I get this is something marginalized folks must live with on a daily basis and none of this is surprising, but I’m a white cishet guy and this stuff is eye opening and (further) radicalizing to me.
The entire social response to Kirk getting merc’d is literally the 
meme. Down to bone.
White, cishet, male-dominated society (and the mainstream media that extends from it) has decided that, okay, maybe Kirk said some very pointed or occasionally untoward comments. But really, can any of those words compare to being willing to debate in the Marketplace of Ideas? Ok, maybe he was a bit racist. Maybe he didn’t care for trans folks. Sure, that’s all a bit rude. But he was willing to discuss his ideas and be civil about it (ok, maybe not civil, but he didn’t kill anyone over it), and in the end that’s all that really matters, right?
Politicians, the media, and a good chunk of society is basically saying how marginalized people may feel about all this is entirely irrelevant. Any sort of speech that is racist, sexist, or bigoted is excusable so long as the subject serves the broader neoliberal, white supremacist, settler project.
Marg bar Amrika.
I think the more interesting thing is that even among white people the vast majority seem to be either indifferent in a “Yeah he brought it on himself” kind of way, or entirely positive about it.
It’s only among activists (liberal and fascist), the political class and their media sphere trying to drum up the idea and invent a false reality where people are majority disgusted by this. I’m just not seeing it. Most people simply do not care or do in fact support it.
Yasha Levine wrote something that was posted on Hexbear recently that, in my mind, nailed the response from the liberals and some conservatives in the pundity/media/streamer spaces. He said they have all suddenly had the shocking realization that they’re not just firing invective off into the void and getting paid for it, they’re not any safer than Kirk and most aren’t as safe since they’re not traveling around with security. They see themselves in him and they’re scared that they might meet the same fate.
Are all Evangelicals activists under this model?
Because they are RILED up by it and there are objectively tens of millions of people who not only check that box but are fully checked into the propaganda machine and not indifferent. I grant there are some who check that Evangelical box on the survey who don’t give a shit but there are probably a few ten millions at least who do given my own relatives aren’t extraordinarily special in that demographic and they are wound up pretty high on freaking out. It’s definitely reinforced and driven by reactionary propaganda, Fox News, influencers, FB algorithms, etc but it’s only partially synthetic.
That, the story someone posted here of a raging chud starting to scream at them over disrespecting his death at their job and being sent home by the manager. Clearly real people are experiencing real emotions even if manipulated and whipped up by the media. Evangelicals in particular see him as their own boy, their connection to the youth, their beloved gen-z whisperer who was totally winning kids over to conservatism and Christ on the godless liberal commie college campuses by epically owning and debating them just like in God’s Not Dead.
If you’re not seeing it it’s probably because your sphere doesn’t include a lot of these people or they’re bottling it up in the interactions you have with them (professional for example) but expressing it online or at home.
So maybe not a majority but a very big minority, perhaps 1/10 or 1/15 any of those still being huge numbers.
Are all Evangelicals activists under this model?
I mean, yeah. Neo-pentecostalism is the Vanguard Party of american reaction. It is the primary means the american empire exports reactionary ideology and organizes the reactionary base, both at home and abroad.
Are all Evangelicals activists under this model?
Yes. Everyone’s an activist if they’re engaged in political activism.
or if they are transgender.
All I’m saying is, he was no angel.
My libs have even brought it up unprompted to me, having done enough research into Kirk to know he was a piece of shit and deserved what happened to him, all on their own, I’m so proud of them!
Well it makes sense that public political figures don’t want to encourage the killing of public political figures.
Then it seems like it didn’t really narrow the discourse (fascists certainly didn’t shut up) but actually broaden it. So couldn’t that be used as an argument against the typical “free speech” argument?
Ahh you mean because fascists haven’t actually shut up but because a huge number of people now talk about violence as a political action for good compared to previously there is essentially a net increase in speech rather than decrease?
An interesting take. Particularly as the free speech advocates are trying their hardest to prevent the broadening of this speech through the banning of anyone who speaks freely about their thoughts on this online.
I quite like this framing.
Yes, exactly, you said it better. Of course, I’d still like for fascists to shut up though…
white cishet man here being driven absolutely bizonkers by my young (22) black coworker doing the pearl clutching liberalism over kirk to the point he got the sous chef to be like hey shut up about it
I explained how kirk was a mercenary in a war of propaganda that directly impacted him, he was literally his fucking enemy, and he’s like oh yeah I agree. But then persists in this “it’s wrong to cheer for ANYONE’S death” shit. Nothing that I say is getting this kid to understand that eulogizing Kirk and not dumping on him at absolutely every opportunity just helps empower the fascist ideology he helped spread. In fact, the more I say, the more convinced he seems to think Kirk was GOOD, actually, because he clearly thinks Im a fuckin idiot
I really, really hope he comes in to work one day going “wow, i read some Lenin and it turns out literally everything you’ve ever said is correct” but for now it’s literally like a 50/50 chance of me hearing a good opinion from this kid or something that literally sounds like it came from the 60+ year old ex military crackers i work with and it’s fucking killing me
Yep. Saying “Kirk had a point” (On anything.) is enabling the whole thing.
The man’s trade was hate. His defence was he was debating, civilly, but it was civil on his terms.
So far he hasn’t said he agrees with any of kirk’s ideas, he’s just leaning really hard into this civility fetishism “being happy ANYONE died is wrong” shit. I told him people are getting fired for being happy he was killed while an actual Fox News host advocated actively murdering the homeless last night and he still has a job and just nothing is clicking with him
I think it’s because he’s religious so he feels pressured to “try to be better” and shit but like, when shit like that is going on how do you not just immediately GET that the “civility” around discussing kirk’s death HAS A POINT and it’s NOT CIVILITY
Literally tell him he’s a young uninformed idiot who doesn’t know shit about what he’s talking about.
I try not to bully people IRL the way i do online especially since I work with him and don’t want to get fired :/
I try not to bully people IRL the way i do online
fwiw this is a positive, prosocial instinct. unlike online, reaching & moving ppl irl involves a lot of patience & meeting ppl where they’re at. if someone comes at you hot/aggressive a little self-defense counterbullying is fine tho ofc
One of the talking heads on CNN literally said “marketplace of ideas” today and I wanted to scream. Vicious, stupid, cruel country.
It’s funny and sad people think it’s a real thing
I think of all the unreal nonesense libs believe, the marketplace of ideas is probably the saddest and dumbest, because it so obviously doesn’t exist in any degree, or make any sense.
Legitimizing fascistic stupidity is a time honored American tradition
what is the marketplace of ideas? like a bazaar but only for Nazi ideas?
Nazi Bazaar
It’s just telling really it went from you shouldn’t kill people who you don’t agree with to here’s why making fun of him is bad. Him being got by a groyper should be a warning to libs that no matter how much you cozy up to the alt right they will kill you even prob even easier than they do their own side.
Fascists always eat their own.
Put every effort in to suck off fascists, they’ll still throw you under the bus at the first opportune moment.
fash on fash violence is only gonna increase and in an effort to save themselves libs gonna hold down minorities
I really, really hate living in the Weimar Republic. It’s the same shit all over again and liberals still think they aren’t going to get got by fascists if/when their takeover is complete. They’ve been pearl clutching over anti-fascists and black bloc tactics for over a decade at this point, even with their hatred of Trump. Some Himmler impersonator gets Operation Valkyrie’d and they’re trying as hard as they can to blame trans people.
Liberal are immune to history so goddamn much it’s unreal
Liberals love tone and decorum. Pretty much anything is excusable, if said or done within the proper etiquette.
Yeah, like genocide. I am tired of liberals too. Conservatives are braindead, but liberals are on my nerves as well. I am tir2d of the whole establishment. Too bad half the population is fucking illiterate and looking for anyone to blame other than these rich assholes.
i think it’s an across the board attempt to marginalize and de-emphasize proletarian violence on capitalist administrators and their puppets. [note: i don’t think the shooter was like some actual leftist, but he wasn’t exactly the owner of a dozen apartment complexes and a car dealership.] the narrative and outrage is ringing more and more hollow at every one of these moments. these rich fucks who profit from misery and death are getting publicly got by not-rich randoms, and this is the PR response to get us to stop laughing our asses off at this barking jackal getting his vocal chords clipped.
every platform is crying foul, insisting this is terrible, no-good, awful, a sign of decline and polarization. and every politician is promising to crack down harder. on what? laughing at it? go for it. telling the pissed off mob not to laugh at the one funny thing that happened in the last week always works.
real facts: broke and powerless people are getting lit the fuck up for the profit and power of an elite few constantly, and we are meant to ignore that. we are gifted endless distraction from imperial conflict and told to not worry about the millions unhoused, warehoused and victimized by state security services for profit. that’s just the cost of doing business, stop being a debbie downer, focus on the positive!
it’s fucking ridiculous and the media machine is red-lining every platform to gaslight us into giving a shit about one rich certified public asshole while simultaneously ignoring and normalizing the hundreds that died for the rich at the same moment.
people who make their money being some kind of opinion giver on capitalist owned platforms are gonna have to tone it down, because “online” is their place of employment. the rest of us anonymous freaks can keep posting LMAO about the last one, this one, and the next. and laughing even more at the people who are trying to stifle the celebration.
And we still don’t have a motive. Meanwhile a Nazi shot up his school on the same day.
And A black student was just hanged at a university
This is a white supremacist nation, and I am starting to feel like I as a white person need new people
Really need to make a Kirk version of the
quote as a meme. That might help with this sort of thing a bit.never believe that the groyper is unaware of the absurdity of his own replies
An argument by a reactionary has the solidity and purpose of ink discharged by a squid.
Really do think the reaction to this is the canary in coal mine for us, this along with 100k+ protesters rallying against immigrants.
Need to get out asap but I really doubt that will happen. This wasn’t a crossing of the rubicon moment but they definitely, desperately wanted it to be and now it is, which makes it even more ominous
100k+ protesters rallying against immigrants
was this in UK?
Yes but apparently this happened in many different places
