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On September 16 2025 08:22 WombaT wrote: The left is indeed getting more violent, or tolerant of it too, but one has to question why that is happening in this epoch, and isn’t really mirrored in similar nations to the US.
I'd phrase this very differently. Minorities have long had enough of being a punching bag for the bullies with too much power, but they've accepted their fate because they had hope for change. Now the bully has become more violent (e.g. ICE) and more criminally so. Most of Trump's EOs are unlawful and inhumane. Civil non-compliance is generally useful, but when political violence ramps up so much, what are people supposed to do? Just kindly wait in line until they also get their turn of political violence?
The bullies describe "self-defense" as "violence". Read 1984. It's about flipping the use of words to change reality into the literal opposite. This is a key method of oppressors.
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On September 16 2025 10:02 Introvert wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2025 09:55 LightSpectra wrote:On September 16 2025 09:51 Introvert wrote:On September 16 2025 09:18 LightSpectra wrote: You are 100% in an echo chamber if you didn't see or hear anyone cheering for violence against Democrats. It's not debatable. Even if we assumed that was true for the sake of argument it doesn't stop you saying that gleeful celebration is bad no matter who does it. This really is the bare, basement level expectation. Instead we just get different versions of "they made me do it" or "they started it!" And we don't have to broaden, we can read it here. You could post this exact paragraph in response to how Charlie Kirk talked about George Floyd. Saying negative things about someone after they die is not the same, and that's not what I'm criticizing. And it's still deflection, because I have very intentionally avoided being dragged into parsing his words, considering that, again, we can't even yet meet the bare minimum requirements.
What people here in this forum have done is spit on Kirk the person, not Kirk the dead. I can barely remember anyone here actually celebrating his death. May've happened, but my memory is spotty. So help me out, will ya? Care to provide quotes?
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On September 16 2025 11:27 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2025 10:06 Razyda wrote:On September 16 2025 09:15 KwarK wrote: The left dominate the media? Really? We’re trying that again? Yes they are. If you want to do litmus test: every single media which referred to BLM riots as peaceful protests is left leaning. It is really that simple. 93%* of BLM protests were peaceful, so yes, they were broadly peaceful. Of course, the 7% that contained some violence ("riots") received disproportionately high media coverage, so it's unsurprising that some people make the mistake of thinking that BLM was generally violent. * https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/
Two more things: BLM violence was not instigated by organizers/leading figures (this is the most important point), and some of the observed violence was instigated by outside groups. So even the 7% figure isn't truly representative. BLM is a peaceful movement. Anybody arguing otherwise has been lied to very effectively by right-wing propagandists.
Let me take the first step and out myself: I used to believe this lie years ago. That's how I understand right-wing propaganda so well nowadays, as I was also a target of some of their propaganda. I fell for several lies, and I'm still working on figuring out why exactly the lies are so effective.
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Right wing propaganda is very insidious. It's mostly gaslighting and tone of voice as the crux of the gaslight. If you're able to remain calm, no matter how undermining your rhetoric is, you may come off as the sane side. Meanwhile they hack away at the fundaments of society and keep gaslighting and then suddenly it collapses and they'll be there with open arms and claim they have no idea how it happened, but point at the other side. No self reflection necessary, just projection and gaslighting while staying calm.
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Norway28686 Posts
On September 16 2025 15:55 Laurens wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2025 11:41 LightSpectra wrote:On September 16 2025 11:07 Introvert wrote: Let's pretend both shooters were right-wing. I'll try to help you out again. Who here is cheering on the murder of people they don't like? oh, that's right... No pretending necessary. And it's the right-wing, thanks for asking. Hence "Hang Mike Pence" at the January 6 insurrection. Current reports are that Robinson was in a romantic relationship with his transgender roommate. If true, the theory that he is an extreme right-wing Nick Fuentes follower who shot Kirk for being too moderate is quite unlikely.
Like Mohdoo was touching upon earlier, this is a situation where you can really see this, live battle over the truth happening. There's a bunch of unconfirmed stuff, but the main takeaway imo, is to have some patience and not draw conclusions. What we know so far and what seems to be confirmed by several different sources is; his parents were republican. He had a strong online presence. He had talked about how he disliked/hated Kirk because Kirk was spreading hate. He did not vote in the previous election and didn't have a known political affiliation. He probably had a romantic relationship with his roommate who was in the process of transitioning from male to female. I agree that the totality of this makes any groyper-affiliation-allegation unlikely.
Then there are the messages on the casings. These are a bit harder to parse, because they're more open for interpretation. 1: notices bulge owo what's this - a meme, if it is political in any way it's more likely right wing because it mocks furries. 2: if you're reading this you're gay LMAO - same - just a meme, but if it's political then it's right wing 3: bella ciao - anti-fascist song; but also present in far cry 6, and also, for whatever reason, it's present in the 'groyper wars america first' spotify-playlist. 4: Hey fascist, catch - obviously sounds anti-fascist, but just as likely/more likely to be a helldivers 2 reference, especially because of 5: up arrow right arrow three downward arrows - which is how you summon a 500 kg bomb in that very same helldivers 2 game. (Again, this seems more likely than the 'three downwards arrows=anti fascist'-idea.)
I'm honestly thinking that he was probably somewhat politically motivated and that his hatred for Kirk came from the left - not from a 'Kirk is too moderate'-perspective; but that more than anything, there's a sort of, nihilistic component to this. This is also a growing trend in the US; if we looked at mass shootings and assassinations up until like, 2022, a political motivation was much more likely to be found, and then, indeed, right-wingers were much more likely to be the culprits. Numbers from the ADL for 2013-2022 indicated that like 75% of murders from political violence in the US were done by right-wingers (and then white supremacists were responsible for 75% of that, again), while 20% was committed by islamic terrorists, and only 4% by leftist terrorists. But looking at 2024, there seems to be a new trend :
ISD’s analysis of violent attacks and foiled attack plots linked to extremism in 2024 identified several trends related to biographical characteristics of suspects and perpetrators, motivations, tactics used, and targets selected. Most strikingly, the data showed that the deadliest incidents recorded were not tied to traditionally defined extremist ideologies. Instead, they were driven by a looser network of online subcultures that ISD refers to as “nihilistic violence.” Communities associated with nihilistic violence might echo the trappings and language of extremist and terrorist ideologies, their tactics and their use of social media. However their primary motivation for violence stems from a fundamental disregard for human life and a desire to see harms done to others.
Individuals associated with communities that promote nihilistic worldviews accounted for two-thirds of all deaths and nearly two-thirds of all injuries in attacks and attack plots recorded by ISD in 2024. It is also of note that many perpetrators and suspects in the category were juveniles: historically not a characteristic demographic for extremist violence. Only a third of the recorded incidents were easily attributed to defined ideologies. While traditionally defined extremist movements continue to pose a significant threat to public safety, this analysis reflects an increased need to adjust frameworks and methods designed to counter ideologically motivated threats to account for this changing landscape.
This also ties in with an article I read from NPR - and something GoShox posted some pages back; that there's a growing influence of online groups that actively desensitize young men who try to push them towards violence for the sake of violence. Now, it doesn't seem like Robinson himself was actively groomed in such a manner, but that this sort of, nihilistic attitude towards life and death - influenced by memes, tik tok feeds, discord communities, seems like a catalyst more than a particularly strongly defined political affiliation, that seems somewhat likely to me at the time being.
I sure as fuck am not trusting the Bondi JDV etc explanation for this or anything else because they are absolute snakes, but I don't see the groyper-angle either, and even if he happens to be primarily motivated by some leftist political ideals then that still wouldn't make leftists more guilty of political violence than the right.
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On September 16 2025 17:43 Uldridge wrote: Right wing propaganda is very insidious. It's mostly gaslighting and tone of voice as the crux of the gaslight. If you're able to remain calm, no matter how undermining your rhetoric is, you may come off as the sane side. Meanwhile they hack away at the fundaments of society and keep gaslighting and then suddenly it collapses and they'll be there with open arms and claim they have no idea how it happened, but point at the other side. No self reflection necessary, just projection and gaslighting while staying calm.
Many of them do remain calm I guess, though I think Alex Jones became popular precisely because he's an extremely angry instigator. His overly emotional outbursts became popular memes. If he wasn't also a dangerous criminal leading to him having to give up his platform and going bankrupt, he would've continued to poison millions of minds. So I guess we (not his victims of course) are sort of lucky that he lacked self-control?
And you see, that's what I would've wished would happen to Kirk. The AJ treatment. But Kirk was no criminal, so there was no chance of that.
Either way, I think AJ is evidence that right-wingers aren't any more calm/civil. They love themselves a good many emotional outbursts and meltdowns. I can't remember a single person from the left who was as crazy as AJ was on the regular.
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AJ was unrefined, a first iteration and "quickly" tossed. He's nowhere to be seen at the moment. The Daily Wire apparatus for example seems much more dangerous to me.
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On September 16 2025 11:27 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2025 10:06 Razyda wrote:On September 16 2025 09:15 KwarK wrote: The left dominate the media? Really? We’re trying that again? Yes they are. If you want to do litmus test: every single media which referred to BLM riots as peaceful protests is left leaning. It is really that simple. 93%* of BLM protests were peaceful, so yes, they were broadly peaceful. Of course, the 7% that contained some violence ("riots") received disproportionately high media coverage, so it's unsurprising that some people make the mistake of thinking that BLM was generally violent. * https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/ If 93% of your roof was waterproof, you would need a new roof. The standard of people objecting to something is never "there's violence but anything less than half is OK." The parts of the roof that don't leak wouldn't need a lot of reporting, the urgent leaking part would be deserving of proportionately more interest.
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Norway28686 Posts
YouGov just posted a poll, fairly interesting.
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/52960-charlie-kirk-americans-political-violence-poll
The number one key finding, imo, is that 'Democrats and Republicans are more likely to say political violence is a big problem after attacks on members of their own party'. Right now, the numbers saying 'very big problem' are 58% for democrats and 67% for republicans - and significantly more liberals answer that it is acceptable when asked 'Do you generally consider it to be acceptable or unacceptable for a person to be happy about the death of a public figure they oppose? (%)'. However, the numbers for the first question were flipped a little after the attacks on Paul Pelosi, Josh Shapiro and Melissa Hortman.
https://today.yougov.com/topics/international/survey-results/daily/2025/09/11/d157f/2 this poll backs up the opinion that more liberals think it's okay to celebrate/be happy about the death of a public person you dislike - but again - it is likely to have been influenced by Kirk just having been killed. If this poll happened right after say, Obama was assassinated, I'm imagining the numbers would move a bit.
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On September 16 2025 15:55 Laurens wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2025 11:41 LightSpectra wrote:On September 16 2025 11:07 Introvert wrote: Let's pretend both shooters were right-wing. I'll try to help you out again. Who here is cheering on the murder of people they don't like? oh, that's right... No pretending necessary. And it's the right-wing, thanks for asking. Hence "Hang Mike Pence" at the January 6 insurrection. Current reports are that Robinson was in a romantic relationship with his transgender roommate. If true, the theory that he is an extreme right-wing Nick Fuentes follower who shot Kirk for being too moderate is quite unlikely.
This rumor that's being circulated by Republicans with no basis in real journalism ironically makes it more likely the assassin is a Republican.
https://lawsuit.org/general-law/republicans-have-an-obsession-with-transgender-pornography/
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On September 16 2025 18:13 Uldridge wrote: AJ was unrefined, a first iteration and "quickly" tossed. He's nowhere to be seen at the moment. The Daily Wire apparatus for example seems much more dangerous to me.
AJ was absolutely massive among right-wingers. The reason why he's gone is because he lost a huge lawsuit (for libel and harrassing families of Sandy Hook victims) that cost him literally everything, and afaik he's forbidden from returning to his old platform InfoWars. He had huge demographic pull. Trust me when I say this, AJ was one of the most influential people in modern US politics, much bigger than Charlie Kirk, and he is one of the main factors in shaping the Trump era right-wing views and discourse.
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I'd say Fox News, which has been polarizing the US since forever, might be one step above that, no? In any case, the playing field is an absolute cesspool right now...
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On September 16 2025 19:16 oBlade wrote:Show nested quote +On September 16 2025 11:27 DarkPlasmaBall wrote:On September 16 2025 10:06 Razyda wrote:On September 16 2025 09:15 KwarK wrote: The left dominate the media? Really? We’re trying that again? Yes they are. If you want to do litmus test: every single media which referred to BLM riots as peaceful protests is left leaning. It is really that simple. 93%* of BLM protests were peaceful, so yes, they were broadly peaceful. Of course, the 7% that contained some violence ("riots") received disproportionately high media coverage, so it's unsurprising that some people make the mistake of thinking that BLM was generally violent. * https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/ If 93% of your roof was waterproof, you would need a new roof. The standard of people objecting to something is never "there's violence but anything less than half is OK." The parts of the roof that don't leak wouldn't need a lot of reporting, the urgent leaking part would be deserving of proportionately more interest.
7% is a very common percentage of violence among protesters. 7% is nowhere near enough to consider a protest "violent". And as I explained, the instigation of violence also comes from outside, not just from the protesters themselves. Aggressive police presence/actions, violent instigators such as drivers running into crowds, weapon wielding counter-protesters, etc.
No, 7% violence does not make a protest violent. That was the core argument.
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On September 16 2025 19:52 Uldridge wrote: I'd say Fox News, which has been polarizing the US since forever, might be one step above that, no? In any case, the playing field is an absolute cesspool right now...
Fox News was/is bigger than AJ. He occupied the top spot in the alternative media space and Fox is classical television, that's the key difference. In terms of shaping people's views, AJ was among the leading figures and he kept growing very rapidly. He was a trendsetter, too. The divisiveness we see today comes in large part from him.
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On September 16 2025 16:01 KwarK wrote: Raised by a family of registered Republicans in Utah and was apolitical until recently. Didn’t vote in the most recent election. Seems like this is the first political act he took. I will watch his career with great interest.
Media doesn't care. Martyr Charlie who is greater than Jesus was killed by leftists, and leftists is everyone who isn't blindly obeying whatever the loudest racists screams on fox news or Nazi Nosferathu proclaims with his broken up voice like dropped porcelain dolls.
It's another facism test. If you can't pretend to have cried all through last week, you are the enemy that deserves death, beatings, being put in jail, being stripped of your rights, your job or your visa.
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now that is sickening.
Stephen Miller Vows to JD Vance He Will ‘Dismantle’ Left-Wing Orgs ‘Promoting Violence’ to Honor Charlie Kirk - on the Charlie Kirk show being hosted by VP Vance
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told Vice President JD Vance he will honor Charlie Kirk’s memory by dismantling “left-wing organizations that are promoting violence” and the “vast domestic terror movement” that Miller said is behind the murder of the 31-year-old conservative activist.
Miller made those comments to Vance on Monday afternoon as the vice president hosted The Charlie Kirk Show on Rumble.
President Donald Trump’s aide said that in his last text exchange with Kirk, the influencer told him something needed to be done about violent left-wing organizations; Miller told Vance he had taken those words “to heart” and would make it his mission to destroy them, without naming any groups in particular.
“The organized doxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people’s addresses [must stop],” Miller said. “Combining that with messaging that’s designed to trigger, incite violence, and the actual organized cells that cary out and facilitate the violence. It is a vast domestic terror movement.”
He continued: “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.”
Miller’s comments come after Kirk was shot and killed at an event at Utah Valley University on September 10.
The suspected shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, believed Kirk was “spreading hate,” Axios reported on Friday. Fox News, a day later, reported Robinson’s trans partner was “fully cooperating” with the FBI investigation into the murder.
Vance, a moment before Miller shared his aforementioned comments, said the pair would not be going after “constitutionally protected speech.”
“We’re going to go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence. That’s not okay,” Vance said. “Violence is not okay in our system, and we want to make it less likely it happens.”
Miller, at a different point in the interview, said he “loved” Kirk and felt “incredible anger” since the murder.
“The thing about anger is that unfocused anger or blind rage is not a productive emotion,” Miller said. “But focused anger, righteous anger, directed for a just cause, is one of the most important agents of change in human history.”
(ab)using a dead man's platform for your own twisted little games, harvesting the sympathies and trying to point the anger somewhere convenient. funny how they don't mention social media and its problems. while streaming from hate spreading right wing platform Rumble.
now that is dancing on CK's grave while pointing fingers how others are undignified.
then again he was a state propagandist. backing off from Epstein at Trump's direction. he might have been totally fine with them using him like that for their goals, who knows.
apart from solving nothing this will foment actual division and hate. but that's their MO and the goal, little piggies like to play in the dirt.
incidentally we had a funny thing occur here in my local neck of the woods, a conservative mayor unilaterally "honored" Kirk by flying a black flag at half-mast. controversy and inconvenient questions like WHO? and WHY? followed. usually black flags being flown is reserved for important locals/dignitaries and local officials dying.
but that's a nice example of how social media spreads the brain rot very efficiently. and makes US talking points international, while also looping back to the US once it catches on.
but the question really is - why in the ever loving fuck would be care in the EU about Kirk, let alone Austria?
I tell you why, there are very strong bonds and relations between the right internationally. and their backers.
and who is controlling the medium, will control the message.
ironically this conservative/right wing alliance is a way more robust one than an "international left" could have ever dared to dream back when actual socialism was a thing in the last century.
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I'm not entirely sure what the contention is.
We went from "when they go low, we go high" to "All mexicans are rapists" and "immigration from shithole countries".
It is abundantly clear that decorum is not something the American electorate actually cares about.
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So JD Vance, broadcasting from the White House calling people who didn't like CK "terrorist sympathizers", he went on to call out Soros (very well known target of RW conspiracy theories) for financing the Nation magazine in which they allegedly misquoted CK, despite them quoting him exactly. That's the "black women don't have the brain processing power" about "DEI picks" Michelle Obama, Kenji Brown and Joy Reed quote.
He also went on to say that if anyone sees anyone who is saying anything problematic about CK online that they should call their boss and have them fired.
Can you imagine if Obama went online and said that anyone who sees someone posting bad shit about Treyvon Martin should report them to their boss? The fucking screeching about cancel culture would still echo until today.
Regarding the shooter's motivation, I like Drone's analysis but I honestly am yet to see anything that actually confirms the "trans partner" part, everything that came out about that came from Cox who said that Trump called him beforehand and he started spreading this story after, and Kash Patel who had a bizarre Fox interview where he said a bunch of contradicting things.
I think that if this was so cut and dry they would have already indicted the partner and paraded them everywhere, but they haven't, so I don't believe the information coming out about this until something solid comes out.
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