Given the not-totally-implausible theory that he ordered Kirk’s death, that’s not surprising.
If he had ordered that death, he might still use references to Kirk the Martyr for his own political advantage (given that Donald has no shame whatsoever).
But references to “martyred” right-wingers is simply not his style, even though it’s a time-honored tool in the Demagogue’s Toolkit. (Possibly because he doesn’t want his listeners to cease thinking about HIM for even one second.)
Or because Trump genuinely thinks that people who get killed are by definition losers.
Yeah, that’s a fair reading of his personality.
My working theory is most of MAGA don’t really care one whit about the death of Charlie Kirk let alone anyone caught in the crosshairs of an assassination attempt. They might have liked that Kirk was sticking it to those college libs but they didn’t really care about Kirk himself. The anger from MAGA following Kirk’s death was purely performative. It just gave them another excuse to lash out.
I agree. A lot that they do is ‘purely performative.’ It’s an addiction—Being Righteously Outraged. It feels great and they’re always looking for their next high (i.e. excuse for lashing out).
(In fairness, there are people on the left with that same addiction.)
I’ve sometimes wondered if zero — not just a trivially small number, but literally zero — people gave a shit about the tan suit.
Why do you think so many of us are on this messageboard?
Yep. I think the “outraged” reaction when, for example, Reagan wore one gives us all the evidence we need.
Seems plausible. Plenty were willing to pretend outrage at that “insult to the Office,” but likely no one had a genuine belief that ‘tan suit = disrespectful.’
I’ll take issue with this, in line with my response just above: I don’t think that many here are merely pretending to find Donald (and his enablers) deplorable. I would guess that the majority have very genuine feelings of disgust at those individuals and all their works.
The outrage is real, but we keep coming back for more.
And some of us are outraged, but because we don’t get to vote, come here for empathy, both for ourselves* and to offer to the USA.
We are all in horror of the Trump era.
* it is unfortunate that this small-minded man’s actions/inactions have such global reach.
I suppose there’s a range of ‘this is healthy’ to ‘this is unhealthy’ about that. On the healthy side: it actually can be helpful to one’s state of mind to be able to commiserate with others.
There you go. Empathy is a useful tool for keeping oneself sane and connected.