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We have no idea what their motivations are but yep let's jump to conclusions and say this is what started it. How many "leftists" have been killed and right wing coups uncovered?
But this is it. THIS is what shows its an everyday fact.
"now" as in since forever.
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.
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.
Back in the 60s, they were killing everyone on the left - JFK, RFK, Malcom X, MLK, etc.
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.
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.
The political violence is reaching the white men, and now the media's pretending its new.
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"?
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.
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.
ICE raids, violent border security, deploying the military to cities, the president declaring war on cities...
Political violence was a feature before today.
It's only "violence" when liberals do literally anything as a response, even if it is mildly rebuking the Confederates, or telling them NO.
The convicted felon in chief gets his panties all twisted when people - particularly Black people - were protesting. I'm sure he deemed that "violence" even if most of that was spurred on by police and Confederate counter-protesters being the violent ones.
In this case apparently it’s “liberal violence” before there’s any indication of the murder motives or affiliation
It always is. They always jump to blaming liberals, minorities, etc. long before there's any information.
Missing the big one: The Minnesota politicians that were assassinated 2 months ago (1 assassinated, 1 attempted)
The federal government and right-wing talking heads were silent about that one. Tacit approval
"The big one" was when Trump personally led a deadly violent coup on the nation's capital to try to overturn the results of a fair election. What few consequences actually came of it have all already been undone, and the consequences that should have come were never even really considered.
Boomers and older Gen-Xers seem to truly have no concept of how many school shootings that Millennials and Zoomers have lived through.
The response to those was the same every time, and the words they used were similar to those Kirk himself used — "a little random violence is the price we pay for the freedom to own guns."
Since Uvalde, I have just been straight with it and just refer to it as the Second Amendment God. The Second Amendment God occasionally gets hungry, and must be fed with blood. That's what we as Americans want. This has happened a thousand times over in 25 years, and each time, we all cast a silent vote that this is what we want.
The Second Amendment God exists because we want Him to exist.
It's only "political violence" when it's right wing figures that get hurt
Always has been. Whenever someone says "this is not who we are" they are willfully lying or have had a very poor history education. We can aspire to be better but for all of American history, political violence has been a feature.
Yeah, the very phrase Make America Great AGAIN is a paradox. When was America ever great? During the Colonial and Antebellum eras, when we built a nation on the backs of slaves? Or during those same eras, when we systematically committed genocide against the Native Americans? Or the end of the 19th/beginning of the 20th century, when unpunished lynching wasn't just tolerated, it was actually considered an enjoyable community event? Or the post-war era, where women basically found themselves as the new replacement for house slaves, unable to make financial decisions for their own lives? Or the rest of the 20th century when corporations and Sociopathic Oligarchs embarked on a strategy to strip away ALL the wealth from the middle class?
Even as a kid, learning about slavery and Indians, I was wondering why America is considered such a wonderful country.
Especially when that execution was ordered by trump.
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?
Let’s also not forget that J6 was political violence, too.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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?
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
Thats what we get for allowing the racist fascists to gain control of all facets of government and society. Violence is all they respect
The 2nd Amendment is reserved for when all the other Amendments fail.
If your political ideology is based around advocating for harm to other groups of people, violence targeted at you shouldn't be surprising. FAFO.
How do they know it was political? Maybe the shooter hated him for personal reasons.
"Now"? Someone hasn't been paying attention. Violence has been a part of US politics since, well, US politics.
Having a school shooting every other week shows political violence has been a feature of the US for a while now.
I PRAY to GOD this isn't True! I PRAY to God that we go back to ONLY MURDERING CHILDREN IN SCHOOL!