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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.
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.
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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