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PaperclipPerfector  11mo ago (text post)   35557 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 15, 2025

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Welp, back from the penalty box/fishing trip and I've missed the whole shitshow last week.

So let's start there: How about that preference cascade?

We all had our whacks at guessing which point was peak woke. I feel uncontroversial in saying the past month has been the drop. A couple trans school shooter, the Charlotte train snuff film and the assassination of Kirk, all in a few weeks. A real perfect storm of narrative-puncturing events. Coupled with Trump in office, the economy not being too terrible (yet?), and the completion of the right-wing media sphere, I believe this is the the political realignment so long and so far incorrectly predicted.

First off, on the nature of the conflict: We are not at war, but the list of stages between now and then is getting very short indeed. Peaceful societies have to work up to civil wars. A generation of kids have to grow up with regular violence radicalizing them and turning into a reciprocal cycle. It must grow in scale, and eventually involve the tacit support of legitimate governments at the state and local level. And both sides have to build social, legal and financial structures to support their violent wings, even if they "disavow" some of the specific actions.

But these violent exchanges happen regularly and are regularly defused. The Days of Rage lead to Reagan, and we enter a new cycle. Reagan leads to the fall of the USSR, which leads to Clinton, which leads to Waco and Ruby Ridge which leads to Oklahoma City, and it was tamped down. 9/11 redirected the narrative and the direction.

If you want my "Schelling point" for when we are actually staring down the barrel of civil war, it's that you will be able to make six figures enlisting to fight for one side or the other. The reader can judge whether that's fair and exactly where our politics are in relation, but that's how I see it.

So we're not there yet, let's talk about the filthy politics of it all!

I lived through one of these preference cascades before, on 9/11. I didn't have the context for it at the time, but I do have some perspective now. The pendulum will not be kind to either side here. The Right spent the moral capital they gained by the destruction of the twin towers on two wildly expensive wars that destabilized large parts of the Middle East and fucked up our foreign policy for two decades.....so far.

The left spent the moral capital they gained from the right doing all that plus the religious ecstasy of the First Black President on ...well, you know.

I have no faith the Right will be any "better" this time around, because politics is people and people are assholes. Especially in large groups, especially when ingroup/outgroup dynamics are making them crazy. Moral certainty is a hell of a drug. A lot of social and legal norms have been thrown into the bonfire of Donnie Jay. The tech boom has entered the Monopoly phase, and neither our politics nor our society seems to be responding well to the adjustments needed.

Both sides of any conflict will have their aggressive, radical wings. To the degree each side keeps their radicals in check, violence can be avoided. But each time a real or perceived violent attack happens, it bolsters the radicals and weakens the moderates. There is no point running around looking for intellectual consistency, because groups are not homogenous and most people are hypocrites. To the degree the center-left allowed their radical wing to run wild, or fed their violent fantasies, the center right will have that much harder a time restraining theirs.

My takeaway from this whole process, spanning the thirty years of my political consciousness, is that no ideology can resist reality forever, and being in power, in control of the narrative, drives people to resist reality. Whether that's the "democratic aspirations" of third world, seventh century revanchists or the definition of "woman".

The pendulum swings, and the only time you can slow it down is when it is on your side. If you're on the right, look at the people on the left who have spoken out at various stages of these past two decades. Remember those names. They tried, too little and too late for sure, but even so and generally at some cost.

For those on the left, look at those on the right who are holding their convictions, who are calling for peaceful (even if hypocritical/oppressive) responses, rather than in kind, with blood, this week.

If you all can't feel closer to them than you do to your own violent wing, give the radicals a call. It'll cost you six figures per man, and a lot more than that before it's over.

Both sides of any conflict will have their aggressive, radical wings. To the degree each side keeps their radicals in check, violence can be avoided. But each time a real or perceived violent attack happens, it bolsters the radicals and weakens the moderates. There is no point running around looking for intellectual consistency, because groups are not homogenous and most people are hypocrites. To the degree the center-left allowed their radical wing to run wild, or fed their violent fantasies, the center right will have that much harder a time restraining theirs.

I'm constantly struggling over this both sides fig leaf people keep throwing out there for the sake of unity. This is only accomplished because they weigh January 6th against all the Floyd riots and all the Ferguson Riots, CHAZ/CHOP, the siege of the federal courthouse, attacks on the White House so bad they had to evacuate Trump during his first term, etc. It's a farcical comparison, but they keep making it. Even assuming Jan 6th was every bit as bad as they claim, they honestly believe it makes us equal? A single day of terrifying violence for legislators versus months and months of wondering if your town would burn down, or a mob would form outside your home, for years and years?

There is no unity, and there is no both sides. Nobody is afraid of the sorts of violence that erupts simultaneously in every city as when Democrats get restive. At most they are afraid someone might get it in their head to try to take a scalp of their own. But I'd be shocked if it succeeded. Remember it took the Left 2 attempts on Trump, a home invasion on Tucker Carlson's family, sending violent mobs after Supreme Court Justices, endless credible threats against Tim Pool and Nick Fuentes, before they finally got a kill. Charlie Kirk is just the 9/11 to the 1993 WTC bombing. They've been trying this whole time in a way the right hasn't.

They aren't even bombing transition clinics! Think about that. They consider violent extremism just saying "I don't think we should transition children". People used to blow shit up they didn't agree with. Thats how thoroughly they've framed the conversation, that your speech is considered violence on par with their actual violence. The only way the left could possibly get more violent is if their paramilitary troops (Antifa, BLM, etc) had actual military hardware instead of black masks and molotovs. Think about how much room the right has to get more violent before you start pulling "both sides" on me.

I didn't say anything about the relative grievances, that quote is merely descriptive of the structure.

If you want my position on Jan 6, it was barely a riot, certainly not an "insurrection". My father and brother were there, just not on the side where people went into the buildings. The only person to be killed was an unarmed middle-aged woman shot by security, the rest of the violence was very minor for a riot. Everyone involved even tangentially was punished all out of proportion to the offense. There's no equivalence to my mind between that and the regular drumbeat of destructive and violent riots the Left puts on, defends and refuses to punish.

You're illustrating my point, which is that it's hard for anyone who wants to argue the Right should not engage in mass political violence to make their case without running into the past fifty years of lefty activism, terrorism and assassination.

the rest of the violence was very minor for a riot.

Tell that to the 140+ cops who got injured https://www.policemag.com/patrol/news/15310988/140-officers-were-injured-in-capitol-riot-officials-say

Including

One officer has two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs and another was stabbed with a metal fence stake

One was beaten and tased until he passed out and another was attacking cops with a metal whip

After being pulled from the line of officers, Fanone was then beaten by rioters during one of the most brutal assaults on police protecting the Capitol that day. He was tased in the neck and eventually lost consciousness during the attack, where he had begged rioters for his life and told them he had children.

...

Andrew Taake of Texas pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers with bear spray and a "metal whip" on Jan. 6 and was sentenced to six years in prison.

Another threw a bomb at a group of cops.

There was also multiple pipe bombs planted by an unfound individual yet

One grabbed an officer by the back of their vest, pulled them down stairs and then beat them with a metal pole

Another hit cops with a baton he brought, and threw a speaker box at them

These are just a portion of the violence by Jan 6th protestors. And the property damage too, windows were smashed, offices were trashed and damaged and things were stolen off desks.

Total cost estimated around 2.7 billion dollars

Now of course, these criminals are just a small portion of the Jan 6th protest. There were tens of thousands of people there, many of whom were completely peaceful and not engaged in destructive behavior. Those people do not deserve blame for the actions of criminals just for existing in the same place together. Like members of any loosely formed group, people should be held individually responsible.

But that doesn't mean the criminals don't exist either. They do, and they were very violent and destructive. Both can be true, criminals exist and other protestors who didn't do crime aren't responsible for it.

That would make it what, 147th on the list of most violent/destructive protests in the past twenty years? Like I said, very minor.

That would make it what, 147th on the list of most violent/destructive protests in the past twenty years? Like I said, very minor.

If has about a 1 in 400 cop injury ratio seems pretty high, especially when it's significantly higher than even BLM (something else often called violent) and their cop injury ratio.

I agree with you, most participants are still peaceful. Most of any group are peaceful. And all those peaceful individuals deserve to be judged for their peace, not the behavior of criminal scum.

But relatively, yeah it was pretty high in the rate of criminal scum.

Great, make your worst-case scenario, let's take it all as gospel FTSOA.

The right has several thousand more fatalities and several trillion more dollars in damage to do before the ledger of riots is balanced in just my lifetime.

J6 was a minor riot that killed no one, and during which police shot and killed an unarmed middle-aged woman. There's no math that makes this the equivalent of even one weekend of BLM, much less the entirety.

J6 was a minor riot that killed no one, and during which police shot and killed an unarmed middle-aged woman. There's no math that makes this the equivalent of even one weekend of BLM, much less the entirety.

Is the only violence that matters to you death? Beating up a cop is still wrong, even if you don't kill them.

You're being obtuse. Nonfatal violence is less serious than fatal violence. It wasn't nonviolent, there were felonies committed, and plenty of people should have gone to jail over it. None of that makes it as bad as six months of terror, murder, secession, looting and arson.

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I watched all of the live streams as this unfolded.

I’m so confused because none of the violence referenced in your links was at all observable on any of the livestreams.

The only actual violence, that increased past the point of pushing and shoving - fisty cuffs, if you will - was that of Ashleigh Babbit who was shot as she tried to climb through a barricaded door.

It almost seems to have appeared post-hoc. Do you have any video evidence of any of this? It seems near certain that there would have been given how much was filmed.

Total estimated cost at 2.7billion… god someone did well out of this. From what I saw, I would have guessed several hundred thousand - a few million at most.

That $2.7billion includes a lot of things like costs spent increasing new security.

This amount reflects, among other things, damage to the Capitol building and grounds, estimated costs borne by the Capitol Police, the District of Columbia, and federal agencies, and estimated costs to address security needs and investigations as described in budget and funding requests, appropriations, agency estimates, and other publicly available information.

I remember seeing photo albums of the damage in the aftermath and it totaled up to like, 4 maybe 5 broken windows. Shared by a leftwinger, FWIW, though I suppose it could have just been laziness or incompetence.

Yeah I always look through these links for videos, but it seems to be entirely relayed stories or things that people eventually had to plead guilty to in order to get lighter sentences in the zealous over-prosecutions.

And then you get a game of telephone, where NBC news writes "an explosive device" that made a loud noise and apparently caused psychological trauma because some officers anticipated it might have otherwise been a dangerous grenade, in an article where they also mention (at the bottom of the article) the second worst explosive as "lit what appeared to be a firecracker, but it did not explode". And then here it's upgraded to simply "a bomb".

I’m so confused because none of the violence referenced in your links was at all observable on any of the livestreams.

A lot of it is done in the messier busier crowds where seeing what's going on is difficult. But yes we have videos like this and this.

Interesting, we also have video of a current DOJ official yelling to kill the cops

It almost seems to have appeared post-hoc. Do you have any video evidence of any of this? It seems near certain that there would have been given how much was filmed.

So yes we do, and if you want more you can just Google for the rest. Videos + police testimony makes for a strong case, cops don't generally lie about being attacked.

Thanks for sending - I hadn’t seen the second video, although I had seen the first - which is what I initially described as fisty cuffs - people fighting to get through the barricades but then the violence disappearing once through.

It’s definitely a dishonest comparison from you to compare the left’s rioting with the right’s, but fair to suggest that it should still nonetheless be disavowed as it definitely crossed a serious line.

It’s definitely a dishonest comparison from you to compare the left’s rioting with the right’s, but fair to suggest that it should still nonetheless be disavowed as it definitely crossed a serious line.

How exactly is it dishonest? Assaulting police is a crime, whether you're right or left wing.

I'm constantly struggling over this both sides fig leaf people keep throwing out there for the sake of unity... It's a farcical comparison, but they keep making it.

Always has been. The Che posters and shirts, the hammer and sickle posters and shirts, well that's "just a phase." Approximately nobody makes swastika posters or Goering shirts (if he weren't, ya know, a Nazi, the Nuremburg picture would make a fine meme), they're definitely not sold at university-sanctioned and hosted poster sales, and if they did exist they certainly wouldn't be treated like it's "just a phase." Anti-black racism, unforgiveable; anti-white racism, doesn't even exist, definitionally impossible. No right-wing terrorist has ever become a university professor or gotten an honorary degree from Cambridge. Et cetera and so forth.

The thing has, somebody has to be the better person if they want to keep a country. That sucks, it's difficult, it's no fun, it's unfair, illiberal, quite often you'll feel like a chump. If you want there to be any chance of somebody on the other side listening, you have to carefully couch your point, hem and haw both-sides, avoid any invisible fence collars (inverse dogwhistles, if you prefer to skip the article; only the metaphor is relevant to my point). Otherwise you trip their trigger and they shut down.

It sucks and I'm bad at it. Absolutely terrible at avoiding inverse dogwhistles. But I still believe trying is better than the alternative.

I've seen a different type of inverse dog whistle proposed before, one with some distinct similarities to this but also distinct differences. It was a "duck call", a meme intended to seem innocuous to your in-group but to provoke your out-group to reveal and beclown themselves. A rather pernicious type of duck call is a knowingly false argument that your in-group is much less likely to know or care is false; this type of duck call is also a loyalty test, in that it dares people who are otherwise on your side but are aware of your "mistake" to defy you.

Would you care to provide some current examples? I don't quite understand how these are supposed to be different from scissor statements.

The premise of scissor statements assumes, usually incorrectly, that the battle lines weren't already drawn before the scissor statement revealed them. Duck calls are more shibboleths deployed in an ongoing conflict, taunts that only the enemy can hear, taunts that will tempt them to cross the battle lines and say "alright, listen here, mister". Most supposed dogwhistles are at best duck calls, as they're supposedly hidden right-wing messages that mostly left-wingers care about. "It’s okay to be white" is a classic duck call of a more honorable type, as is the okay sign, or going back further, something like Black Lives Matter.

Here's a recent example of the dishonest kind of duck call. A lot of the "evidence" getting passed around that Kirk's assassin was a Groyper is very silly if you're familiar with anything being discussed. To properly refute it, though, you need to demonstrate some familarity with Groypers, and this won't make you more persuasive to people who want to believe it; it'll simply give them occasion to sneer at you for being familiar with the topic of discussion. The original example I saw referred to as a duck call was actually directly parallel to this but with the opposite political valence.

  • gender pay gap means society discriminates against women
  • trans women feeling happier after taking estrogen means they really were trans
  • higher gun violence rate in america is due to america’s high per-capita gun ownership

A whole world of social strategies waiting to be named! Thank you, this is also an interesting one.

The thing has, somebody has to be the better person if they want to keep a country.

Who's "being the better person" and who's "keeping a country?" I don't think they are the same group.

In addition to Jan 6, there was also the Tiki Torch thing way back when, which spooked people because it was white-identitarian but otherwise resembled a leftist protest.

I still maintain that a lot of this started when protesting became a social scene, a thing to do like going to concerts and shows, but with an incentive to one-up each other performatively and let mob mentality take over.

A single day of terrifying violence for legislators versus months and months of wondering if your town would burn down, or a mob would form outside your home, for years and years?

I live in a purple city directly bordering Portland, with its 100+ days of riots. There was even a Proud Boys vs Antifa fracas in a park 5 minutes from my house that made the national news. Yet, I never for one second worried about my town burning down or a mob forming outside my house. These "mostly peaceful protests" were still fairly isolated to very specific small urban areas. I guess if you were unlucky enough to live next door to a police precinct, you'd have reason to fear those things, but there has not been cause, IMO, for any general panic over these things, even near the heart of the problems.

I didn’t worry about a mob getting my house, quiet. But I (quite irritatingly for tax reasons) live at the far edge of sprawling city limits, and I hated getting texts from the mayor’s emergency alert regarding ‘citywide’ curfews (aimed at the greater downtown) that the threats were real and while not that close, closer than I’ve ever experienced. Watching enjoyable shops and restaurants be wrecked, likewise. Watching the ones that posted “minority-owned” signs in their windows and on Instagram being laughed at for thinking it made a difference (the mockers were right; it made no difference), likewise.

Minneapolis is 4 or 5 times further away than Washington but had far more direct impact on my life.

I was living in a ground-floor apartment in a nice/revitalized downtown area during 2020, and it was scary enough for a couple of days that I left town and stayed with a friend out in the suburbs. Windows were boarded up with desperate "black lives matter" messages scrawled on them to dissuade looters. Masked men dressed in black and carrying weapons were running around causing mayhem. It legit felt like law and order had simply collapsed around me. I can't even imagine how terrifying it must have been for my neighbors with young children.

Antifa has the capability to rack up a much higher body count than they currently do without improving their weapons.

They're very strategic in their use of violence for PR reasons. They're very aware of how much cover the media will run for them and trying not to step outside of that while still scaring and provoking their enemies. They know full well that their violence will be minimized while the violence of those they provoke will be exaggerated, and they use that asymmetry to control the narrative.

There is no unity, and there is no both sides.

Well, the idea that there are just two "sides" is also foolish. The conflict and lack of unity is real, and for that reason suggests a multiplicity of sides. You expect fractious human beings to just line up within one of these sides, out of just two sides? What are you assuming here, kumbaya unity?

The Jan 6 vs. BLM riots or whathaveyou is not an apples to apples comparison.

I had a BLM march a block from my house and damage done within a mile.

But BLM did not attempt to thwart the constitutional process of a presidential election.

Just focusing on "how much violence was there" or "what was the material impact" doesn't capture the badness of Jan 6 relative to more routine bouts of violence.

I agree that in general leftwing violence gets downplayed and rightwing violence is overhyped in polite society, but Jan 6 was quite bad as a political issue and could have been a lot worse if things had gone slightly differently.

Imagine if CHAZ/CHOP and Jan 6 switched political polarities and what would be said about them by the relevant sides. Obviously the Left would demonize CHAZ/CHOP and at least make excuses for Jan 6 being an attempt to oppose a very bad president. What would the Right do?

The riot on Jan 6 was a distraction, a representation of the real danger, which was the Eastman plan to attempt to present an alternate slate of electors and undo the results of the election.

This was way more dangerous than you’re letting on. If it had succeeded, then essentially any amount of violence from the left would have been justified, because the formal process of the election was undermined.

The rioters, sure, they were not as damaging. But seriously wargame the next moves in America if that plan worked. It’s not pretty.

this always present a funny dichotomy to me, where the left focuses on Jan 6 when certifying an alternate slate of electors was much more concerning

And the right focused on weird conspiracies around voting machines instead of the actual confessed conspiracy to delay vaccine trial results to prevent Trump from winning, at the cost of a 9/11 or 3 of elderly Americans come the next COVID wave.

Yeah, I think it’s mostly about what makes for better TV. A riot from people who you can allege are trying to hang the Speaker is immediate, visceral, you don’t need to know much to enjoy it. A plan to file paperwork wrong, deliberately, is comparatively lame. Could paperwork be that important?

It reminds me of that scene from the old Star Wars movie where everyone is voting away their rights in favor of an emperor. Or, if you prefer, the actual event I think it was based on, which was really two events: the selection of Marshal Petain as the head of an interim French government to negotiate capitulation with Hitler, and the subsequent vote to give him unlimited constitutional powers. The first was rather popular, as everyone thought well of Petain, and the second was forced through with the assistance of ruffians shouting down from the galleries and thuggish ministers physically blocking a floor debate. George Lucas preferred the first scene over the second, for some reason. Really makes you think, huh.

Or, if you prefer, the actual event I think it was based on, which was really two events: the selection of Marshal Petain as the head of an interim French government to negotiate capitulation with Hitler, and the subsequent vote to give him unlimited constitutional powers.

That particular parallel seems week given that the defining feature of the selection of Petain was that it happened to a country that had just lost a war and everyone knew that the new government was being chosen to capitulate to Hitler.

The more obvious parallel is the fall of the Roman Republic (the terminology of Republic/Empire/Senate is obviously taken from Rome). The obvious parallel to the specific scene where liberty dies to thunderous applause is Julius Caesar being declared dictator for life by the Senate. The consensus among blogging classicists seems to be that Palpatine's rise to power looks more like Augustus than Caesar, but Augustus didn't start taking on Imperial airs and graces until he had already held absolute power for several years, so there was no grand scene in the Senate marking the formal transition from Republic to Empire. There are also the inevitable parallels to the Reichstag passing the Enabling Law in 1933 - in particular the idea that the Empire is an assumption of emergency power to deal with an ongoing emergency (rather than a post-civil was assumption of absolute authority to restore peace, order and good government as was the case for both Romans).

Wikipedia's article on Palpatine gives a long list of historical dictators he might be modelled on, but clicking the links to sources shows that George Lucas was probably thinking of a combination of Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler.

a country that had just lost a war

This is the excuse that the defeatists gave in the moment, but in fact they had not lost the war, and de Gaulle went on to win it. Had he the advantage of the French fleet and a loyal army evacuated to North Africa (which the Germans could not touch, in accordance with what their generals were writing at the time and in retrospect), one can only imagine the process being smoother. The armistice question was also up in the air for longer than you suggest.

George Lucas was probably thinking of a combination of Caesar, Napoleon, and Hitler.

None of these were known as kindly old men in whom the country could trust in trying times and who was willing and eagerly voted excessive powers by a legislative body feeling lost and ineffective, which is Lucas’ text here. The first (whichever you choose) won a civil war and set terms. The second leveraged a generalcy into a coup. The third used a popular movement of angry young men to quell opposition and gain legitimacy. None were voted in by a deceived parliament thinking it was a jolly good thing too. On the other hand, Petain is actually a good parallel to the literal text. I suggest the Wikipedia analysis, insofar as it ignores the words, is misguided.

de Gaulle went on to win it

Lol Gaullist propaganda. The British, Americans and Soviets won it and the British and Americans graciously allowed de Gaulle to take some of the credit in order to ensure an anti-communist government in post-war France.

I wasn't relying on the wiki article for analysis - I was using it for links to interviews with George Lucas. The claim that Lucas was inspired by those three comes from his own words. My personal view is that the dominant historical inspiration for the Galactic Republic and early Empire is Rome, including via Isaac Asimov (Coruscant is obviously Trantor, and Asimov was always explicit that his Galactic Empire was inspired by Rome).

eagerly voted excessive powers by a legislative body feeling lost and ineffective

A fairly accurate description of how Augustus and Napoleon spun the grants of extreme power post-coup, even if it isn't what actually happened. As with Augustus, Caesar and Napoleon (Hitler is a grey area) the Senate meeting we see on screen was a stage-managed ratification of a coup that had already happened. And there is no vote on-screen, and canon material consistently describes the declaration of the Empire as a proclamation, not the result of a vote.

I suggest the Wikipedia analysis, insofar as it ignores the words, is misguided.

I wasn't there, but I don't think Petain was installed "to thunderous applause" given the miserable circumstances.

Lol Gaullist propaganda. The British, Americans and Soviets won it and the British and Americans graciously allowed de Gaulle to take some of the credit in order to ensure an anti-communist government in post-war France.

What do you mean? He organized military and paramilitary resistance to German forces and successfully negotiated with key allies to achieve his main war goals. What you’re expressing here is an astonishingly naive view on war: that it only “counts” if it’s all on the backs of your own troops. The reality of war is that the winner wins. Nothing else matters, although losers love to find excuses. Napoleon is a great example of a loser here - spent a lot of time making excuses in his last exile. Weygand too, from the safety of a country that other men liberated. I recommend against taking the perspective of losers.

And there is no vote on-screen, and canon material consistently describes the declaration of the Empire as a proclamation, not the result of a vote.

I don’t remember that detail from the film, but it has been many years. If that’s so, it’s so, and the comparison to Caesar would be more appropriate. (I’d hold that Napoleon in particular is a bad comparison. The representatives were deliberating over whether to declare him an outlaw when he came back with men with guns and dispersed them permanently.)

"The left successfully manipulated the information environment such that Americans voted the wrong way" is not grounds for overturning an election. As a matter of law and public opinion, the appropriate response would be "Sucks to suck. Git gud."

The weird decision was going after the voting machines first rather than running with the plausible lies about mass postal vote fraud from day one. In general, until Eastman takes over from Giuliani and Sidney Powell in early December, Trump's effort to overturn the election was pretty shambolic - particularly given that it had clearly been pre-planned.

"The left successfully manipulated the information environment such that Americans voted the wrong way" is not grounds for overturning an election.

Even if they used government force to do so?

Legally, definitely not. Politically, I don't think that type of attack has ever worked to undermine the legitimacy of an election anywhere, and it has been tried a lot.

The US is one of the few countries where there is no legal process to overturn an election on grounds other than the casting and counting of the votes. But in countries where there are other grounds to overturn an election, they look like "The candidate or his designated campaign team committed one of a short list of specified offences" - most commonly exceeding spending limits or knowingly accepting illegal foreign assistance. The idea of overturning an election based on some third party being biased in a way which it is not itself illegal is batshit - particularly if it is the incumbent claiming his own government was biased against him. But in any case using a legal technicality to overturn an election makes you look like a sore loser and typically causes you to lose the rerun election in a landslide.

Legally, definitely not. Politically, I don't think that type of attack has ever worked to undermine the legitimacy of an election anywhere, and it has been tried a lot.

In Romania, it was enough that a non-incumbent had a TikTok account. But it should be no surprise that the same government that "manipulated the information environment" would not accept that this invalidated an election.

As I said, legal processes to invalidate elections involve specific election offences committed by the candidate or campaign. In the case of Georgescu, it was (assuming that the documents released by the government were genuine) an absolutely blatant campaign finance violation - a million euros was spent on paid promotion of the TikTok account while Georgescu was claiming to have received zero campaign donations.

In normal times or if law remotely mattered, Giuliani's election contests would have stopped the counting and mixing of ballots and would have been successful in multiple states, definitely in Georgia. Giuliani wasn't the one pushing voting machines and was actually one of the people telling Trump to ghost Sideny Powell pretty early on.

No decision was made to focus on machines and machines weren't the focus of the campaign. Even a slight glance at any of the filed election contests should cure you of that claim, especially attempting to claim it was "clearly pre-planned."

The machine claims focus was something which developed post-hoc for a variety of reasons, but mainly because it was the one the media could pick up because its proponents, e.g., Sidney Powell, were increasingly deranged and their at least some of their claims were terrible and it could easily be made into a nonsense caricature. The areas which would have borne more fruit, e.g., signature checks and voter mail fraud, were meeting significant resistance in what was ostensibly Trump's own side.

The entirety of the GOP election game was unserious and clownish for various reasons, but that's hardly new. Any lawyer even remotely connected to GOP politics were getting many phone calls trying to scramble people into areas which should have already had pre-planned contests ready to go. Even among GOP "lawyers," few were willing to work for the Trump campaign in 2020 for a variety of reasons.

Although Giuliani was responsible for Four Seasons Total Landscaping, which was the most visibly shambolic moment of the whole affair.

okay, so then what?

nothing little in your post is remotely accurate with respect to the 2020 post-election campaign; it's just post-hoc narrative formation cherry picking anecdotes you read in friendly media

claiming the machines fraud narrative was "pre-planned" or "the weird decision was going after voting machines first" is just entirely detached from reality

because the formal process of the election was undermined.

the process outlined in the US Constitution is the formal process of how the winner is determined

the formal process of the election was undermined when laws were ignored, processes were illegally changed, legal requirements like signature checks were undermined or simply ignored, mass ballots were sent out, observers were removed, counting was done in secret, ballots were created, records were purposefully destroyed, even the lamest "time-out guys" court orders were ignored, etc., etc.

But seriously wargame the next moves in America if that plan worked. It’s not pretty.

could you describe it to us?

Sure.

Jan 6, a group of protesters gathers around the Capitol, some breaking in. They are under the impression they are demanding a recount and an investigation into fraud. Inside, a group of Trump loyalists inform the frightened Congressmen that they are demanding a corrected record, and there is no telling what they might do. A set of unfamiliar people, claiming to be electors, arrive and announce an alternative slate for Trump. Dissent is quashed by law enforcement, which says the situation is “dangerous” and that loud debate may draw attention. Pence walks in, and announces that in accordance with the text of the Constitution, he can verify electors. He verifies the new one. The people present do not know what to do, and do not oppose this move. Pence declares Trump as the continuing President.

Jan 7. News of this event comes out. America is immediately divided. Trump claims that he is President. Biden claims he won the election, and is now the president. Congressional Democrats move to invalidate the Jan 6 decision. Trump loyalists in Congress oppose the move strongly. Most Republicans aren’t sure what to do, and try to delay. A few days later, the first protests are organized and start. After nightfall they quickly descend into riots. MAGA counterprotests immediately follow. Mayors attempt to control the worst of it with riot police, but they increasingly struggle to control the crowds and opt to let the two sides have it out. News channels blast opposing viewpoints, and one-up each other in extreme language. Despite all this, things are eerily silent, and nothing really changes leading up to inauguration.

Jan 20. Trump arranges an inauguration in Washington DC. He deploys the National Guard around it. Biden, citing concerns for safety, withdraws to NYC and holds his inauguration there. Congressional Democrats go with him.

Jan 21. Biden, as President, orders the National Guard to defend him as he moves into the White House and displaces the pretender. Trump countermands that order. Both demand that the other be arrested. Some Guardsmen agree to support each side, and the civil war begins. What happens next depends on chance and individual conscience and is beyond predicting.

I hope I’ve made my point. The natural result of the plot was two people declaring their formal status as President at the same time. The moment one of them tries to exercise his executive authority you have a civil war. This is not particularly imaginative; this is what happens in history, over and over again, whenever you have a succession crisis that isn’t nipped in the bud. In reality, Trump backed down and the crisis ended. That was lucky. We were not guaranteed luck.

Thank you for typing that out.

I could have written the same thing about "wargaming" a stolen election from the opposition's perspective. Except we know that didn't happen, and I highly doubt it would have been any different had Pence refused to accept the electors from the states which cannot verify the results of their elections. The alternative slate of electors are not "unfamiliar people" anymore than the state-certified slate of electors are "unfamiliar people." The alternative slate were chosen due to how the process must play out given the outlined Constitutional process and deadlines. This has been done many times throughout US history. Trump's plan wasn't to simply accept the alternative slate of electors, it was to refuse to count the electors from some states and demand a debate and/or inquiry and if this failed to produce the required number of electoral college electors then the election would be thrown to the House, something which as been done multiple times in US history.

Why do you think the same comment would be wrong to have been written from the other perspective here? Eastman's plan wasn't to "undo the results of the election," it was contesting the results of the election.

The moment one of them tries to exercise his executive authority you have a civil war.

Not really. Much like each string of events you wargamed, one doesn't necessarily lead to the other. At each of these stages, the escalation can fail for a variety of reasons, much like Trump simply stopping and going home to Florida.

Whether this was more dangerous than pushing the COVID hysteria, more dangerous than race riots and burning parts of cities down, more dangerous than state executives unilaterally and illegally changing election rules, so that it culminated in stealing an election isn't obvious to me. Much like you believe Democrats are justified in using whatever violence to stop it, the same could be said at the time for those who watched as an election was stolen from them. Otherwise, the narrative means one side always loses which is eventually untenable and we're seeing some of that now.

The alternative slate of electors are not "unfamiliar people" anymore than the state-certified slate of electors are "unfamiliar people."

The description here is meant to evoke a plausible description of how the coup would be executed without being disrupted in the moment. In reality, it was disrupted in the moment, so explaining experientially what it would be like for the Congressmen on the ground matters. It’s not a contrast between this elector and that fake elector.

This has been done many times throughout US history. Trump's plan wasn't to simply accept the alternative slate of electors, it was to refuse to count the electors from some states and demand a debate and/or inquiry and if this failed to produce the required number of electoral college electors then the election would be thrown to the House, something which as been done multiple times in US history.

I think, in order for this statement to be supportable, you need two detailed examples. Then we can argue whether this was or was not comparable. But as it stands this is a bare assertion.

Why do you think the same comment would be wrong to have been written from the other perspective here? Eastman's plan wasn't to "undo the results of the election," it was contesting the results of the election.

Contrast the Bush-Gore kerfuffle. Immediately after the election, Florida law and Gore demanded a recount, which was immediately performed. Gore contested that result to the Supreme Court, which was decided in December. By the time that electoral certification rolled around the affair had been decided. Trump also submitted lawsuits, but these were rejected quite early. The Supreme Court was not willing to listen to him. So, by the time Jan 6 came about, the affair had been decided.

What Eastman proposed to do was not a method of contesting results. The results were already contested, and contesting them had failed. He was proposing to replace the results.

The analogy here would be if Gore had tried to declare that he was actually President and that the Supreme Court case was decided unjustly. Could you explain, without reference to facts of the election (because facts are the subject being contested in court here, and Gore and Trump lost in court), on a procedural basis, why Gore’s hypothetical rejection here would be invalid while Trump’s would be valid? Or if both are valid, what are the necessary and just steps that would then be taken to fix things and get a President in the two weeks leading up to the inauguration? Or do we not get a new President at all?

Not really. Much like each string of events you wargamed, one doesn't necessarily lead to the other. At each of these stages, the escalation can fail for a variety of reasons, much like Trump simply stopping and going home to Florida.

Absolutely true. I’m assuming that a successful coup on Jan 6 emboldens Trump and makes him fear for his safety if he tries getting off the metaphorical tiger. If he seriously attempts to hold onto power, however, it’s extremely doubtful to me that Biden just accepts it (because this legitimizes every future attempt in the same vein) and then you wind up with men with guns trying to decide which authority to listen to. The nice version of this is that they all pick one side or the other, and the nasty version is that they split roughly down the middle.

Notably, Harris did not even attempt to contest the 2024 election, and most of the same “election stealing” was in place from the last time. With all due respect, I don’t have much patience for the claim that the election was stolen. It is extraordinarily shady and motivated reasoning. I understand that the event must have been very upsetting, but the truth has higher standards. So forgive me for not really engaging with that half of your post. I just don’t see anything there to talk about.

The elections in 1800 and 1826 were decided by the House. For discussion about alternative electors, you can look at the 1960 Hawaii slate of alternative electors which were accepted by VP Nixon over the certified electors. In so far as a VP decided whether to count votes, Thomas Jefferson decided to open and count the electoral votes from Georgia despite them being obviously fraudulent thus awarding himself the presidency (well, after the House determined Jefferson should be President after Aaron Burr attempted to take it for himself given both received the same number of votes).

For a detailed discussion of the VP exercising the power to reject or pick elector slates, here is a response to a criticism by John Eastman which lists historical examples as well as many law review articles which discuss the topic and also clarifies exactly what Eastman's plan and advice was about what was to happen in Jan 6. Calling this plan "a coup," to be frank, is ridiculous.

Contrast the Bush-Gore kerfuffle.

Trump filed election contests well within the legal deadlines. These election contests were not "rejected quite early," with 6 of 7 contests still pending by the date of the safe-harbor elector slate certification in December. In Georgia, the court flatly refused to put the state required hearing and processes onto the court docket which resulted in an appeal, an order to do force them to do that, and then the trial court simply refusing to do it and then declaring the contest moot after Jan. 6.

Gores theory was much more limited than Trumps. Gore requested hand-recounts in only 6 or so counties and he hoped those election offices would find the ballots he needed. And thus those counties were indeed finding those ballots until GOP protesters/lawyers/rioters broke into their Broward County office and stopped them from making up ballots. It was this "recount" effort which was stopped.

What Eastman proposed to do was not a method of contesting results. The results were already contested, and contesting them had failed. He was proposing to replace the results.

No, there are multiple levels to contesting election results at the state and federal level. The winner of an the presidential election is determined by the process outlined in the US Constitution. By the date which electors were required to be certified, 6 or 7 election contests were still pending. Holding otherwise would mean states are required to abide by the illegal or unconstitutional election results of other states and have no way of contesting this, especially post-Texas v Pennsylvania where the SCOTUS laughably claimed a state doesn't have a judiciable interest in the outcome of an election.

Which was foreseen and why there is specific language in the US Constitution, a short document, outlining a process in the case of contest election.

Could you explain, without reference to facts of the election (because facts are the subject being contested in court here, and Gore and Trump lost in court), on a procedural basis, why Gore’s hypothetical rejection here would be invalid while Trump’s would be valid? Or if both are valid, what are the necessary and just steps that would then be taken to fix things and get a President in the two weeks leading up to the inauguration? Or do we not get a new President at all?

Gore didn't contest the electoral college vote. He could have. If he had and refused to count votes from Florida which would have resulted in neither candidate having the required majority electoral college votes, the election would be decided by state delegation from the House, as outlined in the US Constitution specifically to be a back-stop and ensure a winner would be determined during a contested election situation. Alternatively, the Congress could have set-up a commission to determine which votes they would count and for whom like they did in 1876. Alternatively, he could have counted an alternative elector slate and attempted to declare himself winner and then the joint-session would have decided what to do.

Harris did not even attempt to contest the 2024 election, and most of the same “election stealing” was in place from the last time. With all due respect, I don’t have much patience for the claim that the election was stolen. It is extraordinarily shady and motivated reasoning.

No. Most (I think all) states which were in dispute in 2020 either lost court battles over their illegal election process or made substantive changes to their laws which made the 2024 election better than the 2020 one. Also, there is a difference in kind between an election decided by 40,000 ballots in 3 states and millions of ballots across 8 or 9 states including the popular vote by approximately 2.5m ballots.

I've found people defending the 2020 election to be engaged in shady and motivated reasoning which essentially assumes the outcome, much like you do here and demanding a standard they know full well is impossible to meet even under the assumption substantial fraud took place. Additionally, they don't particularly care nor do they particularly have the knowledge about it anyway which makes dialogue about it mostly unproductive.

Under a defensible standard for election contests, i.e., making a showing that there are likely enough ballots in dispute which is higher than the difference in a race - interestingly enough the standard used by American courts everywhere except in 2020 where the standard was ignored or avoided, the 2020 election was stolen in the sense that it is impossible to truly determine the winner of the election. If you have interest, here is a relatively short article about the issue.

From Different Worlds

I’ve written before about how 46% of Americans are young-earth creationists, and how strongly that fails to square with my personal experience. I’ve met young-earth creationists once or twice. But of my hundred closest friends/co-workers/acquaintances, I think zero percent of them fall in that category. I’m not intentionally selecting friends on the basis of politics, religion, or anything else. It just seems to have happened. Something about my personality, location, social class, et cetera has completely isolated me from one particular half of the US population; I’m living in a non-creationist bubble in the midst of a half-creationist country.

As has been remarked on several times in the last culture war thread [1] [2], it appears Charlie Kirk was outside of most Motteizen's bubble. I was more aware of Fuentes and Groypers, which is ironic in light of all the people who heard of them 30 seconds ago and are now talking like experts.

From friends and family (And now Not the Bee), some prone to exaggerations, some not, I've heard multiple reports of churches having attendance exceeding Easter/Christmas levels. A friend of a friend claimed 1,300 attendees over normal, though this seems rather implausible, but several anecdotes mention standing-room-only situations and cars parked down the street from churches as people drove to their own. I was not able to go to church this Sunday, but I'd be curious if others have personal anecdotes. I'm guessing attendance at the Seven Sisters was normal.

Another anecdote that I want to share would be better if I doxxed myself. In the past, I have commented about my experiance with the Professional Managerial Class believing the Motte of wokism. I wasn't in the meeting, but I am told that the owners of said company were quite shaken upon hearing about the murder of Charlie Kirk.

I'm still getting the vibe that those on the left aren't groking why this is a big deal.

Aside: As someone who has made this mistake before, Ruby Ridge was under Bush Sr.; the Attorney General was William Barr.

P.S. Last thread appears to be the most comments in site history:

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 8, 2025: 3,000

Culture War Roundup for the week of September 5, 2022: 2,781

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 24, 2022: 2,775

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 10, 2022 2,708

Culture War Roundup for the week of March 27, 2023: 2,601

Charlie Kirk was thé normie con par excellence. He was incredibly popular among normie cons. Fuentes is not.

But also this was a successful assassination of a leading conservative figure. Of course conservatives are going to come out of the woodwork about how much they like him- he was one of ours and he was killed by one of theirs, simple as.

Kirk was unique in that he was the gateway between the normiecon boomer politics world and the underworld of bizarre lolcows. So he was very popular with normies, but there are also a ton of terminally online right-wing zoomers that liked him. One mistake everyone that is covering this is making is that young people don’t just follow a single political commentator. There are a good chunk of people that like both Fuentes and Kirk.

Interestingly, the left's attempt to paint the assassin as a Fuentes fan has really raised his profile. A real "choose your destructor" moment, and not one I think is likely to go well.

P.S. Last thread appears to be the most comments in site history

We've had people dooming and glooming over our decline, and while there were bigger thrads back on reddit, the primary reaaon for reduced activity is that nothing was happening. But when things happen, they happen here as well.

Depressing individual anecdote: I did not see even one new visitor at my church. We definitely need to figure out how to get our name out there more.

What type of church is it?

Lutheran (LCMS) out in the suburbs of a large Midwestern city. We have a large and lovely church building next to one of the area's most popular parks. However, the historical path of our congregation is that it boomed as the suburbs around it sprung up in the 1960s, and was very full for decades; but as that generation died off, the Gen X and Millennials that replaced them did not then start attending in their place.

It is a struggle to be in an area, as we are, with stable, not growing, population. And we're not near a big shopping center, apartment block or anything. I think all the time about how we could do more effective outreach. But our pastor is about to retire, and - as many on X have complained about in their own churches - didn't give a sermon on Sunday that would fire anyone up. Didn't mention Charlie at all. So I wonder if visitors will just turn around and think, "Nothing special here."

(I love Pastor, he's just winding down. He is very effective in many areas of his work. I just wish he would take on what's going in the world more often.)

Our church is growing.

I don't know that firing up is the best path for growth.

How's your community outreach, how are the small groups? People need a reason to participate in the life of the church.

I'm still getting the vibe that those on the left aren't groking why this is a big deal.

Anyone care to expound on that? Seems to pivot away from PMC company-owners being shaken.

I live in a deep blue enclave inside a blood red part of the country. Around here, people are still saying truly fucked up shit, but they're saying it in person when nobody has their phones out.

They're aware of the reputational risk, but they don't seem to be aware of the genuine anger from the right that seems to be driving it.

These Romney conservatives were willing to buy into the Motte of DEI and Woke - especially in finding Trump crass and distastefully - but in the face of the worst 2 weeks for the left I've ever seen large portions of the left decided to throw a party in the Bailey.

I've seen the people on Discord.

The pendulum has maybe slowed a bit. It certainly hasn't reversed direction.

Also, it may look like the pendulum has reversed because people are being publically called out for supporting assassination, but that isn't the pendulum reversing. It never was acceptable to support assassination, it's just that supporting assassination was about the only case left where the right kept enough influence to object.

I think all this civil war talk is massively overblown.

Let's consider Russia for a moment, in the 1990s. The economy shrank 40%, looters stole much of what remained. Millions of people are unemployed in a country that has no experience with unemployment, or their wages just aren't paid. If they are paid, often they can't buy anything. There are no working social services. Life expectancy dropped 8 years. It's really, really bad.

There are some extremely dubious elections, in a country which has barely even had a chance to get used to elections. The communists (numerous and well-organized) had many very good reasons to dispute them, given that capitalism had proven to be a massive disaster thus far.

The President (a retarded drunk) had the army shell the White House with tanks. Hundreds of government representatives and officials died. There was a disastrous war in Chechnya. It was the nightmare-fantasy version of what Trump will do to America but real.

Still no civil war! Rich countries with strong bureaucracies do not have civil wars unless there are extreme circumstances. I count Russia in the 1990s as a rich country - the US is extremely rich. US security forces have many things that the Russians didn't, drones and internet surveillance. And then there are the American nuclear forces, who have many good reasons to want to stick together and resolve things peacefully.

For a civil war to happen in America, the power of the government has to be broken. At minimum, there'd need to be a decisive military defeat by China prompting an economic depression and delegitimation of traditional authorities. But even then you might just get a socialist/fascist takeover or a breakup rather than a civil war. One dead guy does not cut it.

For a civil war to happen in America, the power of the government has to be broken.

It seems to me implicit in this is defining a (future) civil war in America to be between two armies, like the blues vs. the greys, or a large insurgency like the Tamil Tigers. I agree that neither of those will come to pass while there's still a strong central government. But a state of affairs similar to the troubles in Ireland (similar in methodology, i.e. bombings, assassinations, etc.) is within the realm of possibility if something doesn't change, though there's something inside me that insists we'll all come to our senses before that happens.

Presented without comment from the opening of Antony Beevor's "The Battle for Spain, 1936-1939":

'A civil war is not a war but a sickness,' wrote Antoine de Saint-Exupery. 'The enemy is within. One fights almost against oneself.' Yet Spain's tragedy in 1936 was even greater. It had become enmeshed in the international civil war, which started in earnest with the Bolshevik Revolution.

The horrors in Russia had undermined the democratic centre throughout continental Europe. This was because the process of polarization between 'reds' and 'whites' allowed both political extremes to increase their own power by manipulating fearful, if not apocalyptic, images of their enemies. Their Manichean propaganda fed off each other. Both Stalin and Goebbels later exploited, with diabolical ingenuity, that potent combination of fear and hatred. The process stripped their 'traitor' opponents of their humanity as well as their citizenship. This is why it is wrong to describe the Spanish Civil War as 'fratricidal.' The divisiveness of the new ideologies could turn brothers into faceless strangers and trade unionists or shopowners into class enemies. Normal human instincts were overridden. In the tense spring of 1936, on his way to Madrid University, Juian Marias, a disciple of the philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, never forgot the hatred in the expression of a tram-driver at a stop as he watched a beautiful and well-dressed young woman step down onto the pavement. 'We've really had it,' Marias said to himself. 'When Marx has more effect than hormones, there is nothing to be done.'

Like I said, we're not there yet. AOC is still pretty milfy for a politician.

In the tense spring of 1936, on his way to Madrid University, Juian Marias, a disciple of the philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset, never forgot the hatred in the expression of a tram-driver at a stop as he watched a beautiful and well-dressed young woman step down onto the pavement. 'We've really had it,' Marias said to himself. 'When Marx has more effect than hormones, there is nothing to be done.'

Very interesting. I look at frustrated Gen Z men and their disdain for licentious hot women and the men who get laid with them and feel something similar. They've overcome the stigma of being what my generation called "a hater" (and the attendant possession of a PhD, or Player Hatin' Degree).

If you want my "Schelling point" for when we are actually staring down the barrel of civil war, it's that you will be able to make six figures enlisting to fight for one side or the other. The reader can judge whether that's fair and exactly where our politics are in relation, but that's how I see it.

Interesting. Can you say more about this?

You'll know there's enough coordination that you don't need to worry about getting vanguarded into some quixotic coup attempt. If there ain't enough people behind it to fund an army, your side isn't ready for war, and should not try to fight one. Be nice until there's enough coordinated meanness that you can make a good living at it.

Do you mean official armed combatant employment? I just have a hard time imagining the ad on Indeed, apart from it promising you'll be On The Right Side Of History, or right-wing-equivalent-thereof.

People already make 6+ figures being demented culture warriors on Twitch, Youtube, and T-T.

Think oil pipeline security facing off with NGO-funded armed protesters, or CIA-funded terror cells sniping at the FBI-funded terror cells.

There exist people who make that much, but it doesn't scale: a random person can't suddenly decide "I'm going to be a culture warrior" and reliably earn a six-figure salary from that career decision. For every person that does, there will be dozens who languish in obscurity and make no money.

No, actually enlist to fight, whether as mercenaries, militia, regular military, paramilitary etc.

Do you mean official armed combatant employment?

Official as in companies or parties openly funding paramilitary groups like militias, PMCs, beefing up their own security departments.

or right-wing-equivalent-thereof

He evidently thinks you'll be able to make 6 figures working for either side.

People already make 6+ figures being demented culture warriors on Twitch, Youtube, and T-T.

$100K is not as much as it used to be. There are plenty of military members in the US that make that, not to mention civil servants working with the military.

I have to admit that's a pretty solid indicator.

A couple trans school shooters

More than one?

Fixed

One was FTM.

EDIT: Missed the context; no, that one wasn't from the last month.

Something that's getting frustrating to me around the discussion of Charlie Kirk's assassination (man it feels weird to say that) is that conservatives are being told to eat the Paul Pelosi attack as a right wing thing.

But the attacker (David Depape), was, if he was even capable of holding any sort of political position at all, not even remotely right wing, at least not in any way that any right winger would identify as a bedfellow.

The guy lived in a bus in Berkley, CA doing drugs in a polyamorous sex cult. He clearly went completely insane, then attacked Paul Pelosi. This is the type of thing that conservatives are trying to stop. This event is neutral at best, and more realistically just left-wing cities eating themselves. The opening paragraph from a sfchronicle article about his daughter is one of the craziest I've ever seen:

Last year, as her father was making national news for allegedly bludgeoning then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband with a hammer, Inti Gonzalez was sleeping in a drafty garage. Her mother, a prominent Bay Area nudism activist, was in prison for attempted child abduction.

I'm also getting sick of hearing that the right wing is supposed to eat January 6th. We've had every single right wing politician "disavowing" this for the last 5 years, despite the fact that the only person killed on this day was a right wing woman.

January 6th was one day of protesting which followed months of protesting by left wingers.

Generally my frustration is this idea that right wing and left wing politics and expressions of those politics are equals, or just different poles of an ideology. They're not. One of my favorite articles: https://newdiscourses.com/2020/07/woke-wont-debate-you-heres-why/ expands on what I mean.

(No the woke won't debate you, here's why - required reading around here imo)

These two ideologies, western liberal democracy, which the conservatives are still, maybe stupidly, trying to work inside of, and some bastard form of revolutionary marxism, are not two sides fighting over territory. There's no compromise where we meet in the middle. It's winner take all - either we remain a western liberal democracy, or we don't.

I think people are waking up to this, which is good. Sam Hyde's video today about this was pretty good: https://youtube.com/watch?v=_czBvLB-DwY (watch the first 5 minutes at least, please. It's good.)

JD's video was also really good (a slightly normie version of the same message): https://youtube.com/watch?v=ngofqx9EfcM

Okay, I looked into why people think the Paul Pelosi attack was done by a right winger, and it took me five minutes to find the audio tape of his interrogation the day he was taken into custody. He starts by bringing up Hillary Clinton and the DNC spying on Trump, and how Nancy Pelosi was always lying on television. You can hear him break down when he talks about, "the record-breaking crime spree the Democrats have been on for the last four years." Then he says he wanted to hold Nancy Pelosi hostage to make her finally tell the truth.

All that stuff Schellenberger brings up sounds nice and convenient, and maybe back when he wrote the piece (the day after the attack) that was all the information the public had, but we have more information now. This isn't really a mystery anymore.

If it's possible for a guy with right wing views to also live in a van in Berkeley doing drugs while part of a polyamorous sex cult. Than shouldn't it also be possible for a left wing guy to be against political corruption, spying on political opponents, lying, etc.?

If you want to define your political categories in a way that allows you to avoid labeling as a right-winger a guy who commits a home invasion against Nancy Pelosi in order to get her to admit to the lies that Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Convention have been using to undermine Donald Trump, then go ahead. You do you man.

Yea people oscillate between hanging you for who you are/what you do and what you say. Progressives claiming Robinson's upbringing and demographic profile make him actually right-wing e.g.

A ton of weird hippies went rightwards after Covid, arguably the most prominent one (who is also not known for living a particularly conventional lifestyle) now being the Secretary of HHS. I'd hardly expect all of them to immediately join a church, get a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence, become monogamous and/or drop their drug habits.

RFK Jr. didn't "go rightward". He remained where he was, in the same kooky fringe, while the left pulled up stakes. His alliance with Trump was pure alliance-of-convenience (and a damned good deal for him), not ideological alignment.

I don’t think this is entirely true. There is leaked audio of Trump and RFK talking on the phone and Trump is expressing skepticism and concern over how babies get so many vaccines so early. That’s a subject that also comes up periodically in Trump’s pre-political career tweets, including his much memed “...AUTISM! Many such cases!” Tweet. It’s partially a marriage of convenience, but it’s only possible because both Trump and Trump’s base are casually but broadly sympathetic to a lot of RFK’s causes.

Nevertheless, RFK Jr. has been consistent. He didn't move.

Whatever his views, he's now on the Team Trump, a clinching factor in itself.

Clinching what? It doesn't make him a right-winger. He's the same kook he's always been. And in any case, it's specific to him; he didn't accept the deal on behalf of the "association of hippies with kooky views".

Yes. What's considered "the right" is a very big tent. The evangelical Christian white guys who love NASCAR, pickups and guns and have strong opinions about the rebranding of Cracker Barrel are just a subset of a very diverse whole.

Besides what you've already mentioned, Kirk was assassinated publicly in the middle of a livestreamed debate. I have a hard time thinking of any comparable examples besides the JFK assassination and even that's a stretch.

The online left seems incredibly frustrated right now. They are trying to link Paul Pelosi and those two MN “lawmakers” deaths to the right. I don’t think it’s working at all. Normies are not buying it. They’ve got very weak arguments and you can tell they’re losing the messaging fight and trying to throw whatever they can at the wall. Nothing is sticking.

P.S. has anyone else noticed this new “lawmaker” noun? I just picked up on it in the last few weeks but it’s absolutely everywhere. Has this been the case for a while? This is such a strange euphemism. Google says it’s because it’s gender neutral, but I don’t recall this from the time when we were changing all the other gendered words. It seems like there’s some other objective here with this change than gender.

Isn't "legislator" already gender neutral?

has anyone else noticed this new “lawmaker” noun? I just picked up on it in the last few weeks but it’s absolutely everywhere

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%203-m&geo=US&q=lawmaker&hl=en

It really does seem abrupt. My personal assumption is somebody sent out talking points, though I couldn't predict who.

Not long ago there was a document put out by some dem affiliated think tank that discouraged the use of offputting (pregnant person) or technical/academic language (overton window) so i'm guessing using lawmaker over legislator is an part of a broader attempt to avoid appearing out of touch/highfalutin.

Good ole Anglo-Saxon words over Latinisms.

What's wrong with "overton window"? Someone saying they want to shift the overton window is a very strong signal of their goals, and if they're using the term it's because they want other people to know what their goals are and how they intend to achieve them.

They considered it to be too obscure for the average voter I believe.

I commented above, but it’s nothing so nefarious (probably) - the AP’s influence on news headlines does a lot of heavy lifting. Idiosyncratic phrases and rare synonyms can easily become popular in bursts.

P.S. has anyone else noticed this new “lawmaker” noun?

See Google Trends. I hadn't noticed this month's spike, so I'll say no.

I've seen it used as a generic term for Senator, Member of Parliament, Member of the Legislative Assembly, City Councillor, and various foreign equivalents for at least a few years now, and didn't notice anything odd about it.

P.S. has anyone else noticed this new “lawmaker” noun?

I actually like it. All 50 states have different legislative structures. Most use the typical terms "senator" and "representative" for members, but some don't. It's a lot easier to just use the generic term "lawmaker" for every state legislative body member. They could use the fancy term "legislator", but that means the same thing while being less understandable for those citizens who couldn't pass government class.

This hits on both things I dislike. The academic/liberal/PMC power move to suddenly change words and pronunciation to signal in group status. And dumbing down language even further. Really, legislator is too fancy? Though again it’s also some sort of radical egalitarianism that where people can virtue signal that they’re considering the uneducated in the country.

I feel like you may be projecting a lot of meaning into it. To some extent all groups do this. I work in data science and boy let me tell you, buzzwords come into vogue so fast it makes your head spin. Famously kids often invent new vocab or participate in language trends on purpose to signal ingroup status and awareness, but adults do it too, and not exclusively politically. It’s not usually deliberate, it’s life.

It’s also inconsistent that you think that re-introducing a previously more rare word dumbs down language. Isn’t an expanded vocabulary usually a sign of higher level language, not lower? It’s not as if “legislator” or “senator” or what have you are less popular or obsolete, much less low status to say.

Don’t get me wrong: focus group messaging firms do impact political word choice. I can even name drop one (though a Republican): Frank Luntz. But they don’t always work, and don’t always show up. He pushed for energy exploration instead of oil drilling in a 2003 memo, and climate change instead of global warming in a 2002 memo, but as far as I can see, neither actually wholly replaced the other and although the choice might signal something, it’s not so obvious. In fact climate change actually got adopted by the left!

A sort-of peer of his on the left, the don’t think about an elephant guy George Lakoff, pushed stuff like climate crisis/emergency instead, and public option vs government healthcare, and stuff like that. Not all were so enduring. Yes, the 2016-2023 era had a decent amount of leftist word policing of “bad” words, but that’s not related or analogous to this objection at all. Your radar is misfiring.

Democrats would like to distance themselves from this lunatic. Republicans successfully distanced themselves from those lunatics. Is it any more complicated than that?

And now you’ve got me confused about the “lawmaker” thing. I’m normally pretty darn skeptical of Google trends, but it’s not subtle. Wikipedia starts with legislators, though the Responses section prefers lawmakers. CBS, CNN and NPR appear to favor lawmakers, as does Fox. The Guardian was the only one I found that uses both terms, and I suspect they wouldn’t have bothered if there weren’t two uses in one sentence. Even OANN gets in on it!

This is definitely some sort of fad, and I have no idea why.

This is definitely some sort of fad, and I have no idea why.

Maybe they decided most people were too stupid to know what a legislator was. Probably not wrong.

Our unmight has beteemed Norman sway over the English tongue for scores of years, but this is forestalled at last! Do not let "lawmaker" afear you! It betokens our folkright eft wending to the better, and the begetting of the Anglish uprising!

(yeah, I've got no idea ken either; I just find it amusing mirthful that "lawmaker" is the word for "legislator" in the Anglish dictionary wordbook)

Have you read uncleftish beholding?

Long ago; I loved it! It really was the epitome of "Modern" Anglish, where words with no non-Romance-descended English equivalents get rederived from old Germanic-English roots, as opposed to texts which merely use existing but antiquated non-Romance English words.

To be clear, though, I love this stuff in a for-entertainment-purposes-only way; one of the best things about English is how, after it "has pursued other languages down alleyways to beat them unconscious and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary", we've ended up in a state where every concept has three times as many ways to express it, each subtly different in meanings, connotations, formality, rhythm and rhyme, etc. Adding new Anglish formations to English would be fun (though if I was the Emperor of English I'd prioritize it way below things like universally-phonetic spelling), but actually replacing and removing non-Anglish words would be silly.

For that matter, I'm happy to have new Anglish formations remain reminiscent of but not actually part of English. I bookmarked that Anglish dictionary for use as an RPG game master, to draw words from when players roll a Linguistics check that's almost but not quite successful at translating a dead language their characters only partially understand.

I mean zoom out the graph and the baseline rate sees a very small gradual rise. Part of the issue is that the AP News wording is more viral than you’d think and more news outlets than you’d expect outright copy headlines in some form. (Or plagiarize)

It’s definitely Jan 6, 2021 that is when it starts going. Again, copy and paste I strongly suggest is the issue! This is non representative but contains some front pages on Jan 7: I stopped counting at 30 front pages, but exactly 20 of them mention “lawmakers” in bold headings. Phrases repeat suspiciously: “lawmakers duck for cover” dominates, and variants like “lawmakers hunker down” and even “lawmakers duck to find cover”, “lawmakers are forced into hiding”, etc. and sure enough, AP News article from the evening of J6 (I assume the date is wrong, shows J5 on the website which is clearly impossible) has “forced lawmakers into hiding” in the first paragraph. AP is a news wire service, by the way, deliberately designed for this purpose; and yes, I think it’s harmful to press freedom and true expression because the coordination effect is too large (popular however because it saves $$ since local papers are encouraged to basically paraphrase rather than write fresh copy, meaning fewer man hours and even more so the case when on a time crunch).

To me it’s a somewhat memetic natural process from there among the smallish club of news headline writers, with spikes on particular popular topics or articles. That’s why you see weird patterns, I actually expect such, precisely because of the AP (Reuters also has a similar effect but smaller).

Has this been the case for a while? This is such a strange euphemism.

It’s been a stock journalistic phrase for as long as I can remember and doesn’t seem strange or euphemistic to me at all. You never heard on the nightly news in the 2000s, “Lawmakers on capital hill are proposing a new bill to…”?

It is really interesting to see different Political Weirdo Forums' assessment of public mood re: the Current Moment. Because they're... all over the place.

has anyone else noticed this new “lawmaker” noun?

It picked up like a while ago as a catchall for elected officials (especially sub-Federal). It's suitably generic so you don't embarrass yourself by accidentally calling a county councilor a county boardmember, plus it sounds more impressive to quote a "lawmaker" instead of county board member from Tumbleweed County.

eat the Paul Pelosi attack as a right wing thing

I've seen this with the Minnesota shooter and now the Charlie Kirk assassination. Some online types VERY VEHEMENT about "No! This person was not left/trans/on my side at all! He was a radicalised far-right nutjob!"

Re: the Minnesota shooter, funny how "you're trans if you say you're trans" and any critique of self-identification is violence and transphobia, up until the point the trans person does something that would reflect badly on the rah-rah LGBTQIA++ left side, then they're right-wingers and No True Scotsman all along.

Ditto with the Kirk shooter: no, he's not a lefty at all! He's pure white nationalist right-wing! Uh, he's ex-Mormon, living with a boyfriend, said boyfriend is trans and in the process of transitioning? Nope, up-and-down right-wing!

But the attacker (David Depape), was, if he was even capable of holding any sort of political position at all, not even remotely right wing, at least not in any way that any right winger would identify as a bedfellow.

He was a Blue Triber who was radicalised by right-wing content online (but had no involvement with the GOP or any organised right-wing group) and went on to attack a left-wing politician. I think that counts as right-wing political violence, although not a particularly worrying kind, and definitely not something that right-wingers should be collectively punished for. If Tyler Robinson turns out to be a Red Triber who was radicalised into killing a right-wing politician by left-wing content online (but had no involvement with the Dems or any organised left-wing group), then the right are reasonably going to consider this left-wing political violence. The President has already called for collective punishment of left-wingers, as have several Motteposters. We don't know much about Robinson's motives or sanity yet, but the scenario where the only morally relevant difference between Depape and Robinson is that Robinson could shoot straight is currently very plausible.

Heck, we have right-wingers trying to claim the Crooks shooting of Trump as left-wing political violence. There is far more evidence that Depape had a right-wing political motive than there is that Crooks had any political motive at all.

Depape (who was delusional, but clearly not severely enough to be legally insane) was saner than Routh (who fired his lawyers after they suggested running an insanity defence), and Routh is getting counted as left-wing political violence.

We've had every single right wing politician "disavowing" this (i.e. January 6th) for the last 5 years,

No you haven't. You had Donald Trump doubling down on this for the last 5 years, and you made him President while drumming the right-wing politicians who disavowed it out of the GOP and calling for them to be prosecuted (which I agree hasn't happened yet)

What even is there to disavow with January 6? For a brief shining moment some dogs caught the car and an unarmed woman was gunned down in cold blood. The latter of whom would be a national martyr with 50 biopics if it had happened in Seattle.

One relevant difference between Tyler Robinson and David depape(who granted does seem to have been motivated by right wing prolefeed conspiracy theories, although not of a kind that are necessarily uniquely right wing) is that Robinson was immersed in living a lefty lifestyle with the trans partner. Depape was still a hippie.

That seems immaterial to me.

Actually seems very relevant. One's right wing beliefs were basically words, and could be molded to a general worldview which was not terribly right wing. The other's left wing beliefs were part of how he lived his life.

What I'm seeing is not that the attack was rightwing, but that the Right was very crass about it.

What I saw was mostly random gotchas of 'HAVE YOU CONSIDERED THIS ALSO HAPPENED' and then a bare link without really engaging much with what really happened.

It was a very strange situation tbh some guy in his underwear broke into pelosis home and hit him with a hammer? It didn’t sound like targeted political violence (because it wasn’t) and there have been rumours about Paul’s sexuality for awhile now

These two ideologies, western liberal democracy, which the conservatives are still, maybe stupidly, trying to work inside of, and some bastard form of revolutionary marxism, are not two sides fighting over territory. There's no compromise where we meet in the middle. It's winner take all - either we remain a western liberal democracy, or we don't.

Marxism had already infused itself into the Western world by the early 20th century. Anarchism dates even further back. America has long had strains of socialism, communism, anarchim, Marxism in certain respects of academia and labor unions, yet this hasn't stopped 'free market capitalism' and 'liberal democracy' from thriving. The compromise is the far-left remains marginalized despite having some popularity online and campus, as it has been the past 60-100+ years in the US.

A similar pattern is seen around the world. Every country which has elections will have at least one fringe socialist or Marxist party, which never secures many votes or seats but exists nevertheless.

This is complacency. Mass college education and the trend towards more extreme university politicization changes the game. There's a big difference between 0.5% of your population being sympathetic to revolutionary Marxism (still dangerous!) and 20% of your population being sympathetic to revolutionary Marxism. A difference in degree becomes a difference in kind.

but the majority don't stay that way as adults though; they go on to have careers and join the fold of liberal democracy

No, it’s the marketplace of ideas (TM). As long as the socialists keep failing to deliver cheap goods and/or national prestige, their market share is going to remain low.

I’m not sure why you think colleges are so threatening. Have you been to one, recently? Nobody even gets shot by the national guard.

Our institutions were a lot better at creating revolutionaries in the 60s and 70s, back when we still had a draft. And volume alone can’t be enough, or the labor unions would have toppled the government back when America was predominantly blue-collar.

told to eat the Paul Pelosi attack as a right wing thing.

I have not seen anyone in my real life bubble claim that Depape was right wing. I have heard, incessantly, that "right wing hate" radicalized and activated Depape like some kind of MKULTRA program.

Conceptually, it's an interesting mix of stochastic terrorism and magickal law.

This is the type of thing that conservatives are trying to stop.

To be fair, leftists are trying to stop people from obtaining guns, too.

This is the type of thing that conservatives are trying to stop

I thought that was referring to the "lived in a bus in Berkeley, CA doing drugs in a polyamorous sex cult" part.

Yes. I phrased that poorly. I meant to state that "Political side means to put a stop to undesirable and radicalizing behavior engaged in by partisans of the other side" is an observation that can me made both ways.

Except the gun in recent question was an old hunting rifle and hammers are, well, hammers

I'm sure the leftists already thought of that and that while their widespread motte may be "ban scary black military-style assault rifles with shoulder thing that goes up", there are many whose bailey does include "ban all civilian gun ownership including grandpa's deer rifle".

In the US? Not really, no. There are a tiny handful of radical gun control activists that want some kind of east Asia tier scheme where hunters can apply for permission to own bolt action rifles kept at the local police station when not in the hunting field. But they’re about as fringe as animal rights activists(not that they necessarily overlap but the same level of hardcore nut).

It’s very plausible that if the DNC could abolish the second amendment and rewrite US gun control from scratch, many kinds of guns would be banned. It’s very plausible that purchasing the ones that are not, such as the one in this attack, would require some kind of waiting period/weekend class/whatever that serves no purpose except being annoying. But an actual ban-or near enough ban- on grandpas deer rifle is about as plausible as mandatory nude exercise or giving dogs standing to sue- yeah, you can find someone advocating for it, but you know…

Rather than January 6th or Paul Pelosi or even the Minnesota legislators, Patrick Crusius and Payton Gendron are the proper right-wing analogues to Tyler Robinson.

I don't generally like using emotive language but I'm going to in this to try to make some points.

This gets into the almost impossible "measuring contest" of who commits the most violence. The recent shooting directly challenges the narrative. How many Republicans, conservatives, or right-wingers support killing Black or Latino people just for being Black or Latino? Or, to make a fairer comparison, how many would say anything close to, "I'm against killing Blacks in a grocery store, but..."? The left has branded Charlie Kirk a "Nazi white supremacist" for citing crime statistics. As far as I know, he's never hinted at genetic causes; he uses standard boomer-con it's about culture, claiming intact families would reduce crime and that affirmative action places some Black women in roles they're not qualified for. That's why you can't make the right eat Crusius and Gendron. @Stellula. Any right-winger who said, "...but despite making up 13% of the population, Blacks commit 50% of violent crimes," would be shit-canned before they could take their next shit.

What making the left eat this is after a man with a young, beautiful family had his throat blown open, with so much blood gushing out that if it wasn't real people would have thought it was slasher-horror film excess - not just random nuts, but professors and teachers - said, "...but."

How many Republicans, conservatives, or right-wingers support killing Black or Latino people just for being Black or Latino?

One can go on Twitter, search for "TND" and find examples of rando accounts doing just that, particularly after the Iryna Zaretska murder. Who knows how many (presumably some of them are sockpuppets), but there are at least some.

They don't tend to associate their real identities though. Especially if they are teachers or doctors.

The left has branded Charlie Kirk a "Nazi white supremacist" for citing crime statistics.

Referring to illegal immigration as an "invasion" is totally mainstream on the right. What do you do to invaders?

Referring to illegal immigration as an "invasion" is totally mainstream on the right. What do you do to invaders?

Repel them. It's literally in the Constitution.

Repel them.

With what? Rifles?

Is there something you're asking here which I'm missing? Trump has been pretty explicit that he wants to deport them back to their home countries.

Invasions are violent, and you generally repel them by killing invaders. If referring to Charlie Kirk as a Nazi is encouragement to kill him, then referring to illegal immigrants as invaders is encouragement to kill them

  • -10

You do kill invaders if necessary, but you don't have to. Invaders often retreat, or they're captured as prisoners. I grant you that "invasion" is somewhat hyperoblic, since it conjures up images of organized armies massing on the border, but it's well within normal political rhetoric.

The problem is that, for the left, fascists and Nazis are the worst thing they can think of--secular counterparts to demons and devils. There is nothing redeemable about Nazis, and they shall be given no quarter. They are like orcs and goblins, enemies you can kill without moral qualms. They are not to be humanized, sympathized with, or shown in any way to be reasonable. Nazis are the villains of your story when you just need someone for the good guy to punch and shoot. Violence against Nazis is always righteous. This is the only culture I have ever known, and this messaging about Nazis has been drummed into me and everyone else by decades of movies, books, TV shows, videogames, and whatever else.

People may call illegal immigrants invaders, but they know they're not literally an invading army in the same way that the Russian army is invading Ukraine. Most left-wingers who throw around the accusation of "Nazi" know that people like Charlie Kirk are not actual Nazis, but unfortunately they done it so much and for so long that a significant chunk of lefties, especially the young, actually believe it. Moreover, their version of a Nazi is likely worse than the real Nazis were. You don't debate or tolerate Nazis, you shoot them and celebrate their death.

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The state removes them from the country under threat of violence. Are you a pacifist? I'm sure you know this: Political action is about desires we want enforced with violence. The debate is over the bounds of legitimate violence, in this case what "normies" see as justified. They don’t think in those terms, so they’re wildly inconsistent, driven by vibes. That’s why horror-movie levels of blood hits hard. Few normies think it’s okay to start stacking bodies over calling illegal immigrants “invaders.”

Those should be the examples of right wing violence that the left makes the right eat.

I wonder why these aren’t more commonly talked about?

Do you remember if any prominent right wing figures said that the victims deserved it? There are obviously the people saying that about Kirk, and there have also been semi notable people saying that about Ashley Babbitt, and the victims of the attempted Trump assassination.

The Free Helicopter rides memes were about as close as I can recall.

It’s been wall to wall condemnation of the Kirk assassination by Democratic Party figures and media spokespeople. And saying “I hate Charlie Kirk, but he shouldn’t have been assassinated” isn’t justification any more than “we need to close the border and deport illegals, but you shouldn’t shoot up a Wal Mart”

https://x.com/jackunheard/status/1967667070344237517

Are Ilhan Omar or Medhi Hasan prominent members of the democratic party? What about Destiny? Hasan Piker? Are they not prominent left wing thought leaders? Destiny was just on Piers Morgan, for instance.

Neither Omar nor Hasan said Kirk deserved it. They basically said they thought he was an asshole with abhorrent beliefs, and then Hasan called the killing "horrific" and "inexcusable" and Omar said "my heart breaks" for his family. Whether they're really all that broken up about it, probably not, but they're going through the expected motions, and right-wingers would not be all that sad if somebody shot some left-winger of Kirk's stature either.

Piker does not represent the Democratic Party, either its leadership or its base. He's a self-proclaimed socialist who supports the Houthis, which puts him far out of step with both. He's certainly not comparable with people like Tucker Carlson or Kirk himself, who was a personal friend of Trump's and close to the heart of the GOP. He has about a fifth as many twitter followers as Kirk. Destiny has a fraction of that following.

And all that said, neither of them said Kirk deserved it either. Piker told his fans to stop laughing on stream, and called it "horrific." Destiny refused to "disavow" on the grounds it would be an admission of guilt.

What seems to be happening is right-wingers taking examples of people saying "Kirk was an asshole, but he shouldn't have been killed" and pretending like they're saying "Fuck yeah, more of this, give that guy a medal." It's not enough to condemn the Kirk assassination, you have to be sad about it and talk about what a great guy he was too.

Would you extend this grace to anybody murdering people who look Mexican for being Mexican?

"Well yeah of course, of course we condemn murder...but what did these Mexicans expect? They maybe have been here illegally. Even if they weren't they kindof looked like some people who are!"

The things Destiny, Ilhan, etc. are saying are reprehensible.

Didn't some of the testimony for the DC sniper case suggest they were targeting white people for being white people?

Robinson shot Charlie Kirk for being Charlie Kirk specifically, rather than as a randomly selected conservative (otherwise he might have shot any one of the people in the crowd). Crusius shot his victims for being non-white immigrants generally, since he didn't know who any of them were personally. So the equivalent to leftists badmouthing Kirk as a man after his murder would be right-wingers badmouthing non-white immigrants as a group after several of them are murdered, which they absolutely do

  • -11

I wonder if there's a deeper interaction with left-wing ideology here. Leftists have to believe that the masses would totally want social democracy/communism if only they were educated and knew what was good for themselves. In this framework the individual propagandists are themselves the ones responsible for reactionary sentiment amongst the population at large. Right-wingers see the core problem as the undesirable demographics directly, so cheering targeted assassinations doesn't really fit.

Omar effectively said no one really gives a shit about Kirk and everyone is just pretending to be afraid and outraged. Her stance is pretty abhorrent. The rest of what she said was a deflectionary attempt at reframing the conversation around why right-wing politics are bad.

It was a terrible comment she gave.

It’s been wall to wall condemnation of the Kirk assassination by Democratic Party figures and media spokespeople.

We don't need them to condemn the assassination, we need them to condemn the shockingly large portion of their base who are ecstatic about it.

For various reasons the left and mainstream institutions have manufactured a sizable minority that among other things, believes that assassination of American political figures is justified (check out the polling).

These people need to be told by everybody that they are dangerous and their beliefs need to be evicted from education and employment and mainstream thought.

Democrat politicians have been complicit in creating a generation that has norms that are completely incompatible with liberal democracy. This includes democrat strategists and consultants as well as staffers (I know some of them).

It doesn't matter if AOC publicly criticizes assassinations if her supporters love them (and potentially much of her staff).

These people need to be told by everybody that they are dangerous and their beliefs need to be evicted from education and employment and mainstream thought.

Now where have I heard this line before? I feel like I heard it a lot about 5 years ago, but I just can't seem to remember who was saying it.

Probably some fine upstanding people pushing a culture we want to see more of in this country.

Speak plainly.

At my job you can wear a pride pin or a BLM badge and at one point it was quite nearly required. If you wore MAGA gear you'd be fired.

I don't see polling showing that the right has a great deal of interest in murdering people who disagree with them.

The left and the right and the demands on either are not the same.

You're not wrong about how things are, but faul_sname isn't wrong about the situation you're advocating for. The villain speech applies; you and they are the same, just with opposite political valence.

As I said in one of my earlier comments, we can all (well mostly) agree that some things are unacceptable to say publicly associated with your identity. A teacher advocating for child sexual abuse publicly is not something you are going to see support from all but the most ardent gadflies.

You have to pick where to draw the line. Critiques and complaints about cancel culture were often about this - the line was drawn in an unacceptable location and critically was politically unipolar.

I think you'd find that most on the right, even the ones who are like "bahahaha taste your own medicine bahaha" would be wiling to say - yes people on both sides should be fired for supporting domestic terrorism. You'd probably even find some people who might say something like "yeah you wanna advocate for terrorism in another country like Gaza? Sure! Just keep it out of the U.S."

Might it eventually get taken too far? Sure.

But for now the gap in equivalency is comically vast.

If you spend years complaining about people getting fired for cat calling on the street and then you start saying that rapists should be fired...that isn't inconsistent, even if one side tries to claim that cat calling is rape.

Speak plainly.

My claim: cancel culture was bad when the left did it and is bad when the right does it. Our norms are fragile, and are worth protecting. Allowing people to speak freely means that there will be some people who say horrible things. Some of those horrible things will be false. Some of those people who say those horrible false things will even mean it.

And yet, the societies that try to silence the people who say horrible false things seem to invariably also start trying to silence the people who say inconvenient-to-power true things. As we witnessed just a couple of years ago.

At that time, many on the right seemed to understand the value of free speech, actual free speech and not "you're free to speak and I'm free to blackmail your employer into firing you with threats of a media shitstorm". And last year, there was a shift, and people started to recognize (out loud) the excesses of the "woke" era. Norms turned against people trying to "cancel" each other for insufficient wokeness.

I don't see polling showing that the right has a great deal of interest in murdering people who disagree with them.

I mean go look at the discourse about "alligator alcatraz", the people saying "I voted for this, self-deport" whenever there's a report of ICE illegally detaining legal US residents in atrocious conditions or trying to sidestep court orders, this very forum with the dark hinting about how the left has made the right angry and you wouldn't like us when we're angry.

To be clear, I support the right of people on the right to say these things. I oppose any attempts to try to be cute and get their employers to go after them.

But I notice that the right seems to be trying to bring back the worst parts of 2021 era cancel culture. And so, in opposition to that, I claim: cancel culture was bad when the left did it and is bad when the right does it

But I notice that the right seems to be trying to bring back the worst parts of 2021 era cancel culture

These aren't the worst parts, it's some of the mildest ones, and it's not bringing them back, they never left. I have sympathy for principled free speech advocates, but the way they act these things are perfectly symmetrical detracts from their point.

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Cancel Culture: I said the word faggot on Facebook in 2006.

Not Cancel Culture: I a person in trusted authority (such as a doctor) publicly celebrated the death of someone who represents half of America.

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I saw a smart comment elsewhere that suggested that it’s the rank and file dem voters that are cheering on and celebrating the assassination. And that it’s actually worse than if it were dem leaders. You can change leaders. You can’t change the voters.

Al Green, a black Texas Dem that surely screams "woke," said kind things about Kirk. Said they have the same creator up above and that Kirk "had a right to be where he was, and a right to life." But he's old school black religious, likes MLK Jr. The newer school of James Baldwin and post-colonial lefties, not a sentiment you see much.

Surely the closest analogue is Anders Behring Breivik, even down to focusing on killing the youth leaders of the enemy party. Not American, though.

Not American, though.

That's a big deal in this context.

Citing non-Americans seems unfair, though with the Americanization of global politics, maybe less and less so

While I don't think it would matter to many (arguably hasn't mattered) inversing the ideologies, it probably should be noted that Crusius is full on crazy (schizoaffective disorder). Decarlos Brown Jr probably is similar I have seen it asserted that he was poisoned by anti-white rhetoric but the main thrust is that progressive policies kept him on the street.

He made statements to police indicating that he attacked the pelosis because they were Democrats and he believed they stole the election from trump.

Something that's getting frustrating to me around the discussion of Charlie Kirk's assassination (man it feels weird to say that) is that conservatives are being told to eat the Paul Pelosi attack as a right wing thing.

But the attacker (David Depape), was, if he was even capable of holding any sort of political position at all, not even remotely right wing, at least not in any way that any right winger would identify as a bedfellow.

His own defence attorney literally said it was because he passionately believed in far right theories. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67372363

During opening arguments on Thursday, Mr DePape's defence conceded that their client attacked Mr Pelosi in his quest to find the California congresswoman.

But they said his interest in Mrs Pelosi was not due to her political status.

"The reason he acted had nothing to do with Nancy Pelosi [and her] official duties as a member of Congress," defence attorney Jodi Linker told the court.

Instead, Ms Linker said he was driven by right-wing conspiracies that blame the country's demise on corrupt elites who use their status to spread lies, including facilitating the sexual abuse of children.

"Members of the jury, many of us do not believe any of that," Ms Linker said. "But the evidence in this trial will show that Mr DePape believes all these things… with every ounce of his being."

They said this to fight charges against kidnapping a federal official (which requires it to be directly because of her official duties as a member of Congress and not outside motivations such as those far right theories). The goal was to present him as a crazy nutjob who took Qanon, 2020 being stolen, and other far right ideas spread online seriously rather than a targeted attack triggered by any official action.

He himself testified to this

The man on trial for the bludgeoning of Paul Pelosi admitted in testimony Tuesday that he struck him with a hammer during a botched attempt to kidnap his wife, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, for “lying about Russia-gate.”

David DePape, 43, told a jury that he planned to dress up in a unicorn costume and record a video of the top Democrat in Congress as he interrogated her about what he saw as her false statements about ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

What better evidence could there be than him and his defense literally saying it?

I'm also getting sick of hearing that the right wing is supposed to eat January 6th. We've had every single right wing politician "disavowing" this for the last 5 years, despite the fact that the only person killed on this day was a right wing woman.

If it was disavowed, why did people who stabbed, tasered, threw bombs at, or otherwise attacked cops get pardoned? The idea that only murder is violence (and she herself was shot at by a cop as she refused to listen to a lawful order and continued illegal behavior so I guess you're saying police brutality is more of an issue than violence against police is) seems weak. All of those things are violence!

In fact here's something interesting, I asked chatgpt to run some numbers. "Per participant, was Jan 6th or BLM more violent towards cops?"

Police injuries on Jan 6th, 2021 About 2,000–2,500 rioters entered the Capitol complex.

140+ police officers (Capitol Police + D.C. Metro Police) reported physical injuries (sprains, burns, concussions, eye damage, broken bones, etc.).

That means 5–7% of participants injured an officer, or 1 injury for every 15–20 rioters.

Police injuries during 2020 BLM-related unrest Over the course of summer 2020 protests, an estimated 15–26 million Americans participated.

Nationwide, various agencies reported 2,000 law enforcement officers injured during the protests/riots (mostly in the first two weeks after George Floyd’s killing).

That’s 0.01% of participants injuring an officer, or 1 injury for every 7,500–13,000 protesters.

Comparison (per participant) Jan 6th: 1 in 20 participants caused a police injury.

BLM protests: 1 in several thousand participants caused a police injury.

👉 Conclusion: On a per-participant basis, Jan 6th was vastly more violent toward police officers — by orders of magnitude.

Of course it doesn't matter, at the end of the day everyone is an individual and should be judged as an individual. Whether you attended BLM or Jan 6th, if you didn't assault a cop then you don't deserve blame for it. But it is quite interesting to see. Even if we change it to say, 40,000 (a medium estimate of the total Jan 6th protestors and not just those who entered the capitol), it's still about 1 in 400 or so.

Edit: You know there's also an interesting thing to consider in right vs left violence discussions. The gender gap!

Men make up 80% of violent crimes (and some specific ones like mass shootings like 97%). Thus statistically a group composed of men should have more violent people than an equal sized group of women. And violence is typically a thing done most by youth, so the group with younger men should presumably have more than the group with younger women.

Combine this with

Americans under the age of 30 voted for Harris by 4 points (50 percent Harris – 46 percent Trump), though young men and women diverged dramatically, with men under 30 voting for Trump by 16 points (41 percent Harris – 57 percent Trump), and women under 30 voting for Harris by 24 points (59 percent Harris – 35 percent Trump).

And it would make sense if right wing violence was a bit more common, just because it has more men.

  • -12

In fact here's something interesting, I asked chatgpt to run some numbers. "Per participant, was Jan 6th or BLM more violent towards cops?"

Suppose I hate cops.

I hold a protest, 100 people attend, and in the chaos one cop gets shot. That is a protesters-to-cops-shot ratio of .01.

I hold a protest the next day. Thanks to the news coverage, a thousand cop-hating people show up, and five cops get shot. that is a PTCS ratio of .005.

I hold a protest the next day. Again thanks to the news coverage, ten thousand cop-hating people show up, and 25 cops get shot. That is a PTCS ratio of .0025.

Your explicit argument is that these three protests are getting less violent over time. Normally I would phrase this as a question, but you are the one who made this into a math problem; it doesn't seem to me that there is much room for ambiguity here. It is true, in the most disingenuous, dishonest way possible, that the more townspeople attend a lynching, the "less violent" the lynching becomes. It does not follow that we should be less concerned by a lynching attended by a thousand people than one attended by ten. Such an argument, I argue, is isomorphic to what you have stated above. If you disagree, I would be fascinated to see where I've got it wrong.

This is by no means the only problem with your various recent defenses of the organized left-wing violence Americans have lately suffered; your data is garbage and your arguments are obviously constructed for maximum partisan convenience with what appears to be intentional amnesia of previous context, but it's a reasonable place to start.

your arguments are obviously constructed for maximum partisan convenience with what appears to be intentional amnesia of previous context

Huh, a user with an account from June who consistently presents arguments constructed for maximum partisan convenience. I'm sure that couldn't be a former user known for that kind of argumentation back under a new name.

I'm not sure what you're insinuating. Personally, I've seen so many commenters who are following darwin2500's standard playbook of deflection, obfuscation, non-central fallacy that I'm convinced that there are many of his acolytes out there that will be indistinguishable from darwin2500 himself in text form.

I had the same thought.

Do you hint vaguely towards the idea that all people who advance convenient partisan arguments are actually infamous disgruntled ban evaders, or only the liberal/left leaning ones?

Edit: as someone who was also accused of being this individual previously, it is quite annoying that any liberal dissent from the mainstream here immediately garners accusations that we must be This One Person. I suppose it is a rare thing on this forum, but it only becomes rarer with this sort of selective hyper analysis.

I have hinted vaguely exactly once. You are free to review comment histories just as I did. The shift in a month from "I'm a classical liberal 20something who wants to engage with ideas" to "presenting arguments constructed for maximum partisan convenience" is the kind of thing that gets detectors pinging.

What better evidence could there be than him and his defense literally saying it?

Do you think the defendant in a criminal trial and his attorney are honest and forthright neutral truthseekers? I don't, so I don't rate that evidence very highly.

In fact here's something interesting, I asked chatgpt to run some numbers. "Per participant, was Jan 6th or BLM more violent towards cops?"

That reminds me of Contra Grant on Exaggerated differences:

Suppose I wanted to convince you that men and women had physically identical bodies. I run studies on things like number of arms, number of kidneys, size of the pancreas, caliber of the aorta, whether the brain is in the head or the chest, et cetera. 90% of these come back identical – in fact, the only ones that don’t are a few outliers like “breast size” or “number of penises”. I conclude that men and women are mostly physically similar. I can even make a statistic like “men and women are physically the same in 78% of traits”.

Add a ton of noise that overwhelms a valid signal, then declare that the noise is meaningful. I simply don't care about the BLM protests that were (actually, not "mostly") peaceful, so I wouldn't add them to the denominator.

If it was disavowed, why did people who stabbed, tasered, threw bombs at, or otherwise attacked cops get pardoned?

Because what they were subjected was a kangaroo court that was an affront to justice.

He was not forced to do a blanket clemency that covered violent crimes. The campaign even said before election that violent criminals would not be released.

“If you protested peacefully on Jan. 6 and you’ve had [Attorney General] Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice treat you like a gang member, you should be pardoned,” Vance told “Fox News Sunday.”

He added, “If you committed violence on that day, obviously you shouldn’t be pardoned.”

Even Vance agreed it's obvious that violent criminals should not be sent into the general public. Yet what happened? Cop beaters with long rap sheets were freed.

Some of them have been rearrested for other charges like plotting an assassination against the FBI as revenge, existing charges of soliciting a minor, child pornography, etc.

As one would expect, cop beaters are not good people. Pardoning minor crimes like trespassing makes sense, in the chaos maybe many people didn't hear or notice the warnings. But why pardon cop beaters? They have made it known they are violent individuals, else they wouldn't have attacked a cop.

He was not forced to do a blanket clemency that covered violent crimes.

The time for making such distinctions was when doing the prosecution in the first place. It is not reasonable to expect the President, having seen a great injustice done, to relitigate every case several years later to ensure only the correct amount of injustice is alleviated and not one bit of true justice undone.

The time for making such distinctions was when doing the prosecution in the first place.

They did! Do you have any evidence that someone was falsely charged and convicted of assaulting police that didn't assault police?

It is not reasonable to expect the President, having seen a great injustice done, to relitigate every case several years later to ensure only the correct amount of injustice is alleviated and not one bit of true justice undone.

Historically a lot of work is put into determining who does and doesn't get pardoned. This is an article detauling it in the 1980s with way less easy access to information and they still managed it.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1981/10/27/pardon-rules-cloaked-in-mystery/c369cf43-55b2-4201-a5b4-5d92f4775fef/

If they could do it then, they could do it now. Or is the Trump admin, even with modern technology, still incapable of doing what presidents used to be able to do?

Historically a lot of work is put into determining who does and doesn't get pardoned.

How do you feel about Biden's various preemptive and retroactive pardons before he left office?

From what I've heard there was quite a few scandals regarding some of them. His administration didn't seem to do a good job either at being properly selective.

It is a shame that we have apparently elected multiple presidents in a row unable to match the general quality and care of prior admins, despite better technology and availability of information.

ou know there's also an interesting thing to consider in right vs left violence discussions. The gender gap!

Or you could just poll people.

https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/52960-charlie-kirk-americans-political-violence-poll

Very liberal more likely to say its acceptable to be happy about public figures deaths and more likely to agree that political violence can be justified.

Polling people immediately after just reveals signaling, it doesn't reveal beliefs. And as always, wording matters.

For example if you say

“true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country”,

It's 30% of Republicans and only about 12% of Democrats. https://prri.org/research/threats-to-american-democracy-ahead-of-an-unprecedented-presidential-election/

This also changes over time

In our latest survey, Republicans (18%) are more likely to agree that political violence may be necessary to save our country than independents (13%) and Democrats (11%). Independents’ views on this measure have been consistent since March 2021. Support for political violence among Republicans peaked at a high of 35% in August 2021, though most recently, since Trump’s election, their support has been at its lowest (18%). Democrats’ support for political violence has remained consistently lower during this period, ranging from a low of 7% to a high of 13%.

Now of course as always, beware the man of one study, beware the man of the polls (especially online polls) too.

Timing, wording, polling sample biases, all of these can lead to drastic differences. Polling is signaling, it's obvious that 35% of Republicans didn't actually support political violence during 2021 (given not even a fraction of a fraction did any violence), they just said it to signal "I'm really upset right now!".

Wording matters, but "true American patriots" is putting such a heavy thumb on the scale that I'm somewhere between disappointed and impressed by PRRI, and that's knowing some of their other hijinks.

Sure, so let's just look at your own Yougov link (which presumably you trust as a fair source since you used it) which says

But YouGov has asked this question multiple times since 2022, and found some noticeable changes in opinion. For one thing, while Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say political violence is a very big problem in September 2025, in the wake of Kirk's shooting, the reverse has been true when YouGov has asked this question after attacks on Democratic political figures. How concerned Americans are about political violence is related to some degree to whether someone from their side or from the other side is the most recent to be attacked

Yeah this seems to support that it's mostly signaling "I support my side!" or "I'm upset!" rather than consistent views.

(which presumably you trust as a fair source since you used it)

remzem

gattsuru

?

I've got an icon on my posts for a reason! And on that specific matter, I specifically and try to caveat YouGov almost anytime I do reference them.

EDIT: I'm also extremely skeptical of YouGov's specific poll question here given the combined use of the Likert scale and literally never showing its breakdown.

Woops sorry I didn't notice the usernames but same logic applies anyway.

If we trust Yougov for Poll 1, we should trust it for Poll 2. If we don't trust Poll 2, we shouldn't trust it for Poll 1.

“true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save the country”,

This is a truly terrible survey question.

(The entire statement, which is a little better with the context, is "because things have gotten so far off track, true American patriots may have to resort to violence in order to save our country")

This plainly includes e.g. fighting off a Chinese invasion. There might not be a Chinese invasion -- there almost certainly won't, at least of the mainland US -- but the question says 'may.' And if there were, it would likely be 'because things have gotten so far off track' in terms of foreign policy, military readiness, etc. It also includes joining the FBI to fight domestic terrorists, or the secret service to protect leaders from assassination, and a dozen other anodyne activities. I'd go so far to say that answering 'no' implies only a profoundly lacking imagination. (Or perhaps the belief that individuals resorting to violence to save our country aren't necessarily true American patriots?)

But, as you say, the actual answers are probably all signaling. Still, I'm forced to question the motives of whoever wrote that question -- did they really not think at all about what they were asking?

@remzem's YouGov poll is... slightly better?

"Do you think it is ever justified for citizens to resort to violence in order to achieve political goals?"

I'd still say war counts -- it is, after all, the continuation of politics with other means -- but I'd feel like a pedant doing it. It's obvious what this one means where on the other I think I would just go down that line of thought and click 'yes.'

Still, the answer to this one is also obviously 'yes.' '[E]ver justified' is doing a lot of work. Do 83% of conservative believe the American Revolution wasn't justified? Do 55% of the very liberal think the July 20 plot to kill Hitler wasn't justified?

A far, far more useful question would be whether political violence is currently justified in America. Certainly, the numbers would be smaller, but how much smaller? Certainly not zero. Actually, it might be decent measure of how much of this is just signaling, given how much more extreme a position it is.

👉 Conclusion: On a per-participant basis, Jan 6th was vastly more violent toward police officers — by orders of magnitude.

No, it's not that simple. This is comparing apples to oranges. I'll try my best to make a more appropriate comparison.

Here is an article from the New York Times with the 140 number for police office injured on Jan 6th.

Here is a report from the US Government Accountability Office indicating at least 174 police officers were assaulted. Note that assaults and injuries are not the same, which could explain the different numbers.

A better comparison would be this statistic from U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley.

During the 2020 riots, more than 900 law enforcement officers were injured, including 277 officer injuries while defending the federal courthouse in Portland, Oregon, and 60 Secret Service officers defending the White House.

This source clarifies it's 277 injuries amongst 140 officers.

Here are some numbers from the DHS indicating that the crowd sizes were approximately 1000 around the federal courthouse in Portland.

This seems like a more appropriate comparison than using the entirety of the 15-26 million Americans protesting during 2020 BLM riots to the 2000-2500 on January 6th.

That being said, there are several reasons as for why even this cannot be a direct comparison:

  • The 277 injury count is the total number sustained over a period of time and not on a singular day.
  • The source indicating crowd sizes for 1000 in Portland show that only 7 arrests were made on one specific day.
  • Different tactics were used to disperse the crowds. More effective dispersal will likely decrease officer injury rates. For example, it seems there were restrictions of using crowd dispersal tools by the capital police. I couldn't find anything about a similar restriction for police in Portland, and they were able to use pepper balls and tear gas to disperse protestors.
  • Injuries per protestor participant count is not a good metric. A single person can injure multiple police officers. Multiple protestors can work together to injure 1 police officer.

If we were to have millions of right-leaning Americans protest on a level similar to that of the BLM riots, how much more violence would we see? I acknowledge the number of police injuries would go up just due to statistics. But I think the current right-wing response to Kirk's assassination is pretty telling. We aren't seeing cities being burned and looted to anything remotely close to the BLM riots after Floyd's death.

If we were to have millions of right-leaning Americans protest on a level similar to that of the BLM riots, how much more violence would we see? I acknowledge the number of police injuries would go up just due to statistics.

If we went up at the same rate at roughly 140 cops injured per 40k participants, we would have about 56,000 cop injuries at a 16 million participant Jan 6th. You're correct they aren't perfect comparisons, but real world data hardly is.

  • But I think the current right-wing response to Kirk's assassination is pretty telling. We aren't seeing cities being burned and looted to anything remotely close to the BLM riots after Floyd's death.

The relatively high rates of violence of Jan 6th and BLM, and low rates of any protest nowadays both left (no kings march) and right (now) suggest that the violence was more a product of its time than anything else. A lot of things were weird during 2020 and 2021 from the lockdowns and spastic economy of the time.

Decent chance like a lot of datasets, the 2020-2022 data is just a distortion.

  • -12

no kings march

Interesting choice of protest to bring up since the Salt Lake City No Kings protest involved the official event security opening fire at a protester who was open carrying (but not brandishing), killing a bystander because they're shit shots, and then lying about what happened and trying to blame it on the open carrier they tried to murder until video footage came out showing otherwise.

You should not extrapolate 140 cops injured per 40K participants to 16 million for the same reason you should not extrapolate 140 cops injured per 2.5k participant to 40K participants to get 2240 cop injuries.

I can do bad math too. Hey, we were able to add 37.5k to the total number of participants in a protest without needing to adjust the number of cops being injured, so let's use the rate of 0 cops injured per 37.5k added to scale to 0 cops injured per 16 million to get a final result of 140 cops injured per 16 million participants.

The reason why my bad math is wrong is the same reason why your math is wrong.

I agree that data needs to be taken a look at more closely to get a more accurate picture of the truth, and that outliers happen in data all the time. But you're the one that introduced shoddy analysis of data. I gave a good effort to give the most reasonable comparison, and I even gave criticism of that comparison.

You should not extrapolate 140 cops injured per 40K participants to 16 million for the same reason you should not extrapolate 140 cops injured per 2.5k participant to 40K participants to get 2240 cop injuries.

"If we went up at the same rate" of 1:400 then yes it would equal that.

I agree with you that a larger crowd is likely to have less violence overall though, since size is likely to correlate hard with how many normies are joining in.

We can't compare apples to applies with real world events, because the real world is messy. But it doesn't need to be perfect to have some amount of usable information.

  • -10

"If we went up at the same rate" of 1:400 then yes it would equal that.

The numbers should be self-evident why that assumption should not hold.

I don't understand what you're disputing here.

1/400 is the same rate as 2/800 and 3/1200 and the same as 10/4,000 and 100/40,000 and so on.

If your argument did not have any major flaws, we should've been able to extrapolate 140 cops injured per 2.5K participants (the most generous assumption that supports your argument) to 40,000K to get 2240 cop injuries.

We didn't get 2240 cop injuries for the 40,000 protestors. Nowhere even close. So we now have real world data that demonstrate how assuming going up at the same rate is an absurdly ignorant assumption to make for this particular scenario, and you should not do that to try to make your point.

Just saying you agree with me that a larger crowd is likely to have less violence overall does not excuse the extremely poor logic you have used to make your argument.

no kings march

At least locally this has been an almost entirely boomer thing. Not sure how that generalizes.

Yes, lockdowns provoked most of the violent delights of 2020, but there may be other factors re: age, race, culture, motivation.

His own defence attorney literally said it was because he passionately believed in far right theories. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67372363

Sure, such as, per your article - "Instead, Ms Linker said he was driven by right-wing conspiracies that blame the country's demise on corrupt elites who use their status to spread lies, including facilitating the sexual abuse of children."

I think more detail would be needed to conclude it is far right instead of the identical far left conspiracy theories.

Currently the left is the one banging the drum about government connection to sexual abuse of children.

There are right-wing conspiracy theories about paedophiles and left-wing conspiracy theories about paedophiles. Depape was radicalised by Qanon, which is a right-wing conspiracy theory about paedophiles, as Ms Linker correctly stated.

So I looked for details instead of just articles that say "qanon" and found -

"An Aug. 24 entry titled “Q,” displayed a scatological collection of memes that included photos of the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and made reference to QAnon, the baseless pro-Trump conspiracy theory that espouses the belief that the country is run by a deep state cabal of child sex traffickers, satanic pedophiles and baby-eating cannibals."

Isn't that rather close to what the left is claiming right now?

No, not really. The left only cares about Epstein to the extent that it's a weapon to use against Trump.

I'd still like to see what the "references" were. There's a world of difference between "Q really opened my eyes, and now I see that leftwingers like Nancy Pelosi are the adrenochrome eaters" and "Rightwingers are fascists, but this Q guy seems legit. Nancy Pelosi is basically a Republikkan."

The wording there leaves open the possibility that there's some framing gaming happening by the defense, like the Matthew Shepherd case.

"Epstein didn't kill himself" was a meme in left spaces during the Biden times. Turns out "lots of our politicians were having sex with underaged girls at this guy's island, then the guy appears to have been suicided before he could provide details implicating specific politicians" is unpopular with pretty much everyone.

The right was more vocal about it pre Trump, and post-Trump some of the left does see this as an opportunity to go on the attack, but the left cared about Epstein before Trump too.

I'd still like to see what the "references" were. There's a world of difference between "Q really opened my eyes, and now I see that leftwingers like Nancy Pelosi are the adrenochrome eaters" and "Rightwingers are fascists, but this Q guy seems legit. Nancy Pelosi is basically a Republikkan."

I haven't seen even one case of the latter example anywhere ever.

The thing that separates QAnon from previous theories about the elites being child rapists (and there have been left-wing variants - Dave McGowan, who did an yeoman's labor in getting the general theory known among conspiracy circles, was a left-winger) is not the elite child rapist thing but the particular idea that Trump is a savior figure who will overthrow, jail and execute the (leftist) child rapist elites. QAnon rhetoric specifically places DePape on the right.

I think everyone who took Q seriously (and this guy in particular) is an idiot with a mostly incoherent view of the world. And I don't mean that in a way that exonerates them by blaming it on some nebulous mental health problem. I mean that their attempts to assemble facts and details into a viable understanding of reality is just appallingly bad. They are stupid people, or at least they crit-failed important, load-bearing sense-making operations in a way that caused catastrophic downstream effects.

So, given that this dude was at least culturally enmeshed in a very leftist environment, I would expect his adoption of Q to be particularly asinine, because there's more inferential distance to cover with flimsy bullshit. Going all the way to being a QMAGA type is possible, but there's a lot of room for weird, idiotic shortcuts like "Pelosi is a traitor to the left".

My greater point is more that I don't think the framing by his legal defense should be taken at face value. There are multiple plausible reasons they might stress some things and downplay others as a strategy to play the judge and jury.

And you can easily add a more conspiratorial angle that goes something like "this guy is clearly mentally ill but if you frame his defense in a way that is politically advantageous to us we'll help him out."

I would not usually pretend that is the slightest bit likely but given the time and jurisdiction who knows.

In any case the guy is clearly mentally ill adjacent with unclear etiology (maybe just drug brain rot?) which is relevant in the same way that the recent stabbing is, but doesn't seem to be a clear eyed assassination as the Kirk murder seemingly is.

I think more detail would be needed to conclude it is far right instead of the identical far left conspiracy theories.

Currently the left is the one banging the drum about government connection to sexual abuse of children.

Evidence that the Left actually cares for such connections and theories, rather than just pulling a "your rules, applied fairly" on the Right after Trump weaselled himself out of releasing the Epstein files? (Surely if it's the latter they wouldn't be so committed to the bit that their members would attempt murder-suicide for it.)

think more detail would be needed to conclude it is far right instead of the identical far left conspiracy theories.

Pizzagate, Qanon, 2020 election, Russiagate, those are all pretty right wing.

Currently the left is the one banging the drum about government connection to sexual abuse of children.

Even Epstein was a right wing leaning thing (at least bipartisan) and still is decently bipartisan. The only reason it's become a "left" thing now is the Trump admin's sudden pivot away from releasing the files as promised multiple times during campaign.

It only stopped being a right thing because they haven't released the list they said they would.

  • -10

Is vaccine hesitancy a right or left wing conspiracy theory? Has that changed recently?

I think that's a good sniff test here.

To my knowledge, vaccines are a horseshoe issue and you'll find it on the left and right.

I asked because I find that more partisan types struggle to admit that both the left and the right have issues with vaccines (both COVID and otherwise) with it being historically focused on hippy types and inner city blacks but now having more red tribers.

It's a situation where if you can't admit it's an issue with bipartisan elements I'm not not sure we have much to talk about.

I'm not magicalkittycat.

Though you did get me wondering about how much of historical resistance was lead by hippies (though they're certainly among them!). Some of this was interesting but didn't really get too much into which groups particularly opposed it. The vaccine-autism link started in 1998 but was popularized by lefty celebrities. The furthest back hard data I can find shows that Democrats and Republicans were pretty equal on vaccines from 2002-2015, with Democrats being slightly more trusting.

I'm not magicalkittycat.

Yes I know, over the last few days I've become suspicious that MKC is a sock puppet for someone I would prefer not to discuss with and wanted to assess.

I can tell you that in my Pre-COVID clinical practice I occasionally ran into a vaccines cause Autism soccer-mom/hippie/"natural" nut. They'd be impossible to convince.

More often (likely because of my location) I'd run into blacks who were skeptical of the government and so on -if you were kind and patient you could usually convince these.

I'll note the specific poll in your link "how important is it that parents get their children vaccinated" won't really capture this well because "meh" and "fuck off whitey" end up being the same answer.

Covid vaccine reluctance is hard coded right.

That isn't what I asked.

Historically it was more equal with a bit of left leaning, but since Covid it has shifted hard right, especially with the rise of RFK and states like Florida reconsidering vaccine mandates.

What better evidence could there be than him and his defense literally saying it?

He also said he was going to dress up as a unicorn. I think "not playing with a full deck" is the best approach to take here.


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