Right, because there haven’t been any recent attempted or successful kidnappings or assassinations of democratic politicians recently…

I’m speaking directly as compared to him not being assassinated, friend. The harm he would have gone on to do is outshadowed by the harm that will now be done as retribution for his death.

There was always going to be violent conflict between the fascists and anti-fascists, but believe it or not he was a moderating voice in the reactionary space. Without him, the overton window shifts even further right, with voices like Shapiro becoming comparatively centrist and falling out of favor by those motivated by Kirk’s death. It’s a reason why the shooter potentially being a Groyper is both liberating and damning to leftists - it means that we can’t as easily be blamed for the escalation (we will still, though), but it also serves as a reminder that there are more violent voices still who are driving a wedge into the center of the republican party to drive them further into Nazism.

Better to target the productive capacities of the right, rather than the beneficiaries of the right’s sugar daddies (like Kirk).

Agree to disagree, then.

I’m well aware of kirk’s influence, but if anything those in his base have just been galvanized, many more have likely been driven into extremism.

Things will get worse from here before they get better.

Maybe if he was a religious expert, but its not relevant to the geopolitics of the middle east.

You can stop listening to whoever you want at any time bud.

I don’t know why this is so hard to grasp. If you’ve been covering Israel / Gaza for over two years and you still don’t know what the Western Wall is…That’s weird. It tells me you have no interest in covering this beyond an extremely superficial level.

It’s only strange if you give weight to the specific religious claims to Jerusalem rather than the humanity of the people living there. The archeological significance of that wall doesn’t change the politics of Zionism or Palestinian liberation, nor should it.

It would be like complaining that someone doesn’t know the significance of the Black Stone in the Kaaba while discussing the geopolitical influence of Saudi Arabia at the UN. Is it a significant part of the mythology of Islam and the region broadly? Sure. Is it relevant to the actions taken by the Saudi government today? Uhhh, not really, no.

Actually I think his reaction is the most reflective of the situation. Yea, Kirk was a stochastic propagandist and a sociopath, but him getting killed doesnt materially improve anything while making the situation far more dangerous for everyone involved.

The most I feel comfortable saying is that Kirk fucked around and found out - but I certainly wouldn’t celebrate the situation this now puts us in.

If you’re going to engage in adventurism, at least make sure your target is worthy of your sacrifice. Kirk was a loud nobody and his death has gained us close to nothing.

It might be true that there are bad actors - some even from china or russia - that are intentionally stoking tensions in the us, but dismissing that tension as manufactured would be a mistake.

Democracy is supposed to be a pressure valve for political dissent, and when those institutions start failing to address the demands of citizens, they start looking for more and more extreme ways to make their dissatisfaction known. American democracy stopped addressing the grievances of the people long before 2016 came along. Trump himself embodies an antiestablishment resentment that could be seen making itself known all the way back in 2008 and 2012, most vividly (in my mind, at least) during the townhall with Romney in 2011 when the conservative members in the crowd yelled at him that Obama was a terrorist. Both parties have been trying to suppress the populist sentiment in their respective bases for a long time, and 2016 was merely a watershed moment for what was set in motion a long time ago.

Which is why I find myself with mixed feelings in the wake of Kirk’s death; catharsis, for seeing a stochastic agitative propagandist being on the receiving end of the violent environment he actively created and advocated for, and fear and frustration, for knowing that his death will do nothing to quell the surge in fascism and likely only embolden many more to do the same.

This sounds a lot like motivated reasoning to me. Frustration and resentment has been simmering in the US long before social media was big enough to be useful in astroturfing campaigns.

There was quite a bit of violence before the Civil War committed by the abolition movement, too.

I dont have any kind of vendetta, it’s an extremely well known analysis of current US affairs

Im not sure why you’re so intent on dismissing culture as a relevant context to the rise of MAGA. Most political scientists agree that Trump marked a notable shift and a deviation from political norms and assumptions from pre-2012 politics. Even insisting on the ‘religious right’ doesn’t explain Trump’s popular appeal at a point in time when religious participation in the US is at an all-time low. Seems to me like it might be you with a vendetta, since your explanation seems to boil down to ‘religious bigots are dumb’

He rode a popular wave of anti-establishment resentment.

Unless you think the Joe Rogan fanbase is comprised of religious fanatics, you’ve missed the same cultural undercurrent that the Democrats have missed.

they are easily mislead

“That would mean all it would take is for the right person to come along and flip a switch”

This is idiotic and the dems will never win again if this is their understanding.

Compromised by who? Who elected them? And why did they elect them?

The alternative being, what exactly? Trump creating the environment of resentment himself?

I think that’s hubris. If that were true, then the American political system is so unstable that all it takes for a fascist takeover is the right person to come along and flip a switch.

Edit: im also not saying gamergate caused Trump to get elected, only that it lead to the environment where he could win

Because trump’s rise through the republican party was predicated on a popular reactionary movement that was - at the very least - far less prominent during the rush limbaugh days. Democrats made a political calculation that Trump couldn’t win, and that calculation included factoring in the green party voters for trump. The part they missed is that the culture had shifted, and a big part of that shift happened during and after gamergate in a demographic they weren’t expecting to turn out.

No disagreement, but they believed he would lose because they miscalculated just how popular he was becoming in that demographic. They assumed either a typical republican turnout, or slightly reduced due to centrist republicans being turned off by his populism and abrasive aesthetic. They didn’t expect the high turnout among young white men, and a big motivation for those voters was a reactionary misogynistic and anti-establishment resentment. That Hillary was a white woman from the political elite class amplified that sentiment, too.

He didn’t ‘have anything to do’ with gamergate directly, but that movement is what set the environment for his popularity. Had that demographic remained politically apathetic, there’s a good chance the election would have gone more like what the democrats were expecting. And had the democrats run a more populist candidate/policy platform that addressed the sinking popularity among their own base, they might have overcome that higher turnout on the republican side.

They seem poised to replay the same strategy, though - Newsome is a milquetost neoliberal candidate from the political elite class, and unless trump actually sinks his own coalition, Newsome likely won’t activate enough of the democratic base (who is increasingly unhappy with the party) to beat a similar high anti-establishment voter base on the republican side. I’m praying AOC actually runs, or another progressive with a populist economic agenda, and that the democrats don’t fuck themselves and the entire country over by working against the popular sentiment among young democrats and non-voters. It would be a huge mistake for them to assume trump is unpopular enough to ignore their own unpopularity within the progressive side of their caucus.

Ezra comes off as exactly the type of entitled elitist that conservatives routinely congure of democrats.

While I might agree with him about this particular issue, i end up really not wanting to acknowledge it because he’s a smarmy prick who pretends to be unfamiliar with political distinctions while presenting pretty tired conservative policy as if it’s normie common sense.

But, yea - in general I think it’s past time for democrats to start twisting nipples and stuffing lockers

So you think I shouldn’t be able

No, you certainly are able. I just think it’s exceedingly stupid, even from an electoral perspective. People can very well see that there are huge problems with the democratic platform, whether or not they are nervous they’ll be accused of favoring the fascist party for acknowledging them.

Democrats would very much like to pretend as if the fascists are an isolated problem, because otherwise they’d be forced to entertain the possibility that their majority coalition has collapsed because there is something seriously wrong with their platform and not - as some are suggesting - because people are mad at them for no discernible reason whatsoever.

No, what they want is for everyone to stop shitting on their candidate. It doesn’t matter (to them) who the candidate is or if you vote for them - if you’re drawing attention to how shitty they are then you’re just as culpable for their loss as the opposition.

The emperor has no clothes.

Your words have an impact

So do yours. If you want to admonish people for expressing their discontent with democratic representatives, then good luck I guess. Hope you’re getting paid for that sisyphean task, because it sure as fuck seems like a hopeless one.