Normal people don't know who Charlie Kirk is. My mom, dad, husband, neighbor are very confused why it's such a big deal.
Which is good to remember. He's never done anything notable. Didn't run for office, didn't break a big story, didn't write an important book.
So, for a lot of people this is all very confusing.
Most people find politics very boring and obnoxious.
To some degree this can be by design, to keep people from engaging.
IDK I don't think this is a big deal. Or rather it's exactly the same size deal as all of the other shootings. Which just keep coming.
At the other end of the spectrum, I was shocked to discover he was only 31.
It feels like his bullshit has been around forever. Not going to miss him.
It got pretty fucking re-amended when the Black Panthers were walking around armed.
@futurebird I knew about him because my 14yr old Australian child told me about him.
My impression is because Kirk was relatively young (31), he was more of a known entity to younger people.
e.g. my child follows progressive commentators on TikTok and Kirk's views were discussed there.
A lot of far right online people were recently VERY mad at him for covering for Epstein among other things.
For left wing online types he was a reliable punching bag, more embarrassing than threatening.
For people who have felt the sweet caress of grass on their feet? They are all saying Who???
@futurebird @troberts "more embarrassing than threatening..."
He's called for violence against the transgender community.
Also called for overturning the Civil Rights Act.
FA? Meet FO.
@KraftTea @futurebird @troberts As for someone on the left myself, I didn't even recognize his name when he was shot and killed; it was other people citing his "I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights." quote, which came across as real Lord Farquaad energy.
It's a bit like if the Boeing CEO was known for saying "Some airplane flight deaths are necessary to ensure our stock price goes up", and then being known for it as a Boeing 737 Max crash lands into them because of an MCAS sensor tripping.
Would their death be tragic and avoidable? Sure? Would their family be grieving? Probably. Would everyone else be laughing at the irony of their specific death? Yes, very much so.
Live so that no one writes you a eulogy like this one.
Shootings are bad. I want to live in a country without all of these shootings.
Worth noting that while my parents also didn't know his name.. my teenager and her friends absolutely did.
His target audience was younger.
I think it's very possible this attack was coming from one of the people who used to like him, angry because of the Epstein cover up. That's where *violent* rhetoric about this guy was coming from most recently.
Some of his fans had a para-social relationship with him. He's always been propped up by right wing big money, while trying to "reach out to the youth" and trying to seem "anti-establishment"
The cognitive dissonance of a recent statement he made "I will trust my friends in the government" (on Epstein) caused many of his fans to attack him. They were VERY mad.
So, that's what I suspect. Of course I could be wrong.
Tim Pool must not be feeling so good right now.
His fans have been going off the deep end too about that stuff.
@futurebird @[email protected] so he was the 'youth pastor' of bigoted fascists, got it.
Explains why I never heard of him.
@futurebird @jbrownesq I think it's important to not care too much about who he was.
He was a person who thought school shootings were ok, the necessary price of the second amendment.
He was a person who thought queer people should be killed.
He was a person who thought the Civil Rights Act was one of the greatest mistakes in history.
You don't need to know more than that. He was a shithead and we're better off without him. That's all that matters.
@andthisismrspeacock @futurebird I dont care who he was beyond this analysis, but I know a bit about him and I see how the fascist elements in the state and public spaces are immediately using his death in the same way Hitler's fascists used the death of Horst Wessel to gain more power, bring more violence to targeted classes of people.
fuck kirk and everyone like kirk. This is the randomly violent world he seemed to want so much, and he died by it.
I could totally be wrong. We still have no idea who this guy was or what he was on about. To some degree it doesn't matter because living with these shootings all of the time is intolerable.
A right wing fan who felt alienated.
A left wing extremist fixated on Kirk for some reason.
A person who didn't like Kirk for personal or imagined reasons not related to politics.
Anyone can buy a gun, it's so easy. It's even easy to buy one and no one knows that you have it.
Oh now he's "quiet" and "no one saw this coming"
I thought he was ultra-left antifa super-solider. What changed?
I thought it was really unlikely this was left wing violence because all of the violent death threats about this guy online were coming from the right.
Oh yes. White shooters are always described as quiet and people say they never could see it coming.
Even the ADL had a file on the guy for violent rhetoric. This is the "I don't feel safe if the pilot flying the plane is black" guy. Very racist, anti semetic, anti Arab, hated immigrants, wanted women to be put back in a box. His death doesn't erase how he choose to live his life.
It's horrible that there are so many shootings in public places. None of us should have to put up with it. Especially school children. And now it seems they can't even catch this most recent shooter.
Don't try to make me like him.
Same same.
I learned who he was just today. And I caught a block for saying maybe some folks would kill people like him in political self-defense.
Not just maybe. The man literally believed in enslaving women and other races. He incited violence.
Yeah, I caught his lovely genocidal streak too. Not my clown, not my circus, but if he lived here I wouldn't stand a chance of getting to him first.
People that start violence and applaud injuring innocents don't get away with calling themselves victims. This isn't going to play out the way the 2025 boys playing imperialism in their alternate reality illusions think. They should have read up on the 1960s and 1920s uprisings here.
@futurebird Me too. Didn't know who he was.
Feel sorry for his wife & kids but from what I've read, good riddance. 🤷♂️
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