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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.
When Charlie Kirk was on the up and up along with other figures like Candace Owens and Nick Fuentes riding the new political wave Trump ushered in, I can remember the presence of numerous conservatives who hated him for his gatekeeping of the mainstream within the new conservative movement. I'm not just talking about the Nick Fuentes faction either. Kirk attacked quite a few conservatives because they didn't fall in line by upholding the status quo of the mainline punditry and conservative mainstream. And that was a cheap and quick path to be catapulted into riches and be put in front of cameras. Nothing Charlie Kirk did was unique in the larger view of his activities. Fuentes is presently mourning over the loss, but the response I'm being hit with tells me even more right-wingers hated Charlie Kirk than his actual opposition does. There's quite a bit of celebrating here on my back end of things.
I think this is underestimating his influence. In the aftermath of the shooting I could not find the actual articles and videos, but I watched some discussion of Democrat operatives who were actually praising how Charlie Kirk was actually an exceptionally shrewd operator for Republicans, especially in the space of young men the Democrats are now talking about in the aftermath of the last presidential election - and I am talking about day-to-day operations, how his activities actually translated into voter registrations or organizational movement toward concrete political action.
He was apparently more than just some right-wing talking head or influencer with clips and gotchas on social media. He was able to organize, lead and move things on the ground politically - he literally cofounded Turning Point USA in 2012 and worked in the same way since then. Think of him as a combination of let's say Andrew Wilson or Ben Shapiro with their debate skills, combined with organizer like Scott Presler. I think he was a prototype of the new type of politician, which is rather rare. Not all internet influencers can translate their audience into mainstream success. It is a shame that he is dead, he really had a bright career ahead of him.
This all goes to the point I was making earlier. This is why I said he was good for the right-wing establishment, but was bad for philosophical conservatism. I'm sure he was effective when it came to mobilizing resources and support for the establishment cause, which is why the money began to flow in for him. It was all but guaranteed to happen if you're someone who says to the media establishment and major political power brokers that you'll uphold their cause and talking points if given their backing.
This is why I consider people like like Charlie Kirk a stooge more than some kind of deep thinker, because he wasn't intellectually sophisticated at all. I forget what the occasion was and can't find the video presently, but I remember one of Nick Fuentes fan's heckling him during a speech Q&A where he's droning on about the Bush tax cuts, and the guy practically rolls his eyes and says to the rest of the audience, "okay, does anyone here care one damn bit about the 'Bush tax cuts'?" This is what most people I knew thought of Charlie Kirk. What people wanted at the time he first appeared on the scene was the entire political framework of assumptions thrown out. Fuentes wanted a new set of assumptions, I'm not sure what Owens wanted, but several people no longer wanted to hear the same tired diatribe on repeat, because Trump himself in 2016 threw the whole political playbook completely out the window and a new generation of activists saw it as their opportunity to make change. People like Charlie Kirk were quick to prevent that change from happening by bolting down the same frame of arguments to stop the challenge to American political orthodoxy. This is why he was bad for philosophical conservatism. Not emblematic of a deep thinker.
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Can confirm, I never liked the guy, his whole shtick was delivering mild takes and being some one who could soak up the random normies so they don't discover anything more real. I'm really wonder why would anyone want to shoot him specifically, was it a glowie op to escalate tensions? Was it some deranged TDS leftoid who thinks a milquetoast nobody like Charlie Kirk is a real threat. I don't know. It's going to be interesting to see if the shooter has a manifesto.
A lot of people on the right didn't like him, but the only group on the right I know who really hated him were the groypers. Were there more?
The TRS/1488 crowd? Particularly the ones who are currently blaming this on Da Joos, like this specimen on Twitter:
Signals need to be somewhat unambiguous to be effective though. That’s why Putin conducts his assassinations with Russian-government-accessible-only poisons.
Agreed. I didn't say it was a good argument, just that this is another sort of person on the right who disliked Kirk.
Of course, just thinking aloud.
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A “trantifa” posted this the day before. Might be the shooter
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