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I'm shocked anyone is shocked. These people have not been quiet or subtle about wanting you dead for like, 10 years now.
Back when I used to live in Northern VA, and it was just assumed by everyone living there that an evil Trump supporter could not possibly be among them, you heard it all the time. The guy working at Trader Joe's who did their wine tastings and was friends with my wife making offhand comments about how great it would be if someone killed Trump. Chatter at the farmer's market around the local Democrat chapter's booth. The weird boomer-folk concert at Wolf Trap I got dragged to by my father in law that opened with an affirmation that it would be great if someone murdered Trump, and his supporters really don't deserve any sympathy either. The NYT publishing their assassination fan fiction, Kathy Griffin holding Trump's severed head, etc, etc. My mother in law got suspended from Twitter for Tweeting that someone should assassinate Trump. That guy who opened for Weird Al that went on the rant about how great it is that the unvaxed are all going to die.
It was only when Trump was finally shot at that the public, mainstream, casual calls for his death started getting tamped down slightly. Tenacious D comes to mind. Of course that didn't stop Destiny from saying it's a good thing an innocent bystander was killed, because that still means one less Trump supporter. Didn't seem to impact his career one iota, though it seems his unhinged behavior has finally dimmed his star somewhat in recent months.
There are stories like this all over that people are sharing, of living covert lives in deep blue areas, and the naked bloodlust on display constantly. If you think wanting Trump, his supporters, and his staff dead isn't a mainstream Democrat position, you have either constructed a labyrinth of cognitive dissonance about why it "doesn't count" because it's simply so common it's normal to you, or you are lying. And I don't care how many liars come out now with their mealy mouthed "We do not condone violence" rehearsed speeches. I refuse to forget the last 10 years.
Yes, a thousand times, this.
I think it was Seamus Coughlin on Auron MacIntyre's recent show who made the point that the Left have always been violent at their core, since they first began in the French Revolution and brought the Reign of Terror. (And I think it was Auron who went from there that this explains why they tend to ally with Muslims — despite all their differences, they're both violent movements that want sincere Christians dead.)
Edit:
And now we'll see what the effect on his popularity is from his current take on this issue:
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FreedomToons' video after the Trump assassination attempt satirized this quite well. "Trump supporters are already alleging that we encouraged the brave hero who shot at him." "There is no room for political violence against the Nazi who is a living embodiment of all our trauma." It's sadly not all that far from actual rhetoric.
There are a few principled voices who unequivocally condemn political violence, for or against their side. But that's not what engages people.
I'll toss out, I don't follow him a lot, or at all really. But Cenk Uygur is virtually the only lefty I've seen not 1000% on board the "Trump is evil and we must murder all his followers" train. I watched him argue for an hour with Krystal Ball, before I couldn't stand her anymore, that there was tons of populist common ground between MAGA and the populist left where progress could be made. That MAGA is not a cult, and they push back when Trump doesn't follow through with his populist agenda. That Don Jr and JD Vance are open to a lot of populist left proposals.
Krystal of course dismissed all this as hopeless because they're all brainwashed fascist and there is no hope in stopping or reforming any of them inside the democratic system.
Even now Cenk is saying that we need peace and reconciliation after this shooting, and because he's on the left, he'll apologize first. And I believe him.
Krystal's latest round of fake tears and pretending that blanket dismissing everyone who disagrees with her as capital F-Fascist who are irredeemable had nothing to do with this I find less convincing.
Thanks for sharing this bit about Cenk. I know very little about him but, in times like these it's heartening to discover that prominent members of your outgroup are more honorable and principled than you had assumed. A little ray of hope.
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Wow, yeah. Cenk's tweet is perfect. And I remember he was similarly classy and principled after Trump's near miss. He's way to the left of me, but it's clear that he's just a fundamentally decent person. If we could only incentivize having more pundits like him, political discourse in this country would be much, much healthier.
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Wow some niche internet gossip I rarely see around here! What the hell happened to Krystal? It seems like her brain is just fully broken at this point. She broke up her family to go marry the coworker she was obviously cheating with, and the show she in some sense started with Saagar Enjeti rarely features him anymore. The times where he and Krystal are together, they frequently end up just bicker: https://youtube.com/watch?v=fcLqYwo4Z4o
I'll be honest I used to watch their show daily, and even tried to become a premium subscriber. Now I'll tune in sometimes as a hate listen, and can rarely make it more than a minute or so.
I donno man. I was a premium subscriber since they started Breaking Points, they were my goto for live coverage or reactions to the debates or election nights. But I made it about a month into this administration before I just couldn't handle it anymore, unsubscribed after years, and told them explicitly why. I don't hate watch, or check clips, or anything anymore. It's best to make a clean break from people you were fans of. No need to add insult to injury watching their trajectory.
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Honestly, I always thought that one was in bounds. Killing your opponents in effigy is good clean political fun; I think Griffin got the outsized reaction because the head was so viscerally disturbing. There's a lot that you mentioned that's worse.
But we all know that if James Woods had posed holding an effigy of the severed head of Hillary Clinton he'd be accused of misogyny, inciting violence, stochastic terrorism etc.
There's not even a need to speculate: A rodeo clown in Texas lost his job for wearing an Obama mask. And the State Fair apologized profusely. One side of the aisle is considered out of bounds when it comes to mockery.
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Taken in isolation, perhaps it is in bounds. But the vast aggregate of other incidents drag it out of bounds IMHO.
Most of them came after, I believe.
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