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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.
I hesitate to post this because I do think that those comments are the kind of background, "I hate the outgroup" signaling that you can find everywhere every day among every group. This man isn't going to commit violence against anyone. Give him a gun, a bag of candy, and unfettered access to those kids and the worst you'll get are some tummy aches.
Are the background vibes concerning? Is it perhaps bad to forget the humanity of your political opponents and openly hope for their death? Sure, yeah, but that's been the reality of our political vibes off and on since 1776.
But that's only one shoe, now the other. I live in a deep blue state, deep enough that some variation on "Trump is bad / kill the fascists" has become an almost ritualized part of conversation. Yesterday, I suddenly discovered myself in the middle of a tiff with my mid 30s lady friend. The cause? Your normal his and hers problems: she wants to start stockpiling bombs to use against the fascist menace, I do not.
Now, I don't think she would really be in the vanguard of revolutionary resistance or otherwise commit illegal violence. She is also only a single point of data, floating freely on the breeze of the zeitgeist. But our discussion has obviously been on my mind and gelled with the comments from Jones even though his were from 2022.
Committing violence, harming people - actually doing these kinds of things are, or seem to me, to still be outside the Overton Window. When done they are done by crazies. Verbally supporting violence or hurting people in the abstract are very much inside the Overton Window. Very normal, average people will talk like they're members of the Jacobin Club. It's just a status game. There's a schlubby, 60 year old white guy I know whose face will light up when he can turn even the most unrelated topic to Trump's latest outrage because people like bashing Trump and there's very little otherwise he says or does that people like. It's that simple.
And, to be fair, I can recall similar-ish death wishes and curses upon their heads from my right wing family members.
Anyway, the last day has increased my belief that we'll see an increase in 70s style petty political violence fueled by combining low status, violent men who have not much to lose and a lot of getting laid to gain with ideologically mindkilled women. But that's as far as it'll go.
First of all, why aren't you at your post?
Second, you're getting reasonable responses to what I'd consider an overgenerous appraisal of Jones, but let me back up a bit and ask about your lady friend who wants to stockpile bombs. What the fuck? Obviously you may have been using hyperbole or making a joke ot whatever, but if you're serious, what gives here? She knows something about bombs, does she?
Because the trio of a criminal, violent illegal alien, and teenaged religious extremist murdered me and used me as a skinsuit.
Yeah, this was the real shocker. No jokes, no exaggeration, this is where the rhetoric has led. As best as I can tell, this is the very edge of the verbal Overton window in deep blue spaces. I have zero concern that she has actually begun to do so, could or would in the near future, and I'd definitely be aware before things got to that point. This is the very front line in the shit testing AOR.
It's possible I've been unclear in some post but that doesn't mean I condone these statements or the general atmosphere of acceptability of wishing for harm, I'm merely a traveler reporting my experiences. Data mines are different from other types of mines because you have to fill them up first, all I've got are a couple pebbles.
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