Sometimes you gotta jump through certain hoops. I don’t think the guy who turned in Luigi got the reward (could be wrong on that).
And a tiny bit of joy has been lost to us.
It would almost be worth it if I could be in the room when somebody tells Trump they’re doing all this for somebody else.
In the age of almost universal pre-compliance to fascism and no one putting up a fight, this sort of outright defiance is brave and something we desperately need more of.
As for his motivations, I’ll tell you this – the right wing narrative is set and it won’t matter if this dude was the most MAGA person who ever lived. They’ve seen all the possible narratives flashed out in front of them and they chose the one they like the most. They are well practiced in choosing what reality to believe. We don’t know shit definitively yet, but to them he’s already a whacko blue haired leftist who was banging a trans… man? I don’t even know if they consider it worse to bang a trans man (because then gay! based on identity) or a trans woman (because gay! based on sex on birth) and nothing that comes out no matter how reliable is going to matter to them.
I do think their rhetoric will tone down based on whether he was MAGA or not – not because they sincerely believe that he was MAGA, but because they can both simultaneously believe something that’s not true and on some level know they are lying to themselves, and so while they will go their grave swearing that the guy was a blue haired antifa, their calls for civil war will be muted because they know on a level they will never acknowledge that it’s bullshit.
Speaking of complying in advance, everyone getting fired for posting things that aren’t even that toxic is pretty fucking ridiculous, and demonstrates the double standard we have in our society where we excuse and ignore conservative toxicity and we’re hyper-aware of every liberal toxicity. No one gave a shit about the people who were laughing about two democratic senators being assassinated a couple of months ago, but now if you say something like “Charlie Kirk died from the sort of hatred he aimed to stir up” apparently you’re a monster that needs to get fired.
And even now that we’ve set this precedent, when a right wing assassin escalates the violence by assasinating another liberal/democrat politician or activist, the entire MAGA world is going to laugh it up and taunt everyone and their sudden concern about decorum will be ignored and no one is going to care about exposing and firing these people even when the shit they’re going to say will be far worse.
And that’s not even talking about the official, state sanctioned punishment for such speech. People in the US on VISAs are being deported for saying bad shit about our national hero Charlie Kirk. People in the military are being punished for it. This would never, ever be done for a liberal activist that was assassinated and is a massive and obvious governmental suppression of free speech.
… which makes me think an obvious thought: when Trump dies, are we going to fire and deport the tens of millions of people who are happy it happened? Is that even logistically feasible?
I suspect Trump supporters will be too busy killing one another in an effort to ensure their particular brand of radicalism comes out on top to worry about anything else.
That’s what death camps and death squads are for; they are logistically easier than mass deportations. And more satisfying for the fascists.
I can’t wrap my head around what it was specifically that Matthew Dowd over at MSNBC said that got him fired. There is certainly a sentiment of blaming the victim in there but not to the degree of saying something akin to “fuck around and find out”. And his comment about it possibly being caused by celebratory gunfire is darkly humorous in the abstract but the specific context on it was that he was commenting on a story that was about five seconds old at that point. What do newspeople do when a story is breaking but there is no information? They talk shit! I remember slowly breaking news unfolding on MSNBC (IIRC something to do with Trump’s legal troubles although that hardly narrows it down) where the host said on the air that they were “trying to make soup from this water”.
Meanwhile, when Democratic figures have been attacked, I understand the commentary from the right has been particularly odious. Examples abound, I don’t wish to dive into the sewer to find any. But it seems safe to say that the idea of not celebrating the death of a political figure only applies to one side.
I am worried that there will be retaliation against Democrats even though they aren’t the ones responsible for this because it is evident that right-wingers desperately want Civil War 2.0 to kick off.
oh fucking never mind.
Picture the ghost of Christmas yet come pointing out his headstone to Ebenezer Scrooge. Scrooge had to get down on his hands and knees to read it. Put something like that along one edge of a dance floor at the party.
I’ve read every post so far but this has got to be the most active thread I’ve seen in in some time. Sheesh.
I knew who Kirk was by reputation but mostly thought of him as another alt right influencer in the Fuentes mold. I had no idea they had come to odds recently. I do look at liberal YT videos sometimes and he does come up as an occasional topic. If they’re going to implode it needs to be sooner than later. I also had no idea he was so directly intertwined with the White House.
The public reaction has been nothing but insane and embarrassing. The deification of a social media influencer and hatemonger in the interests of clear and obvious propaganda is disgusting. People are being silenced and silencing THEMSELVES to avoid being targeted next. This country has lost it’s fucking mind. They’re trying to create a rallying point.
I mean just look at the reaction on the online MAGAsphere and it really does look like they’re itching to get the greenlight. They really think it’s coming. Flying the flag at half-mast? Having him lie in state? Are you fucking kidding me?
I’ll neither mourn nor celebrate his death, but the world is better off without him. Fuck Charlie Kirk. Fuck the assassin. And fuck every single human being who had a hand in getting us to this point. This country is a powder keg looking for a spark. I don’t think it’ll be this, but it feels inevitable. We’ve got three and a half more years of this bullshit, at the very least. I feel a heaviness in my chest when I think about that.
It is my understanding that we have evidence that transwoman porn, “tranny porn”, is very popular in conservative states. It’s the gateway, and release valve, that some men have for their repressed sexual desires.
He failed to grieve Kirk’s death sufficiently for the magaflatearthers’ approval. Very DPRKesque.
There will be retaliation against the Left and against minorities. There will definitely be retaliation against migrants.
The Second Civil War has already started. Don’t you remember the felon-in-the-Oval has promised to not only send troops to conquer Chicay, but also to have Chicago “know why it’s called the Department of War”?
Shoot, I forgot about a Nobel Peace Prize nomination for Charlie!
This is 100% correct. Over at the RWNJ sites, people like Boelter (carried a hit list of 40 Dems), Roof (shot up a black church), and James Alex Fields (drove the car in Charlottesville) are routinely declared leftists. We are in a post-truth world, and I mean that quite literally.
Shucks, now my fundie brother is feeling stinky at me. I mentioned how the Right is now blaming South Park for inspiring the murder of CK, and I opined that a cartoon can only be held responsible when the weapon is an anvil. Oops - God will not be mocked, nor will Christian nationalism. I’m getting targeted ads for lighting rods.
One concession I’ve made, and which I’ve seen elsewhere, is that, unlike Mckinely with a quick handshake or John Lennon signing an album cover, Charlie Kirk would have allowed his assassin to fully lay out his beef with him and responded; no matter how fallaciously.
This is where I think a lot of people are getting it wrong.
The deification is a minor part of it. What I mostly see is fear. I see a lot of higher-ups on the right saying one thing but privately thinking “what if I’m next?” and “what if people realize what a shitbag he was and we are?”
Most of them did not really give a personal shit about Charlie Kirk. But they absolutely care that they themselves may be in harm’s way. And they absolutely do not care if that means essentially becoming a parody of a ham-fisted thought police.
ETA: I’m not above suspecting that since the Ghislaine Maxwell interview went as hoped, there’ll be a “implicate our enemies and dodge the death penalty” plea deal
I’m not sure they’re capable of that sort of introspection. I agree with the fear, but I suspect it has more to do with a perceived campaign on the part of George Soros et.al. against their righteous crusade to rescue the country from the scourge of wokeness.