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Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 30, 2025

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.

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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

  1. 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.

  2. 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.

  3. 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.

dabbled in some antisemitism in addition to trans-furry whatever leftism.

Antisemitism is now completely fine with the left, and has been for a while. If one is skittish about it, they may use the z-word, but many don't even bother anymore. Not that it ever had been entirely out - Marx had been a rabid antisemite, for example - but there were times when it wasn't much talked about. Those times are completely past us. Now any leftist can embrace hating the Joos, and the peers would only cheer.

Which left are you talking about? In no leftist circle I'm present in are Jews every mentioned negatively qua Jews. If Jews are ever disproportionately lambasted in those circles it is only ever as a function of their disproportionate presence among Israeli and billionaires. Should a leftist go "Jews amirite" there, I have no doubt that they would be promptly expelled, given that it doesn't happen.

In no leftist circle I'm present in are Jews every mentioned negatively qua Jews.

In some circles they use the z-word. In some, they don't bother anymore. Both sides though know it means "the Jews", and both sides are ok with it. Now defining precisely may be a bit complicated, but I'd say AWFUL crowd would mostly be like "oh of course I don't have Jews, it's just about Israel policies!" while the Muslim and other "historically oppressed" parts would be much more open about what it is about.

Should a leftist go "Jews amirite" there, I have no doubt that they would be promptly expelled

Just as university students who literally denied Jews from entering the campus and physically attacked them were expelled, and so did the organizations supporting them?

of their disproportionate presence among Israeli

lolwut? "Disproportionate" to what? Did you expect Israelis to be Chinese instead?

In some circles they use the z-word. In some, they don't bother anymore. Both sides though know it means "the Jews", and both sides are ok with it. Now defining precisely may be a bit complicated, but I'd say AWFUL crowd would mostly be like "oh of course I don't have Jews, it's just about Israel policies!" while the Muslim and other "historically oppressed" parts would be much more open about what it is about.

I note you aren't claiming that they use the word Jews when hating them. It's easy to believe that Muslims do, but then I also don't really count them as leftists.

When you say "they don't bother", do you mean they say "Jews are disgusting" and things to that effect?

Just as university students who literally denied Jews from entering the campus and physically attacked them were expelled, and so did the organizations supporting them?

In an event that wasn't targeted against specifically Israel, right? Right?

Again, I define antisemitism as the phenomenon of hatred against Jews as the whole group. Not "Israel", not "zionists" and not "the capitalists". It would include Jews who don't live in Israel, don't support Israel, aren't rich, don't practice Judaism etc. I don't know how you define it, but if it's "students who stage anti-Israel protests" then we aren't gonna get anywhere.

The simpler explanation is that most leftists today hate Israel, most leftists today love Muslims and most Muslims today hate Jews (but hold their tongue when in mixed company). This applies in general to broad groups of people such as "The Leftists" - if you find diversity of opinion, what is most likely is that they actually do not agree, not that they all believe the same thing but some hide it.