More has come out on the Charlie Kirk (RIP) shooting. The new information poses some serious problems for those defenders of Kirk who made a point of claiming “the left” was responsible for the shooting, and that because of that fact “the left” needs to either think through its politics or be purged (politically or physically).
The shooter has been identified as Tyler Robinson, a 22 yr old white man from Utah. Tyler’s family are all hard-core MAGA. Tyler and the family are all avid gun owners. Crucially, the emerging picture is that Tyler was a Groyper. Groypers are alt-right, white-nationalists and Christian-nationalists, led by Nick Fuentes. Groypers have been in a long-running dispute with Kirk. Their dispute is essentially an in-house dispute about who is far-right enough (or ‘conservative’ if you wish to delete (for no good reason) ‘far right’ from your conceptual landscape). Photos show Tyler dressed as Pepe the Frog, an alt-right image fashionable amongst groypers. Tyler was also active on Discord in gamer blogs, also common among groypers, who like to use irony and satire in online forums to peddle racist memes. Further analysis of the engravings on the bullets, initially described as antifa and trans, turn out to be a combination of manufacturer logos and phrases and memes common in internet-gamer forums. For example: “Heh Fascist! Catch!” followed by five arrow symbols is from the game Helldivers 2. Rather than being (as had been reported) a progressive left message to a perceived fascist, the phrase and arrows refer to a line and key-sequence (for a move) in the game where the player bombs a fascist. But in the game all players are fascists, that’s the satire part (think Heinlein, Starship Troopers). Tyler’s voter registration is ‘unaffiliated’, but the surrounding evidence all points to right wing affiliation. Hence why we are seeing Republicans shift gears and start talking about ‘misunderstood youth and their legitimate grievances’. It’s one of their own, purges are off, it’s time for prayers apparently. You can google the articles running through the new evidence.
At present it thus looks like this act of political violence was a right-on-right crime. It looks like the dispute between Kirk and Feuntes took a tragic turn, and internal divisions in the far-right in America bubbled over.
The question is, will there be recantation or reflection by those in the ‘RIP Charlie Kirk’ blog who blamed “the left” and inferred from the shooting a series of moral and political failings by “the left”? Receipts in the replies below! What might it mean FOR THE RIGHT-WING to see such a violent split emerge within the political right in America? If it was so easy to blame “the left” and call for retribution and even violence against “the left”, as the evidence shifts and a new picture emerges, of likely right-on-right violence, what does it say about “the right”? And about why it seemed so easy to suggest the launching of a bloodthirsty war against “the left”?
Replies
RECEIPTS, Part 1
Some statements unilaterally pinned the shooting on “the left”, essentially on little more than the victim was definitively on the right. One would think after both assassination attempts on Trump (Crook, and Routh) were by self-identified right wingers (obviously both disaffected), leaping to “the left” because “the right” was the victim might be dicey. Nevertheless, confidence abounded:
“… in this … modern day civil war, they [the loony left] have taken a huge scalp” (Wiz).
“Cancerous good for nothing lefties strike again!” (Electric Eel 2)
“The killer has already been established as left wing, the weapon discovered with Antifa, trans propaganda” (Muttman)
Love me some receipts
Ageing Poorly doesn't come close to how rubbish these hot-takes were. They were projecting their hopes onto reality only for reality to slap back
Someone even politely warned Mutts he was blowing his load early, but to no avail.
Thoughts and prayers
Site not taking the file uploads for some reason, Randy
I have time
Will we now see one of Kirks' acolytes take out Fuentes?
RECEIPTS, Part 2
We can grant it makes prima facie sense that a political assassination would normally involve targeting the opposite. The issue is whether intra-right differences are being adequately considered in that hasty, albeit intuitive judgment? So, what is maybe most interesting is to watch the kind of inferences drawn from “it was the left”. These inferences seem to have taken their lead from the vast right wing network in the US which got busy very quickly calling for bloodthirsty retribution and violence against “the left” (reposting image below to verify):
“Everything the far left lunatics despise, the fact he loved his god, his wife and children and said so publicly incessantly drove them wild” (Bup)
“The left doing what the left does best. Silence and censor opposition” and “You never see the right banning speech and silencing people, this is exclusively a tool of today's left” (Frank the Tank).
“[speaking truth] cost him his life by those who despise truth” (Cumberland eel)
“the left are losing their grip on reality more every day” (Steve)
“The left and atheists and agnostics are really showing their true colours” (Colin Good)
“We're talking about the assassination of a speaker at a university. It's now beyond doubt that far left ideologues cannot accept contrarian views and react overly emotionally when confronted with them” (Muttman)
woof
RECEIPTS, Part 3
Some were especially gleeful about the prospects of further political violence:
“Hopefully civil war emerges out of this, and lefties are carted off to work camps.'” (Bob Smith)
“You [leftists] never learn, never self-control, never reflect - just hate. This is why work camps are needed” (Bob Smith)
“Far left violence is becoming a trend. Today they killed a moderate conservative who expressed his views in a civil manner. They will definitely not like who comes next” (Muttman)
I guess if there is a civil war in the US, are we sure it won’t start out amongst the political right and spill over from there? Does the tragic political violence that befell Charlie Kirk suggest ‘who comes next’ might be more from the political right, as the political right goes to war with itself?
I was taken aback when Mutts said "They will definitely not like who comes next” whist insinuating that he would still su[pport them and their even more extreme positions and calls for retribution against anyone who.....well, anyone who isn't them really.
RECEIPTS, Part 4
There were also many comments about things being ‘revealed’. For instance, many on “the left” thought it wrong to canonize Charlie Kirk, as they did not share the rosy picture of Kirk’s behaviour or opinions favoured by “the right” (reposting below a list of Kirk opinions that do not share bipartisan support, shall we say). This was 'revealing' it seemed.
“Won't be long before this tread is shut down to hide the ugly face the lefties are showing” (HKF)
Some mod did shut the thread down, but whose face as revealed in the discussion was most ugly? For those unwilling to canonize someone they saw as ugly and divisive, are they ugly? For those reminiscing about the loss of a culture warrior for causes with which they identified, are they ugly? Is being critical of Kirk even in death ugly? Is that the same as a claim of ‘deserved it’? Or is a false inference from ‘we can critique Kirk’s words’ to ‘deserved it’ ugly? Or is the ugliness all of those FURTHER calls for political violence?
One person said as follows:
“The only speech that is not free is speech that incites violence” (LB)
Agreed, and most thus talk of hate speech to differtiate speech that ought not enjoy the benfits of free speech. Yet Kirk’s speech clearly incited violence, so Kirk’s speech was not free? And who made that call? It now appears it was NOT “the left” but “the right”.
It's gone from "we want the blood of this evil trans demonrat. Left must pay.....to we need to pray for this misguided soul and bring him to Jesus, just like Charlie would have wanted. The resurrected images his mum deleted from insta puts paid to the "it's not the gun culture" bullshit
No-one will walk anything back Daz, they'll just blame academia for radicalising him
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