Note: This article has been edited, re-written, and expanded as of Sept 16th in light of new information that has been released since it’s initial publishing, and events that have transpired since.
I had been fighting the urge to say anything for days. On any other week I might not have. My band had a gig the day Charlie Kirk got shot, and so I found myself on facebook doing promotion, and that’s where it happened- I saw people I knew and cared about eulogizing a hateful man. Not right-wingers mind you, self-professed liberals, allies, “capital D” Democrats, etc… Calls for “decorum” rang out, folks praising him for being a Jesus following Christian, making a big weepy show of saying this isn’t the way to do politics. I was perplexed, as far as I knew, most of these folks had never heard of Charlie Kirk, and certainly wouldn’t possibly be fans of his, would they?
Here they were, many of them having been all about Luigi Mangione just months ago (under the pretense that he is allegedly the one who shot the healthcare CEO), suddenly decrying violence against a man for “just speaking his opinions”. Never mind that his opinions are largely hate speech couched in Bible verses. Never mind that at that exact same moment among the right-wing they were already prepping to throw every Trans person on death row. I mean, they’ve BEEN doing that, but there were innumerable calls by figures of the same ilk as Charlie Kirk, and sitting members of the current administration, to take to the streets, to pen new laws, and to make life as a Trans person in this country as difficult as possible in retaliation, something they’ve been looking for any excuse to do for years now, and something that they are doing their best to do currently.
Never mind that it’s since been revealed that the shooter is yet another “chronically online”, “irony-pilled” white cis-guy, and while initial reports were claiming he was likely a Groyper, it appears his politics and personal identity were perhaps even more complicated as a topic he rarely discussed with his friends. If you don’t know what a Groyper is, overly short answer is they’re the ones who didn’t think Charlie Kirk was far-right and hateful enough. Their leader Nick Fuentes seemed so concerned the shooter was one of them he rushed out to make a video decrying such violence and denouncing him as one of theirs despite many of his followers claims to the contrary. These same followers were often known to interrupt Charlie Kirk rallies and decry him as a “fake conservative” due to his pro-Israel stance among others. They all kinda spawned from the same GamerGate cesspool that gave us Incels. And look, if you don’t know what any of those last few (admittedly run-on) sentences meant, I’m about to drop the harshest truth on you right here-
You are too uninformed to have a valid opinion on these current goings on, the growing undercurrent of extremism in this country, and the types of men driving it.
I don’t mean this as an insult. I kinda envy you if I’m being honest, I hate that I’ve ever heard of any of these guys or what their beliefs are before this moment. I myself am too uninformed to have a valid opinion on most things, it’s why I largely stick to writing about movies or music, or I just don’t post much at all. Hell, I barely count myself as informed enough to be writing this, but I’m not writing this as an expert on right-wing extremism, or the chronically online, or stochastic terrorism, I’m writing this as someone who used to feel I had to voice my opinion online about everything. Some of you might have known me then, under one screen name or another, ranting and raving about the state of things. Sharing endless articles, lecturing and scolding and being a real adversarial fuckhead.
I used to have a regular podcast where I would just ramble about whatever was on my mind. Just me. Endlessly pontificating.
But here’s the thing, no one should have that kind of blanket platform. And I mean no one. NO ONE.
And especially not a hateful fuck like Charlie Kirk. That’s right, this is still about Charlie Kirk, except, no it isn’t. It’s about the response to his assassination.
If you’ve found yourself calling for decorum, or you’ve been making statements about how “political violence” isn’t the answer, I have bad news for you. Political violence is just politics and how accepting we are of the violence that is done in service of politics. Because how else does the state enforce anything other than the eventual threat of violence- the violence of the military, or the police, or incarceration? Hell, I’m also writing this as a former tool of the violence of the state. I was in the Army through 2 tours of Iraq, under both Bush and Obama. The ways those administrations were similar is far greater than the ways they were different, and both made regular use of political violence.
Charlie Kirk himself loved political violence, he openly mocked George Floyd, a man killed by an officer of the law, representing the violence of the state. He railed against immigrants on the regular, meanwhile the enforcement of those views resulted in the political violence of ICE having murdered a man in Franklin Park, IL just days ago as of when I’m writing this. He regularly pushed for laws restricting women’s bodily autonomy, which itself is a form of control by the state under threat of violence. He found the loss of endless school children to gun violence acceptable as the cost of having a Second Amendment, a view he openly expressed on his show. He supported the on-going genocide happening in Gaza (that the UN finally recognized officially, which our government is funding and arming) and in fact was so supportive of that, that Israel just named a street after him. He also argued endlessly that Black People are inferior to White People. Women inferior to men. He railed against the “LGBTQIA+ agenda” and denied the very existence of trans folks.
In short- he was a real piece of shit.
So why is there a drive to defend him, even from liberals? Every talking head is now afraid that in today’s climate, they could be next. Remember when health care CEOs ramped up private security in the wake of that assassination? Imagine every health care CEO is on the TV or YouTube or writing think pieces and what would they be saying. They don’t want to get shot, no matter what heinous shit pours out of their mouths. A Fox News host the other day had to issue a retraction to his statement that homeless people should just be “involuntarily euthanized”. The majority of Americans are one paycheck emergency away from being homeless. This is class warfare, and Charlie Kirk is, sorry, was of a privileged class. Every news agency has buckled to every demand of the Trump administration because they’re all owned by companies who want profits and mergers and the kind of monopolies that can only happen if the government lets you do it, and Trump will grant favor to anyone who bends the knee. So yes, even so called “left leaning” media is scrambling to tell us that this is abhorant, this isn’t how we’re supposed to be as a country. They are calling for everyone who doesn’t mourn in their preferred deferential manor to be fired by their jobs. Something that would make most people homeless, and remember what they just said they want to do to the homeless on Fox News? Why is anyone listening to these people?
And beyond them there is a whole online subculture of disaffected shitty young (predominantly but not limited to) white men who think folks like Charlie Kirk aren’t right-wing enough. Just over 70% of all political-ideologically based violence that takes place in this country is committed by right-wingers, compared to just 4% committed by left-wingers. Remember the attempted Trump assassin? Probably not, or you’ve been convinced it was staged or never happened. There’s a reason for that. His politics were inconvenient. The person who who shot and killed 2 kids in Colorado the same day Charlie Kirk was shot? Oh, don’t worry about his politics, also inconvenient. Unfortunately this particular shooter’s politics might not be. He was raised in a conservative family, liked guns and online gaming, and was by recent accounts queer and living with his partner who is reported to be in the process of transitioning. Latest accounts say that following growing confrontations with his family, his father specifically, over the hatefulness the shooter perceived (accurately again, btw- Charlie Kirk did deny the very existence of trans people, among plenty of other anti-queer takes, which inspire no shortage of violence, anti-queer legislation, and the kind of division between conservative families and their queer children that helped to inspire his own end) the shooter decided to kill Kirk.
Back to the point though, which is not about Charlie Kirk, or his killer, but about how we’re all responding to it. If you’ve found yourself feeling some sort of pressure or desire to speak out about the need for political decorum in this specific moment, and you need to somehow show that you are morally good by saying Charlie Kirk shouldn’t have been killed… ask yourself why you feel you have to espouse that view in this moment specifically. Ask yourself why some podcaster is getting flags flown at half-staff, why his corpse got flown around on Air Force Two, and he was given respects paid by troops and the Vice President, all sent by the same man who didn’t want flags flown at half-staff when former President Jimmy Carter died because he thought it was a visual bummer, and said little after the assassination of Minnesota State Rep Melissa Hortman and her husband by a man with the same anti-abortion beliefs as Charlie Kirk just this past June.
The state is telling you what violence is and is not acceptable, and if you are scolding folks that are happy that someone who regularly advocated for white supremacy died, I have bad news for you- you’re agreeing with the state. This state. The one headed up by President Donald Trump. The state loves political violence unless it goes against the interests of the state. Charlie Kirk was a hateful man who used Jesus as a cudgel to beat those he felt were lesser than him. There’s a reason much of the news is only showing his quotes about loving Jesus and pictures of him with his family in coverage about him, but they won’t show any clips of his actual political opinions. They’re banking on you not having been familiar enough to have known much of anything about him, and they’re selling you a martyr. They want you to decry violence against their violent men. The same way they want you to accept ICE raids and internment camps, and bulldozing homeless encampments, and thinking trans folks should all be hidden away (or just die), that the chronically ill should fend for themselves (or just die), and that children are acceptable losses in service of having a Second Amendment, that we should never forget 9/11 and that the War on Terror and the horrors perpetrated against Arabs/Muslims/or anyone perceived to be such were warranted. That’s the acceptable background violence, the white noise violence, the violence they want you to drown out or ignore.
The political violence is here. It’s always been here. The visibility changes. The narrative changes.
If you think it’s cool to punch a nazi, if you’ve ever rooted for Trump to just die already, if you’ve sang along with “Fuck the Police”, if you’ve said “Free Luigi” if you think any war, rebellion, revolution, or riot EVER was justified, you’re not against political violence yourself.
It’s ok, neither am I.
Most people aren’t. We just pretend we are. It’s polite. It’s good decorum. But here’s the thing- the fascists, the racists, the sexists, the homophobes, the hateful folks, they’ve long stopped pretending to be against political violence. They revel in it. They cheer for it. They lionize those that encourage it, like Charlie Kirk did. And the types of folks who have been shooting up schools and concerts, they believe in the violence as the point beyond the politics. They worship past mass-shooters, they live in a world that promises no bright future, they think the chaos is funny, they dox and SWAT and engage in harassment campaigns as a hobby. The shooter wanted to see memes read aloud on Fox News. They’ve been sold so much violence that for many it’s where they find love and community. For some in response it’s where they find an answer to what’s happening around them. Charlie Kirk is one of the folks who sold it, who helped bring the pot to boil. The only reason I said that in the past tense is because he’s dead. He would be spewing hate on college campuses and on podcasts and wherever else he could right this very second otherwise. And if you’ve felt you’ve had to say something about that, ask yourself why, why now, who does it benefit, ask yourself if you’re being a useful tool of the fascist state. The fascist state that is looking for any and every excuse to make anyone who doesn’t think, look, act, or believe like them disappear. You can be afraid of the “retaliation”, but for too many folks the violence has already been here and Charlie Kirk was one of the folks driving it.
It’s ok to not be upset about the end of his hatefulness, his platform, and the harm he’s done to this country.
It’s ok to be happy when the bad people who want to do you harm can’t anymore.
And more than anything it’s ok to just not have a take. We’re not meant to have a constant platform
(I say with no hint of irony after writing over 2300 words on the topic.
*deep existentially tired sigh*
Anyway, get off facebook.
Fancy Boys Club 