Political violence was a feature of US life for some time already. At least since January 6th, 2020.
What is new is the active fighting back against fascism.
Wasn’t it always the case? I mean MLK, JFK and RFK all got killed.
… Maybe it’s a bad idea to be a politician whose last name starts with K.
The political leanings and goals of the shooter, who is not in custody, are not yet known.
So … We don’t actually know if this was a politically-motivated shooting. I mean, I’d be willing to bet money that it was, but for all we know it could have been a jealous husband, an enraged parent, a jilted ex lover, or someone with delusions.
In any case, political violence is not a new thing here.
They’re gonna frame a trans person, wsj is already setting the stage.
Or a powerful pedophile desperately trying to distance himself from the Trump / Epstein Files.
That occurred to me too. Having an awful, public crime to blame on “the left” is awfully convenient, and Trump and his ilk immediately came out blaming Democrats and calling for political violence. What if Trump or one of his circle is behind this because they wanted a distraction from the Epstein situation and literally everything Trump does being unpopular? People who are okay with raping kids clearly have no moral compunctions preventing them from such an act.
But I’m not one to profer conspiracies without any kind of actual evidence, and I doubt Kirk is really considered enough of a somebody for them to believe he’d be enough of a distraction (although that may be because I just ignore anything to do with him because of his being a bigoted dumbfuck). Having something to blame on Democrats and “the left” just happened to be good fortune for them. I do think it more likely that the shooter was someone like a parent of a kid who was a victim of a school shooting or who was queer and died by suicide.
I’m inclined towards the opposite: Kirk would have been too valuable to them. He’s been one of the biggest propagandists and doing good work. Plus his debate shtick works really well on unsuspecting people with no opinions because he comes off like a well informed and well meaning “debate me” dork rather than a chud sociopath (though he is more like that on his shows, especially the one with Jack Posobiec who’s a more unhinged nazi, but only the truly committed end up watching those since it’s a much less entertaining format than “Kirk DESTROYS student” vertical clips).
I mean, compare that to when Matt Walsh does public debates with young people: the sleaze on that guy is permanent, he gives off Handmaid’s Tale commander vibes. The newbie reaction is less “he seems to have a point” and more “why is he allowed around minors”. Basically what I’m saying is I think they would have picked someone less crucial to their operation if it were a Trump hit job, someone like Jack Posobiec or even smaller. It would have had literally the same effect.
When some asshole shoots a black teenager for ringing his doorbell because the shooter has been whipped into a frenzy of racist hate and terror by people like Charlie Kirk, is that not also political violence? Charlie Kirk’s death just shows that political violence targeting republican men is now a feature of US life. It has been a feature of life for democratic politicians for some time. For women and minorities: always.
How very egalitarian of us
Gun violence has gone from a mainstay of working class life to schools, to now including CEOs and politicians. Truly equal
What was that quote? “God made man, Samuel Colt made him equal”?
Charlie Kirk wasn’t even a politician or CEO? He was a talking head, a media personality; an “influencer”.
Charlie Kirk’s death is the wake up moment? Not the Minnesota lawmakers who were murdered just a couple months ago? Not the martial law being declared in US cities?
Or all the shootings that are normalized and have people commenting things like “let’s not make this political.”
How many minorities have been shot for knocking on the wrong door or using a stranger’s driveway? By shooters amped up on what these political figures are saying?
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Chomsky frequently talks about how the media narrative creates “worthy” victims vs. “unworthy” victims.
I think what we have in the cases you mention are examples of the “unworthy” victims.
Even in this thread, you’re the only one who remembered the other recent political assassinations.
Oh, and I guess political violence was not a feature of US life when the sitting president called for an insurrection and planned a coup in parallel?
Hear fucking hear.
Also pick a year and there has been political violence, especially with conservatives in charge. Minorities have suffered under political violence so much that it’s given them collective generational trauma.
Conservatives are finally getting what they asked for and they’re even getting it in the way they asked for, which is delightfully poetic. If guns are to be used against tyrrany then I guess we get to see Kirk’s blood fall out his neck instead of his trial.
Why wouldn’t people kill each other based on rhetoric like “Democrats are demonic and they’re trying to fuck your children and erase white people” or “there’s a huge child raping conspiracy involving tons of powerful people and now that I’ve said this you need to immediately forget about it you stupid fucking bitch”
Other people can argue about morality but I am obsessed with how things actually function. I’m obsessed with the “exploits” we allow.
ie murder is illegal. Telling others to commit murder is illegal. But it’s legal to use words and ideas to rig a Plinko game so that if someone was crazy enough to play, they’d drop their chip exactly where you wanted.
These deaths happened awhile ago, when people started upping the ante. Just takes awhile for the crop to grow.
Ah yes. The death of a tiny-faced, vile, white guy is what shows that. Not the thousands of mass shootings, or the Zionists running riot on college campuses, or ICE thugs (and pretend-ICE thugs) running rampant on the streets…it’s the extermination of vermin that did it. Sure.
Mango wants flags flown at half staff for this hateful man, who was not an elected official. No such honor was given to Melissa Hortman, and flags were raised for Asinine’s inauguration because they were down for Jimmy Carter.
The whole “it’s a new era of political violence” rhetoric only means that Republicans do not expect to get assaulted but it’s perfectly okay for that to happen to Democrats.
Is NOW a feature of US life?? Political violence has always been a feature of US life. Their entire country is built on violence and of deep hatred for others, profiting off subjugated populations, and just violence, violence and more violence. “Violence” was the last word out of his mouth, in life.
It’s here for white conservatives and suddenly everyone, even passionate progressives I know, are acting like it’s a new thing.
Leave to Muricans to not know anything, even their own country’s despicable drenched in violence - history.
Especially when that execution was ordered by trump.
“Now”? Someone hasn’t been paying attention. Violence has been a part of US politics since, well, US politics.
Violence is a defining feature of US politics.
Roughly 10% of all US presidents have been assassinated: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and JFK. That’s 4 out of 47. In most other countries it has either happened once or not at all.
All you can really say is that there was a relative lull of political violence between say 2005 and 2015. But, even that period would be seen as massive political violence in most other advanced countries in the world.
And that’s only counting assassinations of presidents, if you count other political figures, other acts of violence politically driven, and assassination attempts it’s even higher.
My favorite had to be Squeaky Fromme’s attempt on Gerald Ford:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Gerald_Ford_in_Sacramento
Following that, there was a 2nd attempt on Ford:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Gerald_Ford_in_San_Francisco
Reagan of course:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Ronald_Reagan
Famously there was the attempt on Teddy Roosevelt where he was shot then gave his speech anyway(!):
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attempted_assassination_of_Theodore_Roosevelt
“He spoke for 50 minutes before completing his speech and accepting medical attention. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, “Ladies and gentlemen, I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot, but it takes more than that to kill a bull moose.””
But if you widen it to other figures, you get local officials like Harvey Milk:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassinations_of_George_Moscone_and_Harvey_Milk
Of course there’s a wiki on this…
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinated_American_politicians
I never paid attention to the guy in life so was surprised that this is becoming a thing, but on reading his wikipedias entry …. I’d say he deserves partial credit for political violence becoming normalized
I assume the national guard will be rolling into Salt Lake City any minute now.
There was some bit from the FBI about how they are going to send immediate help or something, but I assume they meant trying to track down the shooter.
Dumb dumb donnie probably thinks it’d be a real “help” to send in the National Guard to stand around, look bored, assist ICE in kidnapping people that don’t pass the paper bag test, and do other useless shit in the pursuit of performative “crime fighting” measures.
Fkn lol!
Political violence is our country’s beginning, middle and end. I’d say we have less than is historically typical lately. We just had such a lull in it for so long it feels like a lot.
