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As always, disgusting. As always, it's going to backfire on whatever political positions the perpetrator holds. Dems are either going to have to moderate and cut off crazy fringe to avoid alienating the majority, or they'll just lose. Either way, whatever causes the shooter believed in are worse off for it. Abject stupidity and waste of life.
A man can dream.
Amen.
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Much like Republicans moderated, cut off the crazy fringe, or "just lost" after Gabby Giffords got shot in 2011.
There may be a short term reaction to this, but it's an off year so any electoral impact will be limited to odd local and state elections. Too much runway before we hit the midterms, there are by a normal year pace going to be a half dozen more mass shootings before that. The left might lose a few randomly selected commentators who are disgraced by their reaction to this, but by 2028 Charlie Kirk will be the conservative wonk's Lane Frost: a T shirt slogan, but no ongoing impact.
Possibly. I had thought there was more space between Floyd and the 2020 election.
I'm not expecting people to be specifically fired up about Charlie Kirk in 2026, but by the same token, 2026 is not shaping up to be 2018. From 2016-2018 we had massive protests and anger. From inauguration 'til now, it's been one thing after another taking the wind out of Dems sails and motivating voters on the right. Gun control, trans rights, racial equity are all 100% out the window until at least 2028 and even then I doubt the public will have much appetite for any of those issues, no? Isn't that forcing them to moderate and move away from the left?
But who knows, you're right that a couple years is a long time and I sure as hell wouldn't have had a good prediction record if you asked me in the fall of 2021/2017 what would happen that election cycle.
Gun control's back on the agenda. Banning guns for transgenders and also (checks notes) bolt action hunting rifles.
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I think you're wrong because of one very specific and personal reason. Charlie Kirk was a personal friend with most or all of the conservative and right wing pundits. The video of Megyn Kelly and Glenn Beck both getting emotional when they're live streaming and learn that Kirk died is all over the place. A ton of others - Ben Shapiro and the DailyWire gang, Benny Johnson, etc. also had really personal stories to share about Kirk.
So, a year from now, right before midterms, these people aren't going to make the cold journalistic calculation of what the remaining salience of Kirk is for their viewers. They're going to remember their friend and talk about him.
Gabby Giffords was, you know, in Congress. And presumably knew many fellow congressmen personally, who had no interest in letting the issue drop. She also had the advantage of being a woman, and of being horrifically crippled rather than killed, which is I think worse. The results in 2012 were, I suppose, a Democratic bump but moderate in impact: they added two seats to their Senate majority and bit eight seats out of the Republican House majority. The equivalent impact towards R next year would add up to the R's holding 227 seats in the House, and 56 in the Senate. Which would improve the Republican position quite a bit when trying to corral the loony bin for budget bills, but it's not the death of the Democrats.
And four years later the Republicans would return with much extremer rhetoric and win the Presidency, House, and Senate in a huge upset.
Charlie Kirk's death is unfortunate, but it's not some kind of win-now button. If it were, we would have actually seen a false flag before.
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I think there's a meaningful difference here, which is that per my memory, the Republicans did not endorse Gabby Giffords' shooting. I remember where I was when I heard about it, and the horror and anger in the room were more intense because of the strength of our right-wing convictions, not less. Insofar as I remember our reaction being ghoulish, it was only that we were worried we'd be blamed for it, not that there was any celebrating.
It's a while ago now, so I'm not going to claim I have the mood dead to rights, but I mostly recall Republicans quickly circling the wagons around avoiding gun control legislation more than anything.
What I'm saying that Republicans didn't do was moderate on their rhetoric, or disappear from public life. The modern Republican party is more extreme in its rhetoric in every way than the party in 2011, and it's in power. Mitt Romney vs Donald Trump as standard bearer.
What they didn't do was publicly dance on Gabby Giffords' grave everywhere on the internet within five minutes of her being gruesomely blown away live in front of the entire internet. These are not remotely comparable situations.
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This works both ways, of course.
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The biggest shock to me was that this happened in Utah of all places. That's like a fat, blue haired activist giving a lecture on transphobia getting shot in the middle of Seattle.
Relatively low security university, easy escape into low surveillance territory. Possibly suggests it's someone a little more thinking than the average schizo but who knows.
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This misunderstands the nature of blue vs red states. Even the reddest states contain blue tribe towns, even in the bluest cities the cops and construction workers are red tribe. At a glance, only in West Virginia did either Kamala or Trump get below 30% of the vote, with Kamala coming in at 29%.
No I get it. Just as outside the urban centers most of California is red. I always tell people whenever they ask, that I was born in "Red State California." It's just not the typical place people would place their bets on.
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That shows you the remaining divide between "Blue Tribe" and "Democrat". West Virginia isn't dominantly Republican but it is certainly dominantly "Red Tribe".
Red tribe democrats still exist, but They Are Old and a shrinking minority.
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I'm not sure what you're saying. West Virginia is dominantly Republican, the most republican state by vote share in 2024!
But even if you peel off half or more of that Democratic vote share as red tribe democrats and ignore the possibility of blue tribe Republicans, that still leaves 10-15% of the voters as blue tribe. Which is more than enough people to produce a single lone gunman, QED.
There's nowhere in the continental united states where you're more than a few hours on the highway from members of your outgroup.
I guess they are dominantly Republican now. But they elected Manchin and Byrd for many years on end, not so long ago.
Oh ok sorry I get what you're saying now. I agree West Virginia is certainly more Red Tribe or MAGA than it is doctrinaire partisan Republican; what I'm getting at is more that even in a Red Tribe state there are Blue Tribe individuals and communities within driving distance. Ergo it's not that surprising for there to be a (presumably) leftist assassin in Utah, or in turn a Proud Boys march/riot in the PNW.
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I'm going to reiterate the bit where a right-wing nut murdered two Democratic politicians in July, planned to murder more, and the right just brassed it out and said he was secretly a leftist. Why moderate? What's the point? Who will be swayed by it? Their enemies won't care and won't respect it.
The guy's motivations were all over the place and the footprint of the legislators was comparatively tiny. Trying to equivocate that to this public shooting is just insane gotchaism
IMO the point is valid: Both sides are perfectly capable of ignoring or quickly forgetting about political violence that hits the other side. But they do remember when their own side is hit.
What was the political motivations of the Minnesota shooter? Seemed like it never got confirmed one way or another
At least one redditor I reasonably trust to not lie through their teeth says it was confirmed it was about his anti-abortion stance but they didn't have a link convenient, and I haven't found any news article on the topic that confirms that.
You might need to reevaluate your trust in this unknown Redditor
/images/1757623501525839.webp
LOL will do!
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I just think trying to parallel the two is asinine. The whole legislators story barely even lasted in the news since it wasn't compelling enough once they figured out the shooter was more of a crazy person and nobody particularly cared about the victims enough to generate that level of notability.
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Well, when the guy said he was on a mission from Tim Walz it seems hard to brand him as a right-wing nut.
Though I agree there's no point in moderating. Don't think such a thing even lasted a day when Trump was shot and it's debatable whether there was any price for that.
The dude was definitely a right winger who was deep into qanon style conspiracies.
He could have also been crazy, the two are not mutually exclusive.
I would say for qanon the two are mutually required.
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I also am skeptical that this will obviously backfire. I think I have to admit that disgusting as it is, this is a pretty big win for the left, as Kirk was unusually successful at grassroots organizing and reaching young people. There will be 15 minutes of outrage obviously, but his effective work, which might have continued for decades, is done permanently.
The chilling effect is likely to be extreme, but that might cut both ways.
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Kirk would have been a serious contender for holding Office as well, maybe even higher office, it's a significant blow to the Conservative movement.
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They will not moderate, they will double down. Their base demands it. All bluesky is now alight in celebration of the murder. There are a lot of reports and posts in public of people celebrating, many more just do it privately. And I am not so convinced they will lose. Madmani seems to be doing pretty well, despite his open support of political violence and his absolutely nutty plans of building New-York SSR. I don't think we have revulsion to political violence as a common value anymore.
Reddit is a lot bigger than bluesky, and it is also full of this stuff. Reddit is a problem
More and more I feel like deleting reddit from my phone and nearly never visiting the site (it has been about a month this time) has been a very good choice.
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It's not Reddit that is a problem. Reddit allows the demons to reveal themselves, but it didn't create them. It's schools, academia, press, Hollywood and other cultural conduits that had normalized violence for years. Look how many teachers are publicly endorsing the murder. They all think it's completely fine, and encouraging more of it. And it's not like it's new - same happened after Trump assassinations and after Thompson murder. It's a deeply sick culture, whose sickness had been cultivated and endorsed for years, Reddit and bluesky just lay it bare for everybody to see.
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I doubt /all/ of them are. I have seen many calls for lowering temperatures, denouncing it, etc. meanwhile I have seen several highly popular right wing facebook groups that seem positively giddy that this might give them some excuse to kill leftists.
It is clear that your purpose in making that statement is political rather than factual.
Of course it's political. We have a party that had been calling all the opponents "Nazis", "enemies of democracy", "worse than Hitler", and thousand more variants, and it had led to a number of murders and attempted murders already (anybody remembers James Hodgkinson?). It's not like it's some kind of random occurrence, a meteor strike out of the blue, a random victim of senseless violence outburst. It's a predictable result of a coordinated and deliberate campaign of hate. Yes, not literally everybody on the left participates in this campaign - but all observable leftist spaces are ripe with it, there are hundreds of examples, and there is no meaningful pushback on it. We know how hard the left can push to drive out an unpopular opinion. This obviously is not one of those opinions. No prominent leftist figure - except for Sen. Fetterman, who is an exception in many cases concerning the left nowdays - had done anything more than rote "oh noes, we don't endorse violence, please keep on keeping on" kind of condemnation. And many of those who is doing rote condemnations now had been participating in the hate campaign days or weeks before. People on the lower rungs of the ladder don't even bother with that - the leftist press if basically "well, he spoke things we didn't like, what do you expect would happen?!" and the masses on social media are like "good job, let's have a celebratory drink, who's next?" Yes, not literally everybody, but enough to see where the dominating vector is pointing to.
So yes, this is a political thing and it's totally appropriate to discuss it as a political thing. It's a political murder.
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The only ones I see denouncing it on leftie spaces are saying “think of the backlash against peaceful democrats”
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I just went on Bluesky with a fresh new account and searched for Kirk and sorted by top and scrolled by around 30 posts before I found one saying the death of Charlie Kirk was wrong and it was still accompanied by "And Charlie Kirk was a horrible, hateful man who spent his life radicalizing young people to embrace their worst demons by targeting women, people of color, immigrants, and the marginalized."
Gavin Newsom did create a series of post trying to lower temperature and denouncing it. The top reply is calling this sympathy stupid because Gavin Newsome had something nice to say about Charlie Kirk. Most of the top replies are talking trash about Charlie Kirk.
We should expect politicians to denounce political violence, as they have skin in the game. The lack of top posts from non politicians showing any sympathy is pretty telling. I scrolled around 100 posts and found 4 sympathetic messages from top democrat leaders/politicians, 2 from people I don't know stating celebrating his death is wrong, like 7-8 news articles and the rest is a mix of gleeful, critical, or who cares messaging. " 80-90% of the top 100 posts celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk is about as close to all as you can in how the word "all" is used colloquially. Although yes I guess jarjarjedi could've been more precise in his speech I don't think it's far off from the truth.
I consider myself a dissident rightist harboring no illusions about this entire matter but I do sort of wonder – is there any school of thought that is not of the third/fourth wave lipstick feminist / liberal / ‘progressive’ variety that these posters would ever be willing to not categorize as horrible, hateful, radicalizing (whatever that word even means in their minds) and demonic?
Islam when considered as a distant belief system of oppressed people
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Interesting. I don't doubt you but I don't use blue sky. My reddit feed is not filled with anything I'd call celebrating. Many sarcastic "thoughts and prayers", and many pointing out supposed ironies about his stance on gun control, lots of " this is a bad for the country".
I don’t use Reddit, but I’ve been checking /r/politics periodically over the past 24 hours to see the reaction there. The reaction from the mods has been to delete every post about his death. Most of the comments I saw before the posts were deleted were either celebratory or smugly satisfied.
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I don't either, which is why I took a few minutes to check, and I'm sure if I dig deep enough I can find more people on bluesky who at least has the ability to acknowledge this is not something to be celebrated. I think this just means your feed consists of Subreddits with higher quality users, which I would not be surprised for someone who has come to the motte.
Yeah I clicked over to the "popular" feed on reddit, but, same thing? Maybe I am in a weird filter bubble
I have heard that reddit admins were rapidly purging anything celebrating his death from the site. There were apparently entire popular posts from /r/politics that were removed.
I don't think they'd be dumb to be concerned that this will kick off congressional hearings and summon them personally to testify under oath about the practices of their site. Not saying that it will or that they deserve it, but if it the killer was, say, a site moderator (low, but nonzero chance) or frequent poster, it seems possible.
Not to mention that corporate leadership are public-ish figures (see Brian Thompson), so it makes sense to cool it for self-preservation a bit too.
And also a third possibility, which I'll assume charitably is the most relevant: that they see the killing of political speakers as abhorrent.
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Bluesky is, as we speak, dogpiling Gavin Newsom for saying political assassinations are bad. Yes it is an exaggeration to suggest that literally every single bskyist is like that, but it definitely seems like a prevailing sentiment to me. "All [place] is alight" is less of a declaration of universal characterization across all individuals, and more a general description of the room.
It is very strange how I must be on the backfoot arguing that radical violence-enjoyer leftists exist, year after year, when they completely color every corner of the internet that isn't a total right wing bubble. Especially today, when I can engage with literally any left-leaning website on its own terms and see tons of justifications of this attack, and a sickening glee for it. I am sure emotions run high now even for me, but does this tell you nothing? Do you think these people do not exist?
I agree that there are a lot of opportunistic right wing extremists using this as an excuse to appeal to normies, by the way. These accounts were only looking for a pretense to violence pill conservanormies. Sure. But their job is extremely easy when you can do what I did and immediately find tons of people cheering the attack. This is not a fringe element you have to go out of your way to find, you will instead be shouted at for not embracing violence enthusiastically enough all across the usual sites. Are you not seeing it? The temperature is not lowered by the fact that these right-wingers are, by a simple glance at the state of lefty internet spaces, apparently factually correct in their assessment that the prevailing leftist voice wants their audience dead.
I was in the same position as Doubletree or 4bpp yesterday, reflexively ascribing this to a few left extremists nutpicked by the algorithm. But "he got what was coming to him, I have no empathy" really does seem to be the prevailing vibe on Reddit at least.
I've done well enough insulating myself from leftist online spaces after we left Reddit, I had somehow forgotten what it's like.
The News mods were doing their damndest to trim that while still allowing discussion, though - I recall them putting a temporary lock on the thread so thay could catch up with all the reports.
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I'm not saying these people don't exist. I'm saying two things:
The conservative fascination with politic violence goes far deeper than just a few "right wing extremist" accounts. This is just what the whole 2A/tree of liberty stuff is about. I
we are in this (bad) place because of a runaway tribal culture war dynamic. Highly emotive statements that are not measured or specific in their claims oftenmake this problem worse, not better, and so anyone who wants the temperature to decrease should be careful about how they frame their posts.
I have personally observed many sickening statements concerning, for example, Kilmar Garcia, coming from conservatives. what would your point be exactly?
I will just be upfront and tell you that my concern is because the reasons people list that make Charlie Kirk murderable are reasons that could easily justify killing me all the same. This from a great deal of people I know. Charlie Kirk's rap sheet is seldom even about any tangible Harms, but just having bad takes. That is why people are celebrating. This isn't equivalent to wishing ill will on someone who was factually an illegal immigrant. In a moral human nature sense these can be equivocated I suppose, and I don't actually think him spending the rest of his life in a Venezuelan torture hole is a just outcome, but I do not think that is a fair comparison to my neighbors implicitly expressing that they would want my arteries perforated if they knew better.
I understand where you're coming from. Though realistically these people celebrating, it's all performative, for all except 1e-6% of them.
theres a difference, but it's not huge. It's a crime to be here illegally but not such a crime that they deserve to be shipped off to a supermax prison, probably sodomized, etc.
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No it is not. 2A is not for shooting people who try to debate us. 2A is for shooting people that try to shoot us. Or apply other form of explicit, organized and widespread violence. Kirk tried to talk to people, that's what he was shot for. It's the opposite of what 2A is about.
Yeah, sure, that's the motte. The Bailey is shooting effigies of democratic politicians, brandishing firearms at unarmed leftist protesters, and posting up open carry at polling places.
Conservatives are more than happy to use firearms as a political intimidating tactic.
"Unarmed leftist protesters" are prone to physically attacking people, just ask Andy Ngo. And "unarmed" is such a weasel word - if somebody bashes you skull in with a brick, was he "unarmed"? What about metal bike lock? Skateboard? Plain old glass bottle? Or the same filled with petrol and set on fire? Given how easy it is to conceal a knife, is there even a way to know somebody is "unarmed"? Especially when you facing a mob dressed in a way that is specifically designed to make them intimidating? In some situations, where people are clearly behaving aggressively, it's only prudent to assume they may escalate - and take measures to deter then from doing that.
And have you heard about the group named NFAC? Using the initials only to make it SFW. To be clear, I support the right of these guys to own arms as much as any other person, but what they are doing with their legally owned arms is nothing but intimidation. And Black Panthers are know for posting uniformed big guys "unarmed" with clubs at polling places - just to make coming there more fun and welcoming, I am sure. So when discussing intimidation, let's remember that.
But the most important thing is this: if those conservatives would want to intimidate you, they'd say "stay away from me, or else". What the left is saying is different - "shut up and cease to spread your message, or else". And "or else", in this case, is clearly demonstrated as being murder. And the lower ranks of the left explicitly and enthusiastically endorse it. They don't say "how horrible it is that it come to that", they say "what a joyous day, let's murder Musk and Trump next!".
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I don't think this is quite right. The role of the 2A in both historic and contemporary normiecon consciousness is to provide for the capability of organized (i.e., militia) resistance, not terrorist attacks and political assassinations.
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Conservatives generally have a better understanding of the ramifications of violence, instead of the weird channeled Left tendency where 95% of groups are totally off-limits for wishing so much as a stubbed toe upon them and then absolute outlandish threats of violence on whatever the preferred boogeyman. Racism and Transphobia being held as the absolute worst things in the world (since they're approved targets), or the outpourings of deathwishes upon non-vaxxers
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Why would this make them lose? I mean, AIUI elections these days are decided primarily by relative turnout of the bases, not by persuading (or alienating) "moderates". And, further, it is also my understanding that an important part of increasing turnout is by improving morale. And, from what I see, what can better lift morale on that side, in this age of the ongoing Fascist takeover of America, than seeing brave compatriots engaging in successful #Resistance of that takeover, by giving one of those vile Nazis what they deserve?
Or maybe I'm just spending too much time on Tumblr (because that seems to be the mood there). Or I just remember too many clips from left-wing video streamers like Destiny talking about how Corey Comperatore deserved to die like he did because he was "a Nazi attending a Nazi rally."
Edit: and apparently Peachy Keenan agrees:
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