domain:preview.redd.it
Magusoflight
1d ago
Social media posts with hundreds of thousands of likes
netstack
Texas is freedom land
1d ago
Fuck.
I learned about this by overhearing a hushed conversation between coworkers. Feels different than if I’d just seen the firehose on social media.
Have they not caught the shooter yet? Sites reported a “person of interest” in custody. If that’s not the killer, I’m guessing it’s whoever asked a gun question seconds before he was killed. Hell of a coincidence.
I guess I’ll register a corresponding prediction. The shooter won’t turn out to be trans. Synchronizing an assassination to a political question is strictly more insane than just killing someone. As such, the specific question probably wasn’t relevant, and I’m falling back on base rates.
FiveHourMarathon
Wawa Nationalist
1d ago
I'm not sure what you're saying. West Virginia is dominantly Republican, the most republican state by vote share in 2024!
But even if you peel off half or more of that Democratic vote share as red tribe democrats and ignore the possibility of blue tribe Republicans, that still leaves 10-15% of the voters as blue tribe. Which is more than enough people to produce a single lone gunman, QED.
There's nowhere in the continental united states where you're more than a few hours on the highway from members of your outgroup.
Totalitarianit
1d ago
It certainly feels that way. Even if this wasn't planned by the powers that be, all they really had to do is wait for some other act of political violence and use that one as their reasoning. This is the perfect opportunity for them to introduce it, and people, in their emotional state, will support it. I don't think it can be avoided.
DiscourseMagnus
1d ago
Much like Republicans moderated, cut off the crazy fringe, or "just lost" after Gabby Giffords got shot in 2011.
I think there's a meaningful difference here, which is that per my memory, the Republicans did not endorse Gabby Giffords' shooting. I remember where I was when I heard about it, and the horror and anger in the room were more intense because of the strength of our right-wing convictions, not less. Insofar as I remember our reaction being ghoulish, it was only that we were worried we'd be blamed for it, not that there was any celebrating.
samesies
1d ago
Not sure where I am going with this comment, but I’m surprised at the number of negative or respectful reactions I’ve seen. Yes, there have been people who are happy, celebrating, or at least unsympathetic about the shooting.
But I’ve also see that the Yankees had a moment of silence for Kirk before last night’s game and that an MTSU administrator was fired for her comments about the shooting. Can’t provide links ATM, and these are just a sample, but I feel like this is a sea change. When was the last time you saw outrage of this level because of something that happened to a conservative?
4bpp
Now I am become a Helpful, Honest and Harmless Assistant, the destroyer of jobs
1d ago
It's the internet. A million people could be appalled and quietly battling cognitive dissonance to adjust their stance in his favour, and a thousand laughing and celebrating would still fill every feed you see, because the Algorithm favours certainty, extremity and outrage.
Primaprimaprima
Aliquid stat pro aliquo
1d ago
His arguments were often not all that sophisticated; he did a better job as an avatar of free, heterodox expression in academic settings, than as an advocate for any particular position.
That arguably makes him more dangerous.
Very few people actually listen to sophisticated arguments (I myself can only stomach so many in one day). It is the middle managers of culture who take sophisticated arguments, extract what is valuable from them, and repackage their insights in a manner that's rhetorically appealing (which then inspires the men of action, who actually bring about concrete changes in circumstances).
Botond173
1d ago
Almost without exception violent leftists are broadly negative about the future, so that's not surprising.
Botond173
1d ago
I just went on Bluesky with a fresh new account and searched for Kirk and sorted by top and scrolled by around 30 posts before I found one saying the death of Charlie Kirk was wrong and it was still accompanied by "And Charlie Kirk was a horrible, hateful man who spent his life radicalizing young people to embrace their worst demons by targeting women, people of color, immigrants, and the marginalized."
I consider myself a dissident rightist harboring no illusions about this entire matter but I do sort of wonder – is there any school of thought that is not of the third/fourth wave lipstick feminist / liberal / ‘progressive’ variety that these posters would ever be willing to not categorize as horrible, hateful, radicalizing (whatever that word even means in their minds) and demonic?
Lewis2
1d ago
I don’t use Reddit, but I’ve been checking /r/politics periodically over the past 24 hours to see the reaction there. The reaction from the mods has been to delete every post about his death. Most of the comments I saw before the posts were deleted were either celebratory or smugly satisfied.
VoxelVexillologist
Multidimensional Radical Centrist
1d ago
I don't think they'd be dumb to be concerned that this will kick off congressional hearings and summon them personally to testify under oath about the practices of their site. Not saying that it will or that they deserve it, but if it the killer was, say, a site moderator (low, but nonzero chance) or frequent poster, it seems possible.
Not to mention that corporate leadership are public-ish figures (see Brian Thompson), so it makes sense to cool it for self-preservation a bit too.
And also a third possibility, which I'll assume charitably is the most relevant: that they see the killing of political speakers as abhorrent.
OracleOutlook
Fiat justitia ruat caelum
1d ago
Charlie Kirk was asking for someone to bail out the Pelosi attacker specifically to ask the guy questions about his motives. Not because he supported the attack, but because he wanted to learn more about it. And then compared how easy most violent criminals are let out on bail compared to this attacker.
That is 100% different from thousands of people gleefully saying, "Finally! I hope they do Matt Walsh next." Sure, it's not as bad as Obama saying, "Finally! I hope they do Matt Walsh next!" But it's still pretty bad! If Obama made a similar statement to what Kirk said about the Pelosi attacker, something like, "I hope someone on the left gets the opportunity to talk to the assassin and find out his motives before the corrupt Trump DOJ gets their hands on him!" I don't think you'd see a problem with that statement.
HereAndGone
1d ago
Felker-Martin was writing a new series for DC about Red Hood
Man, DC is really scraping the bottom of the barrel. How on earth did this specimen wangle that?
johnfabian
1d ago
The left seems to believe the situation is sufficiently dire as to justify violence. Is there sufficient cause for resisting them on their own terms?
Your social media algorithms are almost certainly not feeding you opinions representative of "the left", just like "the left's" social media feeds are currently displaying the dumbest and most overwrought reactions from conservatives.
Stellula
1d ago
The right understands the gravity of using violence for political reasons, and so they don't do it.
The left just murdered a 31 year old father of two little girls who's crime was trying to engage them rhetorically, and a substantial number of the left are cheering it on.
I'm sick of hearing this both sidesism. The left is violent, the right simply isn't. It's not both sides. They're different ideologies.
roystgnr
1d ago
Also a complete normie, and this is why I make cold brew. Better than instant or any kind of preserved hot-brew coffee, you can still use fresh-ground beans and everything, but you can do all the work in the afternoon or evening and then the result is quicker and easier to put together in the morning than fresh hot-brew coffee.
Zero "pleasant aroma filling my home" is a downside, though.
If I was more of a coffee person I might switch to one of those coffee makers with a "set it up the night before to turn on right before you get up in the morning" electronic timer, but I'd assume that gets noticeably more expensive - not because of the electronics, but because it's got to have some way (pods? a perfectly sealed grounds compartment? a built-in grinder?) to prevent the grounds from going stale as they sit there overnight.
HereAndGone
1d ago
I'm surprised by this shooting, I know nothing about Charlie Kirk except mentions online where I got the impression that he was some guy on the right. The only things I've seen about him have been, for instance, in a recent dispute online about "is Gavin Newsom a transphobe?" where someone in the comments gave out about Newsom being on a podcast with Charlie Kirkkk (yes, three Ks, KKK geddit?)
So that was my view of their view of him: he is (of course) a fascist Nazi white supremacist because he's a right-wing conservative.
And now this happened.
We have no idea what the killer's motivations were, so backseat psychiatry about "was this just another crazy disgruntled person?" is useless. But I do hope it was a random crazy. If someone really thought "right-wingers are all Nazis, and everyone agrees that it's okay to kill a Nazi", then things in America are really bad right now. I hope they're not at that stage yet (or ever).
HyphalKnot
1d ago
Based on what? I don’t have social media, but the reactions of group chats I’m in have been broadly negative about the future. Who are these thousands and how do you know them?
aaa
1d ago
Original gMark ended mid-sentence, which seems to me to indicate it was not finished because the author or scribe was interrupted
The endings of manuscripts get lost, it's quite common. What this means in this particular case has been debated for centuries with different scholars arguing for various interpretations (including the long ending being the original intended ending). Jumping directly to "the scribe was interrupted mid sentence" is quite the stretch.
Botond173
1d ago
Any policy option that is without drawbacks or tradeoffs is also merely symbolic and, quite literally, ineffective.
HereAndGone
1d ago
So, please attempt to modulate the 'tism a little
Are you being ableist at me? Mommy, mommy, Tollbooth was mean to me!
People do these things because they believe they will be popular with those around them.
To make my position clear, I think this in completely absolutely no way justifies political violence against the left. But the (from my point of view) typical leftist can be incredibly vicious even the person who was killed wasn't someone who advocated that gun deaths are worth it if it meant protecting the second amendment.
And probably most people (including the typical leftist) feels weird about this on some level, but there's varying levels, like "I probably shouldn't say this, but my friends will get a kick out of it", "I probably shouldn't say this, but other people are doing it so I guess it's okay", "I probably shouldn't say this, but he did have it coming", etc.
It's a while ago now, so I'm not going to claim I have the mood dead to rights, but I mostly recall Republicans quickly circling the wagons around avoiding gun control legislation more than anything.
What I'm saying that Republicans didn't do was moderate on their rhetoric, or disappear from public life. The modern Republican party is more extreme in its rhetoric in every way than the party in 2011, and it's in power. Mitt Romney vs Donald Trump as standard bearer.
More options
Context Copy link