I get this is something marginalized folks must live with on a daily basis and none of this is surprising, but I’m a white cishet guy and this stuff is eye opening and (further) radicalizing to me.
The entire social response to Kirk getting merc’d is literally the 
meme. Down to bone.
White, cishet, male-dominated society (and the mainstream media that extends from it) has decided that, okay, maybe Kirk said some very pointed or occasionally untoward comments. But really, can any of those words compare to being willing to debate in the Marketplace of Ideas? Ok, maybe he was a bit racist. Maybe he didn’t care for trans folks. Sure, that’s all a bit rude. But he was willing to discuss his ideas and be civil about it (ok, maybe not civil, but he didn’t kill anyone over it), and in the end that’s all that really matters, right?
Politicians, the media, and a good chunk of society is basically saying how marginalized people may feel about all this is entirely irrelevant. Any sort of speech that is racist, sexist, or bigoted is excusable so long as the subject serves the broader neoliberal, white supremacist, settler project.
Marg bar Amrika.
I think the more interesting thing is that even among white people the vast majority seem to be either indifferent in a “Yeah he brought it on himself” kind of way, or entirely positive about it.
It’s only among activists (liberal and fascist), the political class and their media sphere trying to drum up the idea and invent a false reality where people are majority disgusted by this. I’m just not seeing it. Most people simply do not care or do in fact support it.
Yasha Levine wrote something that was posted on Hexbear recently that, in my mind, nailed the response from the liberals and some conservatives in the pundity/media/streamer spaces. He said they have all suddenly had the shocking realization that they’re not just firing invective off into the void and getting paid for it, they’re not any safer than Kirk and most aren’t as safe since they’re not traveling around with security. They see themselves in him and they’re scared that they might meet the same fate.
Found the comment and article about the streamer/influencer panic. It’s good and I wanted to put it out there again.
Are all Evangelicals activists under this model?
Because they are RILED up by it and there are objectively tens of millions of people who not only check that box but are fully checked into the propaganda machine and not indifferent. I grant there are some who check that Evangelical box on the survey who don’t give a shit but there are probably a few ten millions at least who do given my own relatives aren’t extraordinarily special in that demographic and they are wound up pretty high on freaking out. It’s definitely reinforced and driven by reactionary propaganda, Fox News, influencers, FB algorithms, etc but it’s only partially synthetic.
That, the story someone posted here of a raging chud starting to scream at them over disrespecting his death at their job and being sent home by the manager. Clearly real people are experiencing real emotions even if manipulated and whipped up by the media. Evangelicals in particular see him as their own boy, their connection to the youth, their beloved gen-z whisperer who was totally winning kids over to conservatism and Christ on the godless liberal commie college campuses by epically owning and debating them just like in God’s Not Dead.
If you’re not seeing it it’s probably because your sphere doesn’t include a lot of these people or they’re bottling it up in the interactions you have with them (professional for example) but expressing it online or at home.
So maybe not a majority but a very big minority, perhaps 1/10 or 1/15 any of those still being huge numbers.
I mean, yeah. Neo-pentecostalism is the Vanguard Party of american reaction. It is the primary means the american empire exports reactionary ideology and organizes the reactionary base, both at home and abroad.
Yes. Everyone’s an activist if they’re engaged in political activism.
or if they are transgender.
All I’m saying is, he was no angel.
My libs have even brought it up unprompted to me, having done enough research into Kirk to know he was a piece of shit and deserved what happened to him, all on their own, I’m so proud of them!
Well it makes sense that public political figures don’t want to encourage the killing of public political figures.
Then it seems like it didn’t really narrow the discourse (fascists certainly didn’t shut up) but actually broaden it. So couldn’t that be used as an argument against the typical “free speech” argument?
Ahh you mean because fascists haven’t actually shut up but because a huge number of people now talk about violence as a political action for good compared to previously there is essentially a net increase in speech rather than decrease?
An interesting take. Particularly as the free speech advocates are trying their hardest to prevent the broadening of this speech through the banning of anyone who speaks freely about their thoughts on this online.
I quite like this framing.
Yes, exactly, you said it better. Of course, I’d still like for fascists to shut up though…