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Notes -
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.
ETA: Yeah, nvm. Bad timing delay between WSJ and posting.
So ummmm...I don't want to do too much Gribbling just yet, but is anyone finding it a little spooky that they don't have the shooter in custody yet? Are we adjusting our priors on what this looks like? The trans/antifa inscriptions are being walked back, which really confuses me because I don't understand how the detail could be wrong. Two different guys have been arrested and released. Now there's a picture of a person of interest, but that might not be the guy either?
There's of course conspiracy theories. This guy on Twitter said Charlie was worried about getting killed by Israel a month ago. Various leftists have called false flag, though that seems like macabre wishful thinking. There's been talk about internal rightist squabbling, but I don't put much stock in the idea that the Groypers have expert assassins on staff. Iran? But why would the IRGC hit Charlie Kirk and not claim responsibility for it?
It just feels odd in that my prior for the assassin was some kind of trans-something-or-other insane blue haired loser. I don't picture you they-them barista hitting a 200 yard shot and disappearing.
I suppose if the shooter gets caught in the next day or so, it'll all work out fine and I'll go back to sheepling. But it is definitely starting to feel weird, and if they don't have the shooter in custody this time next week...boy, I don't know.
Shooter is in custody. News conference ongoing. Turned in by his dad.
Edit: Antifa,
transfurry and Helldiver 2 messages on the bullet casings. Guessing that this moves toward treating Antifa as a domestic terror org.The notices bulge one is a furry meme, rather than trans. (Not even girls-with-dicks side of furry, afaik; I've seen it more from the gay side, and not just in the sense that I would see more of the gay side.) Kinda has escaped containment since it originated as a bit of an anti-furry thing making (fair) mockery of cringy RP conventions, so might just be general too-online reference.
Thanks for the correction. Updated.
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