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It is Okay to Think That Charlie Kirk was not Literally Jesus.
Charlie Kirk did not deserve to get shot in the jugular for expressing controversial political opinions. I actually agreed with many of Charlie Kirk's controversial political opinions. The thing about controversial political opinions though, is that lots of people don't like them. If you are a person who does not like Charlie Kirk's political opinions, here are some things that would be perfectly understandable for you to think or feel upon hearing the news that Charlie Kirk was shot and killed:
"Charlie Kirk once said gun rights are worth the cost of a few shooting deaths. Kinda funny now huh? I wonder if he's changed his mind."
"Sucks he died like that, but I'm kinda glad I don't have to see his tiny face spouting talking points anymore."
"Charlie Kirk was a massive hack. I think we should care about the kids shot at that school in Colorado more than him."
"Charlie Kirk wanted me kicked out of the country because of my political opinions. It's hard for me to feel bad for him."
To be clear, all of these are tasteless and (in my opinion) poorly thought-out, but they are well within the bounds of civil discourse. None of these are beyond the pale. None of these should get one fired from one's unrelated job. None of these are even close to inciting or advocating for violence.
I was shocked today when I saw a Republican Congressman announce a woke-era pressure campaign againt people who "belittled" the assasination. Apparently I have a much longer memory than many people. I still remember 2020. I still remember George Floyd. It wasn't just the riots, it wasn't just the demonization of physical policing tactics, it was the Orwellian psycholigical tyranny of not being able to express nuanced or contrary feelings about a tragic event. Never again. In a free society, people should be able to express their thoughts and feelings on major events, even if they aren't entirely thought-out or sanitized.
I think a lot of people have just been pushed over the edge by this. It hits all the visceral buttons:
Regardless of whether he was a saint or not, I can think of few plausible ways to make this more inflammatory than it already is. It's perfect rage and hate fuel. If it were Fuentes (who is an outrage-baiting dick) or a politician (who we expect willingly take on this risk to some degree) or even some friendly but unmarried talking head whose whole life was politics, people could rationalize it away. But many (myself included) see a guy who is just like them or their husbands or sons, and combined with seeing in Iryna their wives or daughters, it's just too much.
The time for dialogue has been over for some time now, but we have been able to maintain peace because frankly many grillpilled normies had their heads in the sand because facing the truth (risk of Yugoslavia 2.0) was too horrible to contemplate.
But this is impossible for many of them to ignore. Charlie will be sainted, regardless of who the real Charlie Kirk was, because the truth doesn't matter to them anymore. All that matters is winning.
What does that mean in practice? Start prepping for civil war because all remaining hopes for peace are futile at this point?
In my comment I was describing how I've seen some of my normie friends and family talking. I certainly do not hope for war, I think it's unimaginably destructive to society and the human spirit and would probably result in the end of American society as we know it (through radical transformation, not destruction), no matter who "wins." But given our trajectory, I think you would be foolish to not start making preparations to protect yourself and your family in the event that mass political violence breaks out.
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There are a non-zero number of offramps: sufficiently-decisive political victory that one side or the other capitulates, abrupt prosperity due to AI or robotics sufficient that everyone is too busy being insanely rich to care about politics any more, maybe two or three others. Potentially, Christ might return on a cloud to judge the Quick and the Dead.
The odds of you and those you know and love (and to be crystal clear here, this is a fully-general you, red, blue, grey, every human in the continental US) dying screaming increased significantly this week, and the action most likely to significantly counter that likelihood is to leave the country. What you see happening around you is happening because many millions of people want it to happen, and are willing to work to make it happen. Momentum and a good many other things are on their side.
This is a good time for the regular reminder to consult the chudjak's "things happening" charts. I predict that within two months, this incident will be out of the news and as forgotten as Luigi Mangione is now. Dedicated activist right-wingers will have added it to their long list of grievances against the left, but it will no longer feel fresh and visceral and pale against the volume and weight of other grievances like COVID and BLM.
When you are online and seething among the like-minded, it is easy to imagine that the rest of the people out there have just not caught up yet and once they do (let it sink in and come to share your feeling of outrage) surely the sentiment will boil over. In reality, the normies have already caught up and are actively in the process of getting over it and moving on. If the rage was not enough to cause riots on day 1, there will certainly not be enough on day 2, or 3, or thereafter; it's not like the US right has the wordcel or activist base to nurture mass secondary indignation in excess of the peak of primary indignation in response to the event.
I have long been in disagreement with @FCfromSSC about this, and I tend to agree with your rebuttal in general. However, we really do seem to be moving apart in ways that at least could eventually end in the sort of worst-case scenario he is predicting. Your argument that "This will be forgotten in a few months, this incident is not actually going to set anything off" is the sort of thing that's true until it's not. This incident probably won't be the one that triggers a civil war. The next one probably won't be. The US is stable enough that we can have many, many such incidents accumulate and fade into the news cycle. But no one can predict the exact confluence of circumstances that will make that one time be the one that does it. How confident are you, really, that the Next Big Thing has a zero percent chance of being the torch that lights everything on fire?
I still don't think we're going to see a violent Red/Blue civil war in my lifetime. Or more accurately, I hope we don't, but I actually don't think it's likely. But I admit my priors have updated to it being less unlikely than I once thought.
Seeing you of all people say this is a real indicator of what time it is.
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I dunno, man. It's not that you're even wrong here, per se, it's just that there's a certain "we're done here" quality about it. But who knows, maybe we'll just loop right back to the same old, same old.
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No, it isn't. If civil war breaks out Blue vs. Red in the US, it's going to be an excuse for every other [Blue-aligned] province of the American empire to descend into the despotism whose agenda they are even today ahead of the US in implementing.
The US is, and due to demographics is likely to remain, the least authoritarian Western nation (and any assertions to the contrary are made by Blues, who intentionally mislabel authoritarianism as freedom).
Looking at how things are going across the water, I'm not sure that will work any better for them than it will for local blues. The scenario I can see where we actually get durable blue totalitarianism is one where AI goes FOOM, it's alignable and they align it. Short of that, I do not think that future is going to go the way you are thinking it will go, for reasons that boil down to society being a lot more fragile than people appreciate.
All that said, the advice is not "go to Europe". Australia or new zealand, possibly japan, maybe some of the quieter parts of Asia would be my uneducated guess.
Unlike every other part of the Empire you actually managed to put reformers in office (and the reaction to that has resulted in at least one hard-Blue government being elected in another nation- one whose Blue-aligned voters have also been cheering this murder). Across the water, increasingly blue (as in, establishment/conservative) candidates are elected and potential reformers are jailed.
They have other things they need to deal with, too; I think it will be worse for European countries in particular due to their having imported a ton of foreign fighting-age males over the last 10 years. Not that these are the most violent specimens (those ones stayed home), but the capability is likely there for more mayhem.
Those places are under more Blue control than the US is (concentration camps for the uncommon cold, etc.). Singapore's probably the best option mostly due to their monarchy and being outside of the traditional first-world orbit while still being vital to its operations in Asia.
Ok, I'm a bit lost here. Which country successfully put reformers in office, and which other country elected a hard-Blue government as a result?
US. (Rs are Reform, Ds are Conservative, since about 2020.)
Canada. Technically across the water too, though nobody generally thinks about that.
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Something that is constantly invoked in heated political signalling competitions, but who actually does it? How many people have actually emigrated from the US following the elections of President Trump, for both of which I remember widespread threats of emigration? Yes, to be sure, a few high-profile media personnages have gone to Britain for a spell and given interviews about it, but that's hardly the exodus.
I think nowadays people who would claim to move to Canada just get off Twitter and onto Bluesky. It's a lot less commitment, but at least they actually DO it.
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I did it, once upon a time, and somewhat foolishly. Maybe I'm wrong this time too, but I don't think I am. If our society ruptures, it is going to get bad beyond the wildest imagination of even the people who've actually gone out of their way to imagine it.
Emigrate, or publicly announce intention to emigrate?
I actually moved to Canada for a couple years under Bush, and seriously considered renouncing my US citizenship.
Oh my, talk about dodging bullets.
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