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Notes -
Yes, Democrats Really Do Want You Dead
Some people have already put the Charlie Kirk assassination into the memory box. For others it still feel terrifyingly relavent. The initial shock at the cheers and jubulant celebration at his gruesome public execution has faded slightly. The public square dominated by Democratic figures and Never Trumpers invoking some fraudulent both sidesism has, like it or not, dulled some of the public backlash. And honestly, the compulsive conspiracy theorist on the right hasn't helped maintain moral clarity in the wake of his murder either.
You may remember, I've talked before about the casual genocidal bloodlust the average Northern VA Democrat has based on the time I lived there. And while Democrats, for now, seem to have enough message discipline to not get on CNN and openly say "Yes, Republicans deserve to be murdered", their line is just shy of that incredibly low bar. Enter Jay Jones.
He's been caught essentially laying out the case that Republicans should be shot and killed, and their children murdered in front of them, so that they change their politics. A DM conversation "leaked" where in he has this conversation with a Republican colleage in the Virginia House I believe. So this wasn't even exactly an "in house" conversation. Just straight up telling the opposition, "Hey, I think you deserve to die" like it would never or could never come back to haunt him.
As of now, no Democrat has pulled their endorsement of him, I saw one single local Democrat say he would stop campaigning with him, several groups have actively reaffirmed his endorsement still saying he's somehow better than your generic Republican. His brazen assertion that you should kill even the children too, because "they are breeding little fascist" is probably a huge hit in Northern VA. Finally someone who openly talks and thinks like they do. I've seen those exact words on the NOVA subreddit every day. He's very likely to have top legal authority over me and my children, whom he believes deserve to die.
I'm gonna be honest, I'm fairly distressed over this. This is how Pogroms work. In the famed Jewish Pogroms of 1881, 40 Jews were killed leading to a mass emigration from Russia. I wonder if we'll hit that number in Virginia the next 4 years. I fully expect my deep red rural county that's been electorally attached through gerrymandering to Fairfax will be aggressively "enriched" as punishment for voting wrong.
It's not uncommon for people around me to fail to notice that I'm less left wing than they are. Even if they do notice, they adopt a mindset that I'm "one of the good ones", like I'm some sort of vaguely civilized savage who won't cause any problems.
As a result, I've heard a lot about how me, my family, and people like me should all die. Usually it's in the context of COVID, but there are quite a few other reasons as well.
The part that really seems to turn their crank is the idea that Us Dumb, Ignorant, Cousin-Fucking, Science Denying Rednecks will have a moment of clarity at the Apex of our suffering and cry out to them for help in the moments before our agonizing demise. Something about the idea of self-inflicted suffering seems to absolve them of any sin associated with finding pleasure in the suffering of others.
What's interesting to me about this fellow from Virginia is twofold: first, he's a professional politician. I expect professional politicians to be sociopaths, but acting skills and a carefully cultivated persona are basic job qualifications. Did he not think this was going to leak? Did he not think it was a bad look? Or did he simply not think at all. I'm pretty sure I'd be fired if I wrote this and I'm not even a public figure.
The second part of this that's interesting is that it appears to be a much more active kind of desire than the desires of the University Set around me. They want to enjoy watching the life leak from my eyes as I plead for mercy from an unforgiving world, but they don't want to actually do it. Mr. Jones is a much more active kind of desire. Does it represent an escalation, or a difference in mindset between and adjunct professor and a prosecutor?
Made me think of
Of course, Rorschach is a left-wing comic book writer's idea of a right-wing nut, so who's to say whether the fantasy comes from Alan Moore's brain or something he heard, or both.
Interesting - I'd never considered the comparison even though it's blatantly obvious in hindsight.
In a way, it's not too far from Lot surviving the scourging of Sodom and Gomorrah. I guess it's just something deeply embedded in the human psyche.
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