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Well, when you thought the week was boring...
Charlie Kirk was just shot at an event, shooter in custody. There's apparently a video going around of the attack, but I haven't a desire to see it. People who have seen it are suggesting he was shot center mass in the neck, and is likely dead. That makes this the second time that a shooter targeted a conservative political figure at a political event in two years. If Trump hadn't moved his head at the last second, it would've been him, too.
I've never followed the young conservative influencers much, but Kirk always seemed like the moderate, respectable sort -- it's wild that he would be the victim of political violence and not someone like Fuentes.
I fear this is what happens when the culture war is at a fever pitch. Political violence in the US is at heights not seen since the 1970s, from riots in the 2010s and especially 2020 over police-involved shootings, to the capitol riot in 2021, to the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania, to the United Healthcare killing, to finally this murder of a political influencer. I fear for my country when I look at how divided we are, and how immanently we seem to be sliding into violence.
I guess I just find politics tiring nowadays. I vote for a Democrat and they do stupid things that conspicuously harm the outgroup. I vote for a Republican and they do stupid things that conspicuously harm the outgroup. Whether J.D. Vance or Gavin Newsom wins in 28, there will be no future in which Americans look each other eye to eye.
I actually believe things are much better in this country than people think: our economy is surprisingly resilient, we've never suffered under the kind of austerity that's defined post-colonial European governance, our infrastructure, while declining, actually functions in a way that most of the world isn't blessed with, our medical system is mired in governmental and insurance red tape yet the standard of care and state of medical research is world-class, our capacity to innovate technologically is still real and still compelling, and one of our most pressing political issues, illegal immigration, exists solely because people are willing to climb over rocks and drift on rafts simply to try and live here.
We have real problems. And intense escalations on the part of our political tribes are absolutely in the top five. We also have a severe problem with social atomization -- and these two things are related -- which has led to our intimate relationship and loneliness crisis, the rapid decline in social capital, and the technological solitary confinement of the smartphone screen which dehumanizes people like real solitary confinement while confining them to the most intense narrative possible. "If it bleeds, it leads" means that many will be led into bleeding.
I don't know how we rebuild the world, or come to a point where Americans of different views can view each other as well-intentioned. But Kirk is just the latest victim of a crisis that I don't know if there's any way to solve.
Kirk is (was) far more dangerous to the people who disagree with him than Fuentes is, though, at least by their stated belief of what "danger" constitutes. Fuentes is basically a nobody extremist, while Kirk is (was) a fairly mainstream right-winger who is good at talking to young people. I noticed this back when Jordan Peterson was rising, and there were plenty of comments about how he's basically a Democrat by nature of being a liberal and somewhat right-wing Canadian, making it confusing why he'd be getting so much hate from the left. But that's exactly what makes him so hate-worthy - his ideas and arguments were so close to the liberal left's that he could actually convince some of the less illiberal leftists to defect! Whereas the actual extremist white supremacists or neo-Nazis had zero shot at convincing anyone who was on the left. So why waste ammo on the latter?
Now, I wonder, is Kirk more dangerous to them as a martyr or alive? I suspect there's little enough reverence for martyrs right now that his death won't compel that many people to join his cause. However, I could see his murder as disgusting a lot of people away from the cause that he fights against and is not shy about openly calling for violence against people for their speech. Time will tell, I suppose.
Is the mainstream right badge something people actually want except for donors? He was pro warmongering in the middle east, prop wall street and pro the medical industrial complex draining average Americans.
Interestingly enough Fuentes has gained decent traction on tiktok among minorities and leftists because he is fundamentally opposed to elite politics. His coverage of Middle Eastern policies resonate with many in the left.
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