The posturing, the belittling, the proud lack of empathy

My Sunday movie was The History of Sound. I saw it in an actual movie theater and for the third time in my life I was the only person in the audience. This is the story of Lionel. He was was born about the turn of the 20th century in rural Kentucky, where he grew up. His father taught him a lot of folk songs. A music teacher recognized his talent and arranged for him to attend the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston. One evening in a tavern her hears the guy at the piano singing one of the songs he learned from his father. This is David and they strike up a friendship and fall in bed together. Lionel goes back to Kentucky. Soon David sends a letter proposing the two of them hike through rural Maine stopping along the way to record the songs the locals sing. They even tote around an Edison recording machine, the one with the wax cylinders. When they get back to Boston David is called up for duty in the Great War. Lionel is spared because he wears glasses. After the war David says he is staying at the college where he teaches and suggests Lionel is such a good singer he could get a job anywhere in the world. He does, but that doesn’t satisfy. Much of the music for the film is the folk songs they record, listen to, and sing. This is a rich part of American musical history. The movie also has some background music. Paul Mescal, the actor who played Lionel looked a bit older than the college student he was playing. Josh O’Connor who played David looked older than that. We were well into the movie before I figured out David wasn’t a fellow student, but a college instructor. I also learned from IMDb that neither lead actor is American – O’Connor is English and Mescal is Irish. Strange for such an American story. I’m not sure if this is a gay love story. There is certainly gay sex, but there is hetero sex too. And Lionel isn’t sure what to make of their relationship. I very much enjoyed this movie. D’Anne Witkowski, in her Creep of the Week column for Between the Lines, wrote about how conservatives talk about Charlie Kirk’s civility – and demanding liberals be civil in return – because Kirk was able to broadcast their beliefs in a “civil” manner. But those beliefs are still vile. I had written Kirk was known for inviting debate, though his “debates” were set up to show liberals in a bad light, to show Kirk winning. In another post I wrote that maybe he wasn’t so bad, that he genuinely wanted to hear another person’s opinion. Witkowski said I was right the first time.

But to claim that Kirk was some kind of paragon of free speech devoted to the free exchange of ideas is simply false. Sure, he invited debate. He was, in fact, under a tent that said "debate me” when he was killed. But he did not invite a dialog. He did not listen. Not in a meaningful way. He did not seek to understand where other people were coming from. Debate, for Kirk, was a game of one-upsmanship. He was exceptionally good at interjecting and interrupting to dominate any and all exchanges. It was, in fact, the very thing he was doing when he was killed. He was interrupting the person “debating” him to control the narrative. It was something that a lot of people liked about Kirk. He was very alpha in his approach to “debate.” It’s something that a lot of people like about Trump, too. The posturing, the belittling, the proud lack of empathy with an emphasis on cruelty. It’s a type of masculinity that is, sadly, highly valued in American culture. It’s often called “toxic” masculinity. I, personally, find it abhorrent. In a culture where toxic masculinity rules — and in this moment, it absolutely does — there’s a winner-take-all attitude toward the things we all need to participate in that whole “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” thing. Under toxic masculinity rule, there is no need to take care of the most vulnerable among us. Because they are getting exactly what they deserve. Which is nothing.

Two things can be true. Kirk said vile things. He didn’t deserve to be murdered. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos discussed Kirk’s memorial service on Sunday (so we didn’t have to watch it – and I didn’t). To sum it up: The grieving widow and the nasty guy turned Kirk’s hate from a memorial service into a campaign rally. It included a lot of whitewashing Kirk’s record and vowing vengeance on the left. AKALib of the Kos community gathered together reviews of the nasty guy’s speech at the United Nations general assembly. It was an international embarrassment, but very much true to form for this guy.

Trump’s nearly 56-minute address (it was scheduled for 15 minutes) to the United Nations General Assembly was both appalling and disgusting in how he turned it into his hate-filled campaign-like speech targeted to satisfy members of his cult.

A post by lamina566 of the Kos community talked about questions liars ask to manipulate people and derail a discussion. The author took college classes in Logic and Stoicism and recently watched a video on “The Stoic Habit.” These five questions are pulled from the video. This post includes a lot of discussion on how the questioner is trying to flip the discussion and a way to respond to the question. I’ll summarize. 1. Why are you being so sensitive? Response: I’m not sensitive, I’m observant. Does that make you uncomfortable? 2. You trust me, right? Trust is earned. If you’re asking you know you don’t have it. Response: Are you asking me to ignore my judgment? 3. Are you accusing me of something? Response: Maintain eye contact for several seconds, then “Should I be?” 4. Would I ever lie to you? That isn’t a question, it’s theater, meant to demand trust. Response: “Would I know if you did?” 5. Can’t we just move on? It’s a way to escape accountability. Response: “I’ll move on when I understand what happened.” The liar’s purpose is to exhaust you until you’re too tired to keep searching for the truth. Alex Samuels of Kos explored the idea of moving to Canada or some other country to get away from the horrors of the nasty guy, MAGA, and their destruction of democracy. Yeah, web searches for moving to Canada spiked after the 2024 election. Those searching were presumably Democrats, though there were reports of Republicans expecting to do the same if Harris had won. A new survey by the Pew Research Center suggests moving to another country might not fix what one is running from. They surveyed adults across 25 countries. In 20 of them majorities of adults say their nation’s political system needs significant change. In 7 of them about 80% of adults said the same. In all but a few countries “sizable portions of the population are pessimistic about whether reform is even possible.” Democracy forces compromise, but if the democracy isn’t functioning well, getting something accomplished can be hard. One reason why compromise may be difficult in some countries is because voting systems are winner-take-all. When I lived in Germany decades ago colleagues explained to me that so many seats are allocated directly to candidates (who are members of a party) and other seats are allocated to parties. Voters vote for both the candidate and the party. Then the party seats are allocated according to the percentages each party got in the vote. The candidate part might be winner-take-all. The party part isn’t. I will not guarantee I heard or remembered all that accurately. Samuels wrote:

While it’s tempting to blame “the other party” or fantasize about starting fresh in a new country, dissatisfaction with politics is widespread worldwide. The U.S. stands out for its particularly low trust in elected officials and extreme polarization—but the desire to escape isn’t uniquely American. Pew’s data suggests that leaving may not give you the political reprieve you’re expecting.

This post and the survey doesn’t consider whether another country’s politics is to the left or right of the US. I had reported a while back that Canada’s is far to the left of ours. And that may be enough for a refuge. In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet from Magdi Jacobs:

Just a reminder: any & every issue that possibly divides Democrats is regularly used against us on social media by foreign, especially Russian, interference campaigns. The "source" of the issue could be organically American or not. Either way it will be amplified by bots/trolls.

In the comments are a lot of cartoons and memes about the recent big press conference in which Robert Kennedy Jr. and the nasty guy blamed Tylenol for the rise in autism. Of course, they provided no scientific evidence and the medical community says there is none. Frank Amari posted a cartoon by Dennis Goris. It shows a bullet and a Tylenol tablet. The caption says, “Only one of these this has been proven to harm children. The other will come with a warning label.” There are also many memes about the nasty guy’s speech at the UN. One meme is from Joe Walsh, who tweeted: “Every single word he says here is a lie. Every single word.” Alas, the gathered world leaders had to witness the speech. A meme posted by paulpro (author not identified) shows a young woman talking to a young man:

I see, so if I don’t have sex with you I’m a prude bitch, if I use the pill I’m a slut, if I get pregnant I’m an idiot and if I choose abortion I’m Satan. Yay.

A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Sophie Labelle of Assigned Male shows a reporter stopping a man on the street, “Sir! In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, do you think the left is incapable of respectful debates?” The man responds with many ways in which Kirk did not engage in respectful debates. I took a look at Labelle’s Bluesky account and saw this cartoon: “The government won’t tell you that they are fascist, but they will tell you that anti-fascists are their enemies.” Another of Labelle’s cartoons talked about Horst Wessel. He was a skilled public speaker for the Nazi party and wrote the song that became the Nazi anthem. He died in 1930 during a forcible attempt to evict him for unpaid rent. And...

Goebbels, the Nazi chief propagandist, had been looking for someone to turn into a Christian martyr for the party and drum up enrollment. He turned Wessel’s funeral into a major propaganda event full of speeches antagonizing leftists. Thinking about him today for no particular reason.

That last bit shows a sign outside the arena where Kirk’s funeral was held. In Sunday’s pundit roundup Chitown Kev quoted Michael Bader of Salon:

We are experiencing extreme moral injury, every single day. So what do I mean by moral injury? That can happen when a soldier is ordered to torture, abuse or kill an enemy combatant or, worse yet, to harm civilians. Or when a drone operator learns, after an attack, that his drone killed several children. Or when a nurse administers a painful treatment to a terminally ill patient, knowing it is not likely to change the patient’s ultimate fate in any way. Or when, during the COVID pandemic, medical professionals were forced to make impossible choices due to resource shortages — to decide who got ventilators, to ration out protective equipment or to work in conditions they knew were unsafe for their patients or themselves. Those situations, and others like them, are classic examples of moral injury. The individual afflicted feels guilt, shame and anger, but ultimately, and perhaps more important, feels — and is — objectively helpless to do anything about it. The nurse or the soldier in most such situations is not experiencing direct physical harm. The harm is psychic and moral, reflecting a conflict between deeply held ethical beliefs and behaviors that violate these beliefs, particularly behaviors over which one has little or no control. [...] I believe that under Donald Trump, millions upon millions of people are enduring daily moral injuries that are extremely harmful to psychological well-being.

In the comments paulpro posted a cartoon (author not identified) showing Charlie Kirk arriving at the gates of Heaven and, surprise!, he’s welcomed by a black woman. Scott Horton posted a cartoon by Matt Wuerker showing a dam on a river labeled “Journalism” showing some big cracks as the lake behind it is the dumping grounds for sludge coming from pipes labeled, “Propaganda, Conspiracy Theories, Fake News,” and more. No longer available is a tweet of two men dropping off a plastic spine at ABC, the company that let Jimmy Kimmel go.

Wrong to celebrate someone's death, wrong to distort their life

By the time I think I might get caught up in reading the news, more news happens. So I’m still a bit behind. On Tuesday Oliver Willis of Daily Kos wrote on a topic that for me is quickly getting old:

Conservatives are engaged in a coast-to-coast witch hunt meant to punish people who aren’t marching in lockstep with the right’s attempts to lionize slain bigot Charlie Kirk. In a push led by Republican lawmakers, people are being hounded, fired, and even arrested for not going along with the right’s sanitized narrative of Kirk’s life. Kirk spent his years as a political influencer and organizer attacking the rights of trans people, women, racial minorities, and others. He promoted baseless smears and conspiracy theories and delighted in antagonizing his political rivals. Kirk even belittled the dangers of the gun violence that ultimately took his life. The right is now pushing for all of this to be forgotten in favor of a cleaned-up version of Kirk that emphasizes the loss experienced by his friends and family while omitting the harm he did to public discourse.

Willis then provides many examples. In Sunday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Heather Cox Richardson of the Substack Letters from an American. She talked about Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook who the nasty guy tried to fire because of the claim she had declared two homes to be her principle residence to get better mortgage rates.

It appears the documents that director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte used to accuse her of mortgage fraud were standardized forms that her personal application specifying the house was a second home overrode. It also appears that Cook never applied for a primary residence tax exemption for the Georgia home and that she referred to the home on official documents as a “2nd home.” ... Trump hoped to use the allegations against Cook to advance his control of the Federal Reserve. Now the revelation that those allegations appear to be false highlights the degree to which this administration is attempting to achieve control of the country by pushing a false narrative and getting what its officers want before reality catches up. Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) pioneered this technique in the 1950s when he would grab media attention with outrageous statements and outright lies that destroyed lives, then flit to the next target, leaving fact checkers panting in his wake. By the time they proved he was lying, the news cycle had leaped far ahead, and the corrections got nowhere near the attention the lies had.

In the comments is a cartoon by Graeme MacKay. It shows street signs at the intersection of “1st Amendment” and “2nd Amendment.” At the base of the signs is a memorial to Charlie Kirk. Filling the intersection is an accident where a car labeled “Intolerant rhetoric” has been smashed by a car labeled “Gun freedom.” Off to the side a man asks, “Which car was he in?” A woman replies, “Both.” In the comments of Tuesday’s roundup are several good memes and cartoons. Nick Anderson drew one titled Republican Politicians. It shows a family posing in front of a Christmas tree for the seasonal photo. Dad, Mom, and the kids each have a high powered gun. Mom looks at her watch and says, “We need to wrap this up. I don’t want to be late to my press conference condemning leftists for promoting violence.” Dr. MacLeod cartoons shows two men talking:

Red hat: I can’t believe these disgusting people saying bad things about a man who has been assassinated. No hat: Do you mean like when Charlie Kirk said that Martin Luther King was “awful” and that he was “not a good person”?

A meme posted by Feminist News Now:

The truly, truly strange thing about Kirk is that I have not seen his supporters quote one statement by him that illustrates his supposed nobility of character. Normally, when a civil rights leader is assassinated, their supporters spend days reciting their greatest quotes and preachings. So, it’s notable that the right has devoted the past two days trying to get Olive Garden waitresses fired for being critical, while completely avoiding his body of work.

A meme posted by exlrrp and written by AesPolitics says, “I remember a time when shootings like these didn’t end with the sitting president blaming 48.3% of the country for something they didn’t even do.” Trilemma posted a cartoon based on the well known trio of figures that include the words “Hear no evil...” This time is is three men in red hats that have the words, “See no crimes. Hear no facts. Speak no truth.” In Wednesday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Berny Belvedere of The UnPopulist discussed what the nasty guy has done in response to Charlie Kirk’s murder, then wrote:

But he has already proved, yet again, that he represents a radical departure from past presidents in similar circumstances. Those presidents did not shy away from calling out the perpetrators or the destructive ideologies they stood for—but neither did they cynically seize on such occasions and use them to turbocharge a partisan crackdown on political opponents. It is really important to understand the contrast between Trump’s behavior and those of previous presidents for two reasons: First, to get a clear measure of the extent of our moral descent. And second, to fully understand the authoritarian dangers our republic is facing.

David Russell Moore, on his own website wrote:

There’s a fixation, in online political debate, about voting in federal elections held every two years. Liberals tend to lash out at progressives or independents who suggest they might not vote for Democratic candidates. So much political oxygen gets taken up by the debate over Biden-vs.-Trump. Voting becomes an obsessive focus because Democratic Party leaders fight efforts to create official channels where changes to policy, like U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza, can be openly debated and formally considered. Free technology tools and meaningful deliberation programs that would increase participation within the party, often called “liquid democracy,” are unused. There’s little discussion on MSNBC, Pod Save America, or in New York Times op-eds about practical ways the Democratic Party could increase participation among its members in the here and now. By keeping such reform options in the dark, party leaders succeed in keeping them off the table. Even in the age of social media, the Democratic Party remains a stubbornly closed-off enterprise. At the top, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is a private corporation, as opposed to a membership organization like a labor union, and its leaders have impunity over how they set and enforce party rules. For decades, DNC insiders have gone to war to prevent basic transparency and grassroots reform efforts from gaining steam.

That last paragraph has a dozen links to articles detailing the points Moore is making. Kevin Kruse wrote about what others are calling the whitewashing of Kirk’s legacy.

As the nation reckons with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, there has been a notable trend from mainstream pundits and press outlets. They have tended to downplay or outright ignore the ugly things that he said and instead to stress the polite ways he said them. It's an emphasis on style over substance. This approach has been widespread in the punditocracy, which has almost uniformly moved to hold Kirk up as a rare avatar of civil disagreement in an uncivil era. Ezra Klein's opinion piece in the New York Times, literally titled "Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way," is a perfect example of this argument, but only the most prominent. Just this morning, a journalist with The Atlantic Monthly stirred up Bluesky by asserting flatly that Kirk was admirable because he "argued with civility." While I think it's absolutely wrong to celebrate someone's death, I think it's equally wrong to distort their life after they're gone. These pundits' paeans to Charlie Kirk's "civil" approach to politics ignore the many illustrations of his incivility. He had a record of making anti-Semitic comments, racist and sexist comments, attacks on religious minorities and immigrants that extended to spouting and defending the white supremacist "great replacement theory" that presents immigration of non-whites as a sinister conspiracy to destroy America.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme by The Complex Rebel discussing the political organization Kirk founded at age 18.

Turning Point wasn’t grassroots. Bradley Impact fund alone dumped $8,100,000 USD into Kirk’s machine then added a $108,000,000 war chest for 2024. Billionaires fund the class war. Charlie Kirk sold it as a race war. The money keeps them rich. The hate keeps us divided. That’s the playbook.

Also posted by exlrrp are a pair of tweets: First by Charlie Kirk: “Kentanji (sic) Brown Jackson is a diversity hire. She is only there because she’s a black woman.” Alex Cole responded, “Ketanji graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. You dropped out of community college to cosplay as a fascist. ‘Diversity hire’ is what racists say when a Black woman earns something they never could.” A meme from former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh:

When I was a tea party Congressman and right wing radio talker, I made fun of the snowflakes on the left who couldn’t handle speech that offended them. Well lookie here. Now the free speech wussies, the way too easily triggered/offended snowflakes, are all on the MAGA right. Hilarious.

A meme from chescaleigh: “If glorifying violence is so bad, why did y’all make Kyle Rittenhouse a celebrity?” A meme posted by exlrrp shows the rainbow crosswalk near the Pulse nightclub site, where dozens of people were gunned down, had been painted over. “Next time you think art doesn’t matter; just think about how scared, in 2025, the fascists are of sidewalk chalk.” In Thursday’s roundup Kev quoted Jake Lamut of Wired. Here’s a bit of it:

As time went on, there appeared to be only one source of true unity: Agreement between the ultra MAGA and Silicon Valley wings of the party over who the they responsible for Kirk’s murder really is. It’s anyone Republican leaders want it to be. According to one expert, that’s the entire point...

Lily Conway of The Contrarian discussed the messages on Kirk’s shooters unfired cartridges:

For someone unfamiliar with the tactics and communication styles of the online alt-right, these messages may appear as a jumble of nonsense (or even leftist messaging, especially the second and third engravings). However, the alt-right does not communicate through straightforward, earnest speech. Rather, it “weaponizes irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters, challenge progressive ideologies and institutions, redpill normies, and create a toxic counterpublic.” They communicate through terse, coded, and generally offensive phrases meant to signal group recognition. Nothing is said in earnest–in fact, any expression of earnestness is roundly mocked. Every true meaning is hidden under double or triple layers of irony only accessible to the in-group. As Julia Rose DeCook argues, “trolling itself has become a kind of political aesthetic and identity.” Indeed, it’s not unreasonable to question if these users carry any political ideology beyond mockery, irony, and bitter cynicism.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme from Jojo from Jerz:

So let me see if I have this right, the same Republicans who are saying Charlie Kirk was murdered for exercising his freedom of speech because he said things some didn’t like, are punishing people for exercising their freedom of speech because they said things they didn’t like?!”

A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Dr. Seuss shows the sideshow at a circus. A man is on stage with his jacket labeled “Appeaser.” Between his jacket and trousers are suspenders and no body. The barker says, “And on this platform, the most amazing marvel of the age! He lives; he talks...yet he has no guts!”

Running at warp speed into government censorship

I finished the book Gaslighting; Recognize Manipulative and Emotionally Abusive People – and Break Free, by Stephanie Moulton Sarkis, PhD. She’s a therapist working in Tampa and a specialist in gaslighting. I bought the book thinking it would describe gaslighting in great detail while standing a ways away and discussing well known gaslighters. But it is much more up close and personal – how to deal with a gaslighter in your life. The term comes from a 1938 play and 1944 movie in which a man convinces a woman she is going crazy because she is told and begins to believe things that are clearly not true. Some of the traits: A gaslighter can be charming, but is overly controlling and abusive. They pit people against each other, they don’t accept responsibility, they mistreat people with less power and use their weakness against them, they obsess over their accomplishments and image, they want you to fawn over them, they con people, they lie, they isolate others as a way to control, the few compliments they give out are more like insults, they require loyalty but don’t give it, and more. Many gaslighters have suffered a narcissistic injury a profound and deep threat to their self-worth or self-esteem. Yeah, that very much sounds like the guy sitting in the Oval Office. And I’m not the first to make that connection. It is one reason why I bought the book. People who have lived with a gaslighter for a long time may not recognize what a healthy relationship looks like. That’s one reason they stay in it. The other is they keep hoping the gaslighter will change, as he says he will do and never does. So most of the book is about what to do when in a relationship with a gaslighter. Short answer: leave. He’s not going to change. The relationship will only get worse. Sarkis describes how to leave and how complete the break needs to be. But sometimes complete separation isn’t possible. Such as when the gaslighter is a coworker, neighbor, your sibling and your parent will try to keep the connection, your ex and you still have to co-parent, or your ex’s new partner. Sarkis then provides a lot of help in how to treat the gaslighter to maintain your own sanity, the sanity of your children, and your reputation. There is also a chapter on what to do when the gaslighter is a politician. The last chapter is if you realize you might be a gaslighter. Sarkis makes a distinction between a gaslighter and one who has learned gaslighting behavior because that’s all they’ve known. A gaslighter will not see they have a problem and will not seek counseling. So if you do recognize such behaviors in yourself you’re not a gaslighter and there is hope to learn how to build healthy relationships. In that chapter Sarkis describes various methods of counseling so that a person can choose what is right for them. Sarkis also lists resources for therapists, attorneys, employee rights, and help for minors, coparenting, domestic violence, and suicide. Thankfully, no one I’m directly involved with is a gaslighter, so this book isn’t directly useful to me. However, it is a necessary and important resource to those who have to deal with one. I will donate this book to a young man I know. Last Saturday on NPR host Alisa Chang spoke to Jude Joffe-Block and Huo Jingnan, also of NPR, about those who criticized Charlie Kirk after his assassinated last week and are losing their jobs. This is three days after Kirk died. Joffe-Block said:

Kirk's supporters and high-profile, right-wing influencers, along with some elected officials, have been mobilizing to get people fired for posting in a celebratory way about Kirk's murder.

Those celebratory comments seem, to me, rather mild, such as saying: hate begets hate, zero sympathy. A reminder, Kirk had made incendiary remarks about races, immigrants, transgender people, and others. The types of people being fired include “teachers, civil servants, nurses, doctors” and I’m sure many others. Whether their firings violate Free Speech depends on the job and what was said, but in many cases no laws were violated. This effort is troubling in an important way. Conservative influencers on social media highlight cases and, the troubling part, Republican officials then call for their firing. One of those was Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn and another was Republican Rep. Clay Higgins from Louisiana. Rebekah Tromble, a First Amendment expert said:

We are running at essentially warp speed directly into maybe an even worse moment of government repression and censorship than we witnessed during the McCarthy era.

Joffe-Block again:

You know, the internet is definitely built for these kinds of crowdsourcing projects. You know, Charlie Kirk himself rose to fame for creating a watch list, encouraging students to report professors they consider to be radical left.

On Sunday NPR host Scott Detrow spoke to reporter Luke Garrett. They started with a comment by Utah Governor Spencer Cox:

We can confirm that his roommate was indeed a boyfriend who is transitioning from male to female.

That seems to fuel the Republican claim that Tyler Robinson, the shooter, was under the influence of the radical Left. Did Robinson shoot Kirk because of Kirk’s criticism of transgender rights? While the roommate and the rest of the Robinson family are cooperating with authorities, Tyler is not. His motives remain unknown. Cox, even before the shooting, has been a leading voice for peace and calm. He made the rounds of Sunday talk shows asking whether we want to be a nation of civility or violence. He also called people to get off their devices and have real relationships. Republicans have taken up booing him. Garrett said:

So members of Congress have less security than the president and are often in very public spaces, similar to the one where Kirk was in right before he died. And Oklahoma Senator James Lankford said, something has really changed on Capitol Hill. He told CNN that lawmakers have received 14,000 threats in 2025 alone. That's around 50 threats every day.

Lankford called for the temperature to be turned down on Capitol Hill and the White House. On Monday Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos reported that Stephen Miller, the guy behind making sure White House policy is as racist as possible, gave his response to Kirk’s assassination. I won’t quote his nasty words, only that, as Einenkel wrote, the nasty guy administration “would harness the anger over Kirk’s death to dismantle what he described as a coordinated ‘terrorist’ left.” And he’ll do it in Charlie’s name. From what little I know of Kirk and his willingness to debate opponents he would not want the destruction of the Left be done in his name. Then again, he did say some vile things about the left. On Tuesday Emily Singer of Kos reported that AG Pam Bondi declared she will bring the full force of the Department of Justice down on those who spouted “hate speech” against Kirk or any conservative activist. She has no understanding of Free Speech and that any words, except those that defame or that threaten or incite violence, cannot be made illegal. But Bondi contradicts Kirk:

"Hate speech does not exist legally in America. There's ugly speech. There's gross speech. There's evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment," Kirk wrote in May 2024 in a post on X. "Keep America free."

Even when conservative commentators quickly schooled Bondi on Free Speech, she still didn’t get it. I don’t want to find out how loosely Bondi defines “hate speech.” On Monday Einenkel quoted Secretary of State Marco Rubio:

Once a society loses the ability of people with strong disagreements to engage in discourse, then the only option you're left with is either silence or violence. Neither one of which is acceptable. Both are very destructive.

Good to hear it! Alas, one doubts Rubio was talking about his own Republican party and trying to get it to tone down. He was almost surely trying to describe the Left and Democrats. Quite rich from the guy who threatened deportation as a way to silence dissent. Lisa Needham of Kos wrote that Republicans aren’t even pretending to care about Free Speech anymore.

The Republican Party’s commitment to free speech has never been full-throated. Rather, their approach has been more of a “free speech for me but not for thee” sort of thing at the best of times. But in the wake of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s shooting death, even the nominal lip service conservatives give to the First Amendment is wholly out the window. In its place, we now have pretty much every textbook violation of the First Amendment you can imagine. Lucky us.

Needham then gives many examples. That includes the nasty guy calling for an investigation into is funding all that “alleged nefarious liberal slander of Kirk,” I’m sure the answer is “nobody.” We’re all willing to call out Kirk’s harmful comments for free – does that imply Republicans won’t say anything without being bribed? But even if there was a money trail, the conservative Supreme Court ruling on Citizens United should keep the benefactor protected. Singer sums up the situation well with the opening paragraph of a post:

Conservatives have come up with a host of measures they want taken to avenge right-wing activist Charlie Kirk's murder—none of which include gun reforms.

A conservative martyr, but not conservative enough

The story of Charlie Kirk’s assassination continues. A suspect is in custody. I’ll get to him soon. Oliver Willis of Daily Kos reported that the nasty guy announced the capture on Fox & Friends. That seems to be his favorite show. But why not a police official at a press conference making that announcement?

Trump expressed his excitement not for the justice of catching the person who allegedly murdered his friend, but he was instead animated by how the news would help Fox’s ratings. Trump has often expressed more interest in television ratings than in basic human decency.

Willis also reported that Kirk’s legacy is already being whitewashed. One example of many:

Rachel Bade, Politico’s Capitol bureau chief, wrote, “Agree with him or not, Charlie Kirk was a force of nature who embraced open debate and engaging with those who disagreed with him.”

Little is said about what he said that was so disagreeable. Willis fills in some of that and concluded:

Kirk’s killing was wrong. It was an outgrowth of the pro-gun culture that he himself helped foster. But he wasn’t a good person, and the news media and others should not erase what the man stood for throughout his time in the public eye.

Alex Samuels of Kos reported:

Lawmakers from both parties spoke out against political violence in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing. But while Democrats zeroed in on the country’s lax gun laws, President Donald Trump and many of his allies on the right wasted no time in blaming the “radical left.” Minutes after Kirk, a close Trump ally, was shot and killed while speaking at a Utah college campus on Wednesday, the far-right corners of the internet exploded. Influencers, extremist communities—and even onetime co-president Elon Musk—flooded social media with calls for revenge. “This is a war, this is a war, this is a war,” Alex Jones, the school-shooting conspiracy theorist, declared on Infowars, setting the tone for the night.

Jones was far from the only voice. One was Musk who posted, “The Left is the party of murder.” That reminds me of the saying that an accusation by a Republican is actually a confession. Willis reported that many conservatives, including the White House, are comparing Kirk’s death to the 9/11 attack. Kirk was killed on the 24th anniversary of that awful day. Willis concluded:

Nearly 3,000 innocent people were killed on 9/11. They were parents, children, siblings, and friends. They weren’t hatemongers, and they aren’t the same as Kirk at all.

Walter Einenkel of Kos reported Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez talked to the press. She said:

There is no understanding, as we know publicly, of who this individual is, what their motivations were, where they came from. Whether it's a member of Congress, whether it is the president of the United States—to assume and assert and cast blame when the FBI has failed to even apprehend the assailant is absolutely an irresponsible action. People can finger point all they want. Look at the record. Look at the actions of what we are doing. I don't think a single person who has dedicated their entire career to preventing gun safety legislation from getting passed in this House has any right to blame anybody else but themselves for what is happening.

Lisa Needham of Kos reported:

Leave it to President Donald Trump’s administration to turn the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk into a way to attack immigrants and suppress the free speech of people that Trumpers don’t like. It’s a two-fer of terrible. The State Department didn’t waste a moment in letting everyone know how blatantly it was going to weaponize Kirk’s death. Less than 24 hours after the shooting, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau posted on X that “foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country” and directed consular officials to “undertake appropriate action.” ... This all boils down to ostensible right-wing free speech champions demanding that the government actively suppress speech they don’t like, on pain of deportation. Put another way, it’s an assertion that the First Amendment literally does not protect mildly negative speech about Charlie Kirk. … No one was ever going to stop the right from turning Kirk into a conservative martyr. But it’s downright infuriating that the government wants to use its power to demand that we all do the same.

I doubt foreigners are the ones glorifying violence. Emily Singer of Kos reported that far right house Republicans sent a letter Speaker Mike Johnson calling for a select committee to investigate the “radical left.” They are placing blame and harassing opponents “the best way they know how—the formation of a useless select committee that will waste taxpayer resources and not accomplish anything.” Yeah, they’ve done this sort of thing many times before. Samuels reported on a poll that shows what people believe about political violence, then compared that to studies of such violence. First the poll: Of all US adults, a third say left-wing violence is more of a problem, a third say the same of right-wing violence, and the final third are not sure. Breaking the data down by party, 62% of Democrats say right-wing violence is a bigger problem and 66% of Republicans say left-wing violence is a bigger problem. Contrast that with a 2021 study in the journal Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law & Society that looked at ideologically motivated killings from 1990-2020 and found 84.4% were the actions of far-right extremists. Studies that include more recent data are just as lopsided. Why such a big difference between perception and reality? One reason is how incidents are presented. “Violence against right-wing figures is often assumed to originate from the left, but that’s not always the case.” Samuels cautions that right-wing violence isn’t just in the past. It is an active and large threat. From the way the right talks there will be more attacks. Nick Anderson posted a cartoon on Kos showing a man in a suit in front of the Capitol. He says, “It’s imperative that we tone down our rhetoric during this dangerously polarized political environment.” Beside his words: “Translation: you have to curb your First Amendment rights so we can have unfettered Second Amendment rights.” Kos of Kos wrote that a Wall Street Journal article, since rewritten, said there was evidence of “expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology.” Updates had more caution, but MAGA social media “blasted out the tale of a transgender antifa assassin to millions.” It was a push to support calls for censorship and violence. Many of the quotes above amplified that. But the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, now in custody upends their narrative. He’s white and gun-loving. Evidence points to someone who spent a lot of time online and spent a lot of time in “toxic gamer and meme culture.” One result is the nasty guy is back to talking about his ballroom. And the rest of of the conservative universe...

Suddenly, it’s all compassion. “We know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such an evil, and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find Jesus Christ,” tweeted Republican Rep. Nancy Mace. It’s fascinating how quickly the hate machine turned into a forgiveness machine. In one way, we may have avoided giving them the boogeyman they so desperately wanted, and in doing so, we may have staved off further death and violence. It’s still early, though. Who knows what the spin could be in a week. But in the end, we still want fewer guns in the world and fewer victims of gun violence. And they get to carry on as if nothing happened, creating a martyr out of someone who encouraged this Wild West world that we’re stuck living in—and that ultimately claimed him, too.

In today’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin started with a report from Politico, summarized as: FBI director Kash Patel is, with this shooting, shown to be in way over his head. And commentators on the right are noticing. A tweet from Zaid Jilani:

This is going to expose me as a gamer but both the arrows and the fascist reference they mention for the shooters ammo are direct references to the video game Helldivers 2 and are common memes.

A tweet from Leila Claire:

I don’t want to be the first person to point this out, but to gamers “Bella Ciao” was not a song sung by “anti-fascists” but a collectible and the background music in a main quest in Far Cry 6, which is probably REAL relevant given his other gaming references.

A tweet from Zachary Carter:

I see no point in searching for left/right valence in Tyler Robinson. He fits the school shooter archetype: young, disaffected, ideologically amorphous, extremely online and raised in gun culture. The theater of such violence is just expanding to include political assassination.

Alex Nowrasteh, in his own blog has a table of political motivated terrorism since 2020. Out of 81 incidents, 21% were from Islamism, 22% from the left, and 54% from the right. Yesterday I had mentioned Kirk debated opponents and suggested he had a big advantage and used the resulting video for ridicule. I may not have been entirely correct. Brian Rosenwald, in his own Substack, mentioned that Kirk was admired for his willingness to debate opponents. That little bit implies the debates may not have been as sinister as I assumed. At the top of the comments is a cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Sophie Labelle. The text is long, so I’ll summarize. It explains Groypers as a far right group led by Nick Fuentes. Their “Groyper wars” target the left, but also mainstream conservatives. Kirk was a target because he was “a fake conservative” – he accepted debate with Jewish and gay people. Groypers routinely tried to force him in debate to take extreme positions. Groypers use progressive symbols to confuse people, which is how “Bella Ciao” is a theme song. The reference to Helldivers 2 is code for total annihilation. The last panel:

Tyler Robinson is a soldier in the Groyper wars who has fallen so deep into internet culture that most people can’t even recognize it.

A meme posed by exlrrp shows several far right voices declaring Civil war. It then includes a tweet from Alex Cole of ACNewsitics, “Not a single ‘This is Civil War’ post all day? What happened, MAGA?” Under that is:

Civil War cancelled. It was a gun loving White Conservative man from a Christian Conservative family from the ultra Conservative State, Utah. Not a tran, foreigner or left, but one of their own. F--- the Right for their sick false accusations.

Another meme posted by exlrrp, though it doesn’t say who or what is being quoted.

Major breaking: “According to Utah officials and police interviews with his family, Tyler Robinson hated Charlie Kirk because Kirk wasn’t conservative enough. (Robinson reportedly admired far-far-right Nick Fuentes). Republicans are now scrubbing X posts about Democrats faster than the DOJ erased Trump’s name from the Epstein files!”

A meme posted by exlrrp has the words, “Tyler Robinson’s mom, Amber Jones Robinson, quickly erased photos from her Facebook.” The photos show many family members, including Amber, with guns. A meme posted by ACNewsitics includes a quote from Joey Mannarino, “Tyler was radicalized at college because colleges are liberal indoctrination centers.” Below that are the words, “MAGAs realize that they can’t blame trans people, gays, Black people, immigrants, or Democrats for one of their own. So they blame college!” A meme posted by exlrrp includes the tweet by Rep. Nancy Mace, one of the right’s firebrands, that I quoted above. “We know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such an evil, and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find Jesus Christ. We will try to do the same.” Mickey Lenin responded, “The whiplash from the tone shift after discovering he’s one of theirs is amazing to watch.” A cartoon by the Naked Pastor is captioned “Some baggage can’t come with you.” It shows the gates of heaven. Signs say “All Welcome” and “No weapons allowed.” A man wearing several weapons walks away. A tweet by CNN includes before and after photos and a link to an article. The text says:

Satellite images reveal wide destruction in Gaza City as Israel steps up assault. In the weeks since Israel announced plans to take over Gaza City, its military has destroyed or damaged over 1,800 buildings in and around the city.

Tried to balance gun deaths and gun rights, died by gunshot

If you pay any attention to the news you’ve already heard. An Associated Press article posted on Daily Kos reported that conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at a Utah college event. He was 31. This article goes into more detail than I would prefer. It does say that before the shot rang out Kirk, taking questions from the audience, was talking about mass shootings. He said that there had been “too many” mass shooters that had been transgender. Kirk was a darling of the conservative movement. At age 18 he founded Turning Point USA to better talk to college kids about conservative principles. One thing he did was challenge students to debate him – which I thought was a bit unfair because he was a decade older and had used that time to hone his conservative arguments. Few of the youth could keep up with that and the conservative debate style of conflating ideas. I feel for the students at this event, I hear there were about 3,000 of them, who watched Kirk be assassinated. Definitely traumatizing. Walter Einenkel of Kos gathered together many of the reactions to Kirk’s killing. It seems liberals condemned gun violence and conservatives blamed liberals. Alix Breeden of Kos reported that Speaker Mike Johnson asked the House for a moment of silence for Kirk and his family. Right after that Republicans started shouting at Democrats. Michel Martin and Steve Inskeep of NPR discussed why Kirk was so loved by conservatives. They included some of Kirk’s statements over the years. He had millions of followers on his social media platforms. He was praised for drawing young people to conservatism. Some young people liked that he said what they thought they couldn’t. Others saw his views offensive and hateful. Some of his views: He didn’t like that London has and New York likely will have Muslim mayors. He said transgender people are not real. He claimed Kamala Harris was vice president because she was the DEI candidate. And Kirk’s big quote that is getting a lot of repetition, considering how he died:

I think it's worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.

I wonder what he thought his God-given rights are and why a gun is needed to protect them. NPR reporter Stephen Fowler said:

It is impossible to overstate the importance of Kirk to an entire generation of young conservatives, and to Republican politicians that benefited from those young conservatives showing up to vote. You could call him many things, an influencer, grassroots organizer, business executive, author, radio show host, an all-around avatar for politically active online and offline Gen Z Americans. When he was 18, just months before President Obama was reelected, he cofounded the group Turning Point USA as this sort of college campus free speech nonprofit.

Fowler added Kirk created Turning Point to “try and save Western civilization.” (From what, I ask.) Those debate he held, not just with students, became content for his media. I’m sure the purpose was see how I destroyed their flimsy arguments! Martin also spoke to Kyle Spencer, a journalist and author of the book, Raising Them Right: The Untold Story About America's Ultraconservative Youth Movement And Its Plot For Power. I’ll let you read it. Kos of Kos discussed the killing and the reaction to it.

If it were up to [progressives], gun violence wouldn’t only matter when conservative royalty is killed. It would also matter when Democratic legislators are murdered, and especially when schoolchildren are slaughtered. But it’s not just the guns. It’s the climate that President Donald Trump and his allies have built. Scholars call it “eliminationist rhetoric”: the idea that political opponents aren’t simply wrong, but evil, dangerous, and must be eradicated. It’s language that leaves no room for disagreement or coexistence, only destruction.

He then had an example of the recent eliminationist rhetoric, what conservatives have been saying since the shooting. Democracy has always been about disagreement. It’s messy and loud. But when one side decides disagreement is intolerable, bloodshed happens. See: Civil War.

Kirk’s family and his children didn’t deserve this. No child who loses a parent to gun violence deserves it. No parent who loses a child to it deserves it. And that is why liberal policies—like universal background checks and bans on weapons of war—would save lives. Maybe they even would have saved Kirk’s. But instead, the right is already escalating... So stop blaming liberals. We hate this shooting as much as conservatives do. The difference is we hate all the other shootings, too.

After Kirk’s death Gaslit Nation posted about it. I haven’t listened to the 20 minutes of audio, so don’t know the details of the argument. However, the printed introduction suggests that Kirk had called for the release of the Epstein files and his assassination was a way to shut him up. Since this was posted the killer has been caught (or turned himself in?), as was reported in the news. The killer is still alive (so many end up dead by police) so maybe he will say why he did it. In Thursday’s pundit roundup for Kos Greg Dworkin included a tweet by Mike Cerulli that includes a joint statement by the Young Democrats of Connecticut and the Connecticut Young Republicans both condemning Kirk’s killing. I’m pleased to see this show of unity. Dworkin also quoted Steven Beschloss of America, America. I’m not quoting all that Dworkin did so I can leave out a description of the shooting.

But I’m also thinking about all the people in attendance for this public event and all those who watched the video: Political violence has many victims, including those who have the misfortune to witness it. This latest act of violence adds to the terrible trauma that pervades our society. I dread the ripple effects, even while we should all urge restraint rather than fanning the flames.

ABC News reported that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer forced a vote on the release of the Epstein files. It was as an amendment to a defense spending bill. The purpose was to get Republicans on record as for the release or as being part of the coverup. The amendment failed 51-49, which I believe is along party lines, with Republicans rejecting it. In the comments Jesse Duquette listed some of Kirk’s awful comments. I won’t list all of them. This is just a taste of how bad he was.

Black women do not have the processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot. I can’t stand the word “empathy.” I think empathy is a made-up new age term, and it does a lot of damage. LGBTQ is a social contagion. We need armed militias to prevent the diminishing and decreasing of white demographics.

Mark Sumner tweeted:

Everything about Charlie Kirk’s death deserves condemnation. Nothing about Charlie Kirk’s life deserves praise. Even the most egregious death does not elevate his insidious philosophy or hateful actions. That shouldn’t be difficult.

That sums it up for me quite well. In today’s roundup Dworkin quoted Cliff Schecter of BlueAmp

In the end, the way to stop this disease—that by numbers as high as 90% Americans support passing measures to end— is actually pretty easy. Because the two political parties have made it simple for us to do the math. One party post-Newtown, the Democratic Party, voted 97% in favor of key measures to stop this sick blight on our society. While the other, Republicans, voted 97% against these common sense reforms (yes, it really is this symmetrical). So to summarize: Vote every single f---ing cowardly, cruel, corrupt Republican out of office. And we’ll put a stop to this child-killing virus.

In the comments a meme posted by exlrrp shows Kirk and the words, “If guns make us so safe, why am I dead?” There are also a lot of cartoons and memes about Kirk’s comment that a few deaths are a rational trade to keep the Second Amendment. Another meme posted by exlrrp shows the introduction of an article (where it was published was not included):

Donald Trump hints at assassination of Hillary Clinton by gun rights supporters. Republican presidential nominee says ‘second amendment people’ could stop Democrat choosing undesirable supreme court justices if she is elected. David Smith, Wed 10 Aug 2016.

The meme continues:

By the way I can pinpoint the exact moment political violence began to be normalized again in the United States.

Now for something different, though this isn’t great. Lisa Needham of Kos reported that the nasty guy’s Food and Drug Administration sent letters to 100 pharmaceutical companies. The letters accuse them of misleading advertising to consumers and demanding compliance. These appear to be form letters and don’t say which ads and how they are misleading, which drugs are involved, and which regulations are being violated. Wrote Needham:

Trump’s attack has nothing to do with actual, genuine concerns about deceptive advertising. Rather, this is about forcing pharmaceutical companies to treat Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s conspiracy theories as if they were science. ... What these fact-free letters are really about is signaling to pharmaceutical companies that they are in for the same treatment as universities and media companies: vague, unsupported assertions of wrongdoing that can only be resolved by giving the administration millions of dollars. And that sure doesn’t look like science.

Needham also wrote about the state of the Internal Revenue service. The nasty guy’s team has made sure it works for only rich people. The Treasury Department is rolling back Biden era rules about prosecuting people and companies for using shady tax shelters. Also, the agency no longer has enough people to delve into the complex audits that rich people file. They can expect smooth sailing. For those who aren’t rich, taxpayer assistance has gotten much harder due to cuts in agents. Also, remaining employees are illegally sharing tax data with the Department of Homeland Security. Alix Breeden of Kos reported that a US District judge gave and order saying Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook can keep her job while the court case plays out. The case is the nasty guy is trying to fire her “for cause,” that she did something illegal on the job. The judge said the nasty guy offered no proof that she was “executing her duties unfaithfully or ineffectively.” What this is really about is the nasty guy wanting to break the independence of the Fed, to get rid of members who refuse to do his bidding.