The assassination of Charlie Kirk threatens to embolden the far right and provide Donald Trump with a pretext for crushing dissent. Escalating political violence corrodes democratic norms and poses a unique threat to the Left.
It’s not exactly about giving him a pretext, but providing a pretext for his actions in the eyes of others. There will be many people who are alarmed or horrified at him sending the military into US cities, but who will find it much easier to accept him sending the military to put down the “lunatic lefties” who go around shooting public figures.
Acts like this erode support and give the opponents cover to further supress disent.
When we don’t even know who the killer is or their motivations
You’re right, we don’t, and obviously the right have created a narative saying it’s a leftwinger. The point is not to provide them a ready made narative. Killing kirk will do little to nothing to improve matters, much like killing that CEO has done little to nothing. What it does do it make it seem more “reasonable” for there to be crackdowns, after all there are “crazed lefties” on the loose killing innocent people. (Yes, it was hard typing that, which doesn’t change the fact it’s effective propaganda, even if it was a fase flag)
The only people the “pretext” works on already support fascism.
Fascists will obviouslt support it, but many ow information people, or even just people who are worried about how they’ll manage can be easily swayed to accept harsher measures with stories like this. After all, they’re not assasinating people, and assassinating people is bad, so if “the left” are doing it, they must be bad, and maybe they should be dealt with like that. As I said, it’s propaganda, and making it easier for them by playing into it is probably a mistake.
It’s up to us to stand up to fascism, not avoid angering the abuser.
Go ahead and anger the abuser all you want, all you can, and stick in an extra kick for me. It’s not about them though, it’s about “hearts and minds”, cliched phrase though that is. Individual assasinatons, unless they’re of key personnel, whose elimination can actually stop something happening, will achieve little positive, and create a convincing story that it’s just evil lefties killing people they can’t beat any other way.
Where have you been for the last seven months? They’re abducting legal immigrants and citizens and sending them to torture prisons in El Salvador and concentration camps in Florida.
During Covid the blowback against masking and vaccines was calculated to kill democrats — denizens of dense urban areas where the virus was initially rampant.
Donald’s invasions of only blue cities is a LITERALLY military attack on innocent people.
It’s too late. Fascism is here. If you think you’re going to ride it out by keeping your head down, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.
It’s not about riding it out, dealing with it is a separate discussion. The point is that they are (quite successfully) manufacturing consent for that fascism. The easiest way for them to do that is to twist an actual event to show that only they can stop this sort of terrible thing happening, and their opponents must be crushed.
As I said, shooting some “celebrity”, while cathartic, will not achieve anything positive (because kirk wasn’t essential to any processes), but will make it easier to manufacture consent for suppressing those opposed to the regieme.
To be clear, even if trump shot kirk in front of everyone, they’d claim it was a leftist, but it would be less convincing to many than if it actually turns out to be soneone even slightly left leaning.
In summary, this event will only have negative consequences for those who aren’t fascists, and given that, you’d hope it wasn’t an anti-fascist who did it.
Explain to me what the last few decades of “well, I disagree with what you’re saying but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” has accomplished? It sure hasn’t thrown cold water on the rightward turn.
Every time one of these sadistic hatemongers has said things like “kill all leftists” they just tip toe to the line of actual violence, and our silence is sanction.
Their actions haven’t had consequences since the civil war.
All of which is true, but none of which increases the chances of this sort of act having a positive outcome.
Of course their words and actions should have had consequences, but those consequences should have been, and should be, systemic, not random, sporadic acts of violence that just give them an way to convince more people that their way is the right way. Inciting violence should have meant facing charges of doing so. Inciting insurection should have meant spending the rest of your life behind bars, or worse. I also realize that the entire system has rotted from the inside out, those systemic consequences haven’t come, and lashing out feels cathartic.
Acting withour a plan isn’t going to help right now. There needs to be some level of planning and action that focuses on turning those people who can be away from fascism and populism. Much, perhaps most, of their support is not hardcore as such, and just because that’s the team they’ve always supported. It takes effort and support to break through that, but it’s possible. There is much disquite amongst those who’ve supported trump and the republicans so far, exploiting that would seem to be a more productive approach, rather than driving them further into the fold.
It’s not exactly about giving him a pretext, but providing a pretext for his actions in the eyes of others. There will be many people who are alarmed or horrified at him sending the military into US cities, but who will find it much easier to accept him sending the military to put down the “lunatic lefties” who go around shooting public figures.
Acts like this erode support and give the opponents cover to further supress disent.
When we don’t even know who the killer is or their motivations?
The only people the “pretext” works on already support fascism.
It’s up to us to stand up to fascism, not avoid angering the abuser.
You’re right, we don’t, and obviously the right have created a narative saying it’s a leftwinger. The point is not to provide them a ready made narative. Killing kirk will do little to nothing to improve matters, much like killing that CEO has done little to nothing. What it does do it make it seem more “reasonable” for there to be crackdowns, after all there are “crazed lefties” on the loose killing innocent people. (Yes, it was hard typing that, which doesn’t change the fact it’s effective propaganda, even if it was a fase flag)
Fascists will obviouslt support it, but many ow information people, or even just people who are worried about how they’ll manage can be easily swayed to accept harsher measures with stories like this. After all, they’re not assasinating people, and assassinating people is bad, so if “the left” are doing it, they must be bad, and maybe they should be dealt with like that. As I said, it’s propaganda, and making it easier for them by playing into it is probably a mistake.
Go ahead and anger the abuser all you want, all you can, and stick in an extra kick for me. It’s not about them though, it’s about “hearts and minds”, cliched phrase though that is. Individual assasinatons, unless they’re of key personnel, whose elimination can actually stop something happening, will achieve little positive, and create a convincing story that it’s just evil lefties killing people they can’t beat any other way.
Where have you been for the last seven months? They’re abducting legal immigrants and citizens and sending them to torture prisons in El Salvador and concentration camps in Florida.
During Covid the blowback against masking and vaccines was calculated to kill democrats — denizens of dense urban areas where the virus was initially rampant.
Donald’s invasions of only blue cities is a LITERALLY military attack on innocent people.
It’s too late. Fascism is here. If you think you’re going to ride it out by keeping your head down, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong.
It’s not about riding it out, dealing with it is a separate discussion. The point is that they are (quite successfully) manufacturing consent for that fascism. The easiest way for them to do that is to twist an actual event to show that only they can stop this sort of terrible thing happening, and their opponents must be crushed.
As I said, shooting some “celebrity”, while cathartic, will not achieve anything positive (because kirk wasn’t essential to any processes), but will make it easier to manufacture consent for suppressing those opposed to the regieme.
To be clear, even if trump shot kirk in front of everyone, they’d claim it was a leftist, but it would be less convincing to many than if it actually turns out to be soneone even slightly left leaning.
In summary, this event will only have negative consequences for those who aren’t fascists, and given that, you’d hope it wasn’t an anti-fascist who did it.
Explain to me what the last few decades of “well, I disagree with what you’re saying but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it” has accomplished? It sure hasn’t thrown cold water on the rightward turn.
Every time one of these sadistic hatemongers has said things like “kill all leftists” they just tip toe to the line of actual violence, and our silence is sanction.
Their actions haven’t had consequences since the civil war.
All of which is true, but none of which increases the chances of this sort of act having a positive outcome.
Of course their words and actions should have had consequences, but those consequences should have been, and should be, systemic, not random, sporadic acts of violence that just give them an way to convince more people that their way is the right way. Inciting violence should have meant facing charges of doing so. Inciting insurection should have meant spending the rest of your life behind bars, or worse. I also realize that the entire system has rotted from the inside out, those systemic consequences haven’t come, and lashing out feels cathartic.
Acting withour a plan isn’t going to help right now. There needs to be some level of planning and action that focuses on turning those people who can be away from fascism and populism. Much, perhaps most, of their support is not hardcore as such, and just because that’s the team they’ve always supported. It takes effort and support to break through that, but it’s possible. There is much disquite amongst those who’ve supported trump and the republicans so far, exploiting that would seem to be a more productive approach, rather than driving them further into the fold.