In fairness, while I recognize characters such as Kirk, Shapiro, Miller, Bannon, Jones, Loomer, Coulter, Peterson, etc. I could not name an equivalent set of alt-cultural influencers from the left.
Which either points to the Left’s ineptitude at the game of loudly pissing off opponents, or to how the Establishment Right has succesfully “mainstreamed” their ranting loons, or both.
Well, avoiding a lot of dank memes is one benefit of not following the news sources that talked a lot about Kirk.
Well, as I mentioned, my wife never heard of him. She pays very little attention to politics altogether, except at election time when she votes straight Democratic.
How undank of you!
Both. Definitely both.
Why do you feel it is necessary for me to be aware of the names of the specific RW influencers to understand their part in modern politics? To at least the degree I am capable of understanding modern politics …
I am not ignorant of what the messaging is, has been, will continue to be. My brain has to work hard enough to remember information that matters to me and intentionally exposing myself to things that I know will outrage me while I am helpless to do anything more than I am doing? I’ve got enough of that dealing with public health issues.
Skipping over the thread to answer the OP directly:
I had heard of Charlie Kirk, but had the wrong impression of his role in the current political climate. I thought Kirk was an editorialist, akin to Cal Thomas or Byron York. I knew that Kirk spoke at conservative events such as CPAC. I also conceived of Kirk as vaguely middle-aged, not as young as 31.
I had also heard of Kirk’s organization, Turning Point — primarily because of their role in canvassing for Trump last year. Somehow, I completely missed that Turning Point was essentially Kirk’s organization.
Never heard of him or his organization.
Those are much more well known names as far as I know. I definitely know who both of those are. Bem Shapiro is on Twitter antagonizing preoole and got talked about during Trump’s first term. Steven Miller got mentioned as the Nazi guy that was running Trump’s first winning campaign.
Charlie Kirk I only heard of by pwople debunking Chrsitian nationalists, and he was just one of many on that list. They didn’t seem to treat him as important.
I have vaguely heard of Nick Fuentes from Twitter, as a right wing Twitter troll. I can’t tell you anything about him.
And Laura Loomer is that one who people thought ras having an affair with Trump until a big falling out with her, and then her lashing out. I would have assumed she then became irrelevant.
I actually knew more about Turning Point USA than Kirk. I’d heard about a different Turning Point that did bits on the radio when I was younger. And I had looked up to see if they were the same.
She has the direct ear of Trump and is advising him who to fire. There was no falling out and she is extremely relevant.
I had heard of him but not that much. I read a fair bit of political Twitter and his name popped up every now and then. I am surprised that so many here had never heard of him but I guess that probably just reflects the average age out here.
The average age and the number of us who are actively avoiding everything about politics (other than voting when (if?) we get the chance) as the country is being suckered by authoritarians armed with unlimited money into a disaster we cannot prevent.
Immersing oneself in a river of shit is not necessary to know that the sewer is overflowing, that I agree with. Presuming to comment on why the sewer is overflowing and nobody is doing anything about it, however, requires some basic knowledge about septic systems; otherwise it devolves into mere venting and often misplaced outrage. If you can understand sewerage without occasionally getting face-to-face with shit I admire you and wish to know how you do it, because I haven’t figured that out.
Well when we hear the name Kirk, some of us immediately think of Captain James T. Kirk of Starship Enterprise.
I don’t fully understand sewage or politics. But I suspect architects of sewage systems understand them fine without wading through any shit.
I can’t vouch for what exact crap Kirk was so successful marketing, just what I’ve read about these last few days. Based on that it seems like standard issue provocative glurge. I wish I could say I’ve never scraped any of the sort off my shoes before, but not so lucky. Nevertheless I feel no need to look for shit to step in.
I had never heard of him or TPUSA.
I think people overestimate how important it is to know things like this. I can’t think of a compelling scenario in which I would need to know about Charlie Kirk. Having prior knowledge of him would not have meaningfully changed anything for me or the country, beyond, probably, making me constantly angry, and now that it’s important for me to know, I know! Nice how that works.
I asked my husband if he knew who he was, and he said yes, because of memes.
And then I was like damn, I guess I missed out on some funny memes.
If you mean how it affects your life on a daily basis probably not. But if you don’t understand how Kirk and a few others are important than there is no way you can understand politics today.
Several people have mentioned Nick Fuentes. I wonder how many know that Fuentes and Kirk had a long running fued. So far unconfirmed reports are saying the shooter was a Groyper, one of Nick Fuentes minions.
I had heard of him and knew he was important in the MAGA world, but I did not know a lot about his views. I didn’t need to know the details to know I wouldn’t agree with him since he was MAGA approved.
When I heard he’d been shot, I suspected it would be a fairly big deal, but I’m very surprised about the worshipful mourning I’m seeing. My 11 year old grandson asked me yesterday if I’d heard about the ‘guy who loved everybody and who everybody loved’ who’d been killed. I tried to keep my mouth shut, but I could not help but tell him that he wasn’t loved by me and that he believed in things I doubt he and his two sisters would actually support. I think I might be trouble with his parents.
See, that’s just the kind of thing I don’t think one needs to know about, to “understand today’s politics.”
I mildly agree that knowing something about Charlie Kirk was important for understanding same.
Disagree strongly. If you don’t know about the violent schisms on the right, it would be easy to make the superficial assumption that Kirk’s assassin was motivated by simple left-right opposition, and to accept right-wing propaganda to that effect. Awareness of the schisms, by contrast, lets you recognize that the attack on Kirk was just as likely, if not more, to come from further right, and inoculates you against the propaganda.