Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.

Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
As many of you are probably aware, there’s this popular theory among normie and normie-adjacent white liberals in the US and the West in general that Charlie Kirk’s assassin is a so-called groyper i.e. dissident rightist, racist etc. follower of Nick Fuentes. I was wondering if the main reason for this belief is that said liberals are fully aware of the level of infighting and factionalism that characterizes the Left and then go on to thoughtlessly assume that the situation must be the same on the Right because they actually have only scarce knowledge about it.
I'd more attribute that meme to three things
If you're extremely online and your only interaction with young men is through NYT and Slate horror articles about how they're all turning right wing, you get the impression that the gender divide between young men and young women is essentially 100% of men are right wing and 100% of women are left wing. Most alt-right accounts on twitter or substack will give you the same impression, right wing is all men and left wing is all women. So you see a young man, in Utah, with a gun, and you see a right wing extremist. Because both left wing and right wing sources tell you that all young men are right wing.
He hit his target. Left wingers, inasmuch as they perceive their side as capable of violence at all, perceive it as woefully inadequate at executing violence. Much of the disjunction and misunderstanding between right and left can be attributed to this: the left perceives the right as uniquely capable of violence, and the right perceives the left as uniquely capable of cultural persuasion; while both perceive themselves as incapable. To the Left, Left wing terrorism is the universe of harmless incompetents, right wing terrorism is horrifying and dangerous. To the Right, Right wing indoctrination is gentle prodding that will be ignored by most kids anyway, Left wing indoctrination is permanent psychological damage. The Left can't imagine a left wing assassin actually shooting straight.
Pure bad faith deflection, you flood the zone with nonsense alternative theories long enough that people mostly forget about Charlie Kirk by the time it's actually settled what happened. Similar to the Paul Pelosi thing, or the Minnesota state senators that got shot, or the Kavanaugh hearings, or the Epstein files etc. If my opponent has me dead to rights, but I can just keep saying "well we'll see what comes out later" and avoid losing the argument; by the time things actually do come out later, no one cares about the argument anymore.
That said, it's not all that insane a theory. It's pretty common for internecine conflicts to end in murder, especially where the intelligence services meddle. The only Israeli prime minister ever assassinated was killed by an Israeli extremist. Malcolm X was killed by the Nation of Islam. It advantages the Groypers for things to get more, rather than less, extreme.
I highly doubt that there's a Groyper High Command who ordered Kirk's death, but I wouldn't be shocked to find out that any online weirdo kid dabbled in some antisemitism in addition to trans-furry whatever leftism.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link