. But for now I stand by my position, and I am tired of you vaguely (or specifically) implying I'm a lying hypocrite every time I say "No, actually, we Blues do not think that way."
Non-sarcastically: I read this three times and I am still not quite sure what you are trying to say here. (Other than that I am a hypocrite, for Reasons. I was able to parse that much.)
I have pretty good reading comprehension and I don't know why it is that I always find your logic hard to follow. If you'd like to rephrase this to be more clear (even if you feel a need to insult my intelligence and integrity again), I'll try to respond.
Doubt, but thanks.
Speaking of hard to parse, I don't know what "recent old" argument means; you could be talking about something I posted last week or something I posted back on reddit. But sigh fine, go ahead, what are you talking about?
This is another thing you do: I am sure you know I did not literally mean that zero Blues in the entire world have ever expressed sympathy with the would-be Trump assassin except on TikTok. So when I mention yes, I have encountered a few elsewhere, you act like this is a gotcha. Come on.
At one time I was worried about FC's growing accelerationism, but I have never considered him to be the same as Kulak. I don't really think you want to go Kulak either, you just seem pretty sympathetic to the argument that Blues have it coming.
While I agree with you that both advocating violence and refusing to condemn violence are bad, I think equivocating between Kulak and Trace is ridiculous. If Trace has failed to condemn the Trump assassination with sufficient vigor or you think he and Matt Yglesias and the SPLC only condemn rightist violence, fair enough, you can hold that against them, but I don't think it's remotely the same as actively advocating for violence. I don't think it's an indictment of society that a fairly milquetoast centrist like Trace has attracted a modest following and your feeling so seems to be purely based on your long-standing grudge. Kulak, a guy who, even if he's being 100% performative grifter, actively cheers school shootings and race war, is such an entirely different kettle of fish I cannot believe you're serious.
You asked me, to quote you, "What, specifically, would you like me to have done about the attempted Trump assassination?"
I gave you a list, of :
No, you just complain every single time I highlight past events or failures of past predictions. That's why I didn't say you'd claimed history started yesterday or things "shouldn't matter" ; it's why I asked whether we're "supposed to pretend history started yesterday" or "why it shouldn't matter". What reason does it not count that the subreddit that promoted itself on the importance of appealing to anti-violence blue tribers both couldn't find more than a dozen such posters and can't spare comment on one of several political assassination attempts? Are you ever going to explain why "harping on a dead subreddit" is wrong, or even engage with the matter, or is this yet another dodge?
And you're still not engaging with FcFromSSC's literal words, instead of throwing the goalposts out a third story window. "[A] precedent is being set here for the level of background violence "we" are supposed to tolerate, but that standard is being set largely by social institutions that are predominantly Blue and are sympathetic to Blue violence. At some point in the not-to-distant future, I think it is likely that it will be Reds committing the sporadic violence. When that happens, the Blues are not going to want to tolerate it, and the Reds are not going to accept an abrupt demand for a return to order and decorum."
I am specifically trying to avoid linking to one of the many, many previous arguments that we've had, since you've complained about three-year-old and three-month-old ones. If you really want me to select the most prominent and relevant one, I can, but my point here is that this is a broader problem than just you dodging any deeper criticism than "it's fucked", sometimes.
Which is why I didn't accuse you of literally meaning zero Blues in the entire world ever did that (contrast "like this was only a problem in one website that doesn't really count"). It's a gotcha that you constantly use this sort of phrasing to minimize bad behaviors by Blues, even if it would have been more serious engagement with the actual post to admit it happens but you challenge it.
No. My claim -- and I think FCfromSSC's -- is that enough Blues have completely abandoned any serious attempt at establishing neutral, consistent rules of behavior that are enforced consistently against even their own that any appeal to such rules is completely laughable to Reds, but being a hypocrite isn't a capital crime. The problem is that deserve has nothing to do with it; Reds are, with reason, going to laugh at any Blue overtures toward past norms, and they're going to have absolutely no trust that any newly-created rules will hold more than immediate scenario in question.
It doesn't matter if the Blue in question genuinely was really principled in the past, or even if they personally have records of it -- although I'll point out again we don't here for anyone but ChrisPratt. It may well be very unfair, in those circumstances. It's still going to happen.
Did I say "remotely the same"? No, I said they're both bad. For clarity, in words you might prefer, that "both advocating violence and refusing to condemn violence are bad".
This is why I keep nailing down your 'hyperbole' or rephrasings or turns of phrase; because we quite rapidly get into these debates where you try to swap my positions into something randomly and unbelievably -- literally that you "cannot believe you're serious" -- instead of what my literal words were, right above you, in your own blockquotes.
You're the one that highlighted his "modest following" on Twitter, but besides that, try reading that whole sentence, not just the part you like. "I think it's actually a pretty serious indictment of society in general that they are getting anywhere near the coverage that they are, while anyone that really cares at best gets shoved into some third-rate Red Tribe rag." I would really like deradicalizing and deescalating efforts to exist! I would like them to be recognized, and popular, and available and appealing to both sides of the political aisle. In a world where they did... well, I'd still be disappointed, but I can live with disappointment.
But the Litany of Tarsi wins.
We don't have those things. I'll point out that you could counter this whole argument by highlighting a mere handful of such groups -- that "Do you have some better example?" wasn't sarcastic -- and you haven't, and I don't think you can. We just have people deluding others and maybe themselves.
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I think that the relative numbers are less important than this statement suggests at first glance, that the relative status and distribution are underrated concerns by the statement, and that there's a great deal of room for people to consider something "bad" without actually meaningfully wanting to condemn or prevent it, until it's too late and the damage is done.
Luigi and Thomas Crooks are terrible and rare. Luigi stans somewhat less so on both counts. But people that will excuse them- "it's just stupid jokes, they're just young and full of passionate intensity, you've got to understand,
kids on campus" those people abound.So when considering a question like
I wouldn't know how to answer, it's too slippery. There is so much room for "but," hedging, selective attention, selective indifference that puzzling it out becomes impossible, and it is in those areas where the most damage is done to the social fabric. The sympathizer's shrug does more damage than the rioter's brick, because there's so many more of the former.
Do I think you or Scott would cheer if Crooks had hit Trump square on? Of course not. You least of all, and I'm sure your tragic post would be heartfelt and eloquent. But I'm not so confident Scott would feel a need to publicly mourn the return of political assassination to the US, and most mainstream Blue pundits would be vastly less bothered. He wouldn't be cold on the table before we'd hear "This is a tragedy, but-." Justifications. Excuses. Vibes? Papers? Redefinition of terms to not apply, so they can only be aimed one way? He was uniquely terrible! A threat to democracy! His rhetoric frightened desperate people!
All of those mainstream Blues would say, in a vacuum, that Political Assassinations Are Bad. But it would turn out this one is less bad, that we don't need to Have A Conversation about it, that it's unique and not a symptom of deeper rot. Nationwide rioters are just an idea. Wear a buffalo head into the Capitol, those guys are thugs and terrorists.
And likewise, to the right! Nationwide rioters are thugs and terrorists, Buffalo Guy was just committing mild trespass. If it had been Biden, no doubt Reds would be... well, having lots of fishing accidents, but also vaguely sympathizing, if they think they wouldn't be depersoned for it. I am not trying to cast one side without sin, here.
Only meandering along that the sympathizers should not be underestimated while we're making to not overestimate the actual advocates.
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I'm not so sure about this. I don't remember seeing anyone on the Motte reacting that way, but of the people I interacted with IRL in my very blue bubble I was the only one who wasn't openly wishing the shooter hadn't missed. Most at least had the good grace to only do so in conversations held in private rather than public locations, but they were said openly to everyone present to widespread agreement. How much of that was puffery versus how much of it was serious is another question...
I think the important question isn't whether or not they think it is bad, but whether they think it is or may become necessary.
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The broader media tried to make Rittenhouse, J6, etc into ‘a national conversation about Republican violence’ already. They failed. They failed at making the Robert Dear shooting and the Paul Pelosi attack 9/11 tier incidents. The media is already pushing a ‘right wing domestic terrorism’ narrative by calling spray paint at a planned parenthood worse than a church bombing.
More broadly, I’m skeptical that there will be a republican version of antifa. Republicans are just genuinely less given to crazy radicalism spirals. There’s also no mentality of tit-for-tat limited exchange of violence; the Republican ideology holds that when someone just keeps punching you you shoot them.
They failed? How so? If someone watches the NFL and whatever comes after the NFL would one not be persuaded in the direction that Rittenhouse is a murderer and J6 was an insurrection and the worst political act since the Civil War?
Read Groseclose. These people are still powerful even if they are not all powerful. The results of an election with a fair press would be Trump losing to his challenger from the right.
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Isn't it important to ask in this context what was the last time a popular Republican was assassinated? Because I have no idea.
The last republican president assassinated was Lincoln in 1865. The last successful assassination period was JFK. The last attempt was Reagan in 1980. In general, times of massive popular unrest, highly polarized politics. Not really something that I’d worry about.
No, Garfield and McKinley were both Republicans.
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No, the last thing I'd call a full-blown assassination attempt against a sitting president was in 2020 when some lady sent ricin to Trump.
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The last attempt was literally in 2024 (albeit the Republican wasn’t currently president but of course had been president and was running again)
You also had the Bernie supporter targeting the republicans in the congressional baseball game.
Does Teddy Roosevelt count? He had broken away from the Republicans to become the founder of the Progressives, and was shot while running for a third term, and like Trump and Reagan, survived. The political landscape at that time was so utterly different, though, I wonder how to count the other assassinations and attempts between Lincoln and Kennedy.
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What are these non government groups that have demonstrated this ability? Everybody seems pretty bad at this role.
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