United States Politics Thread 47

[CopyrightedName]

You must look at this from the perspective of average people who don't follow politics very closely.

My entire first paragraph is me doing just that: looking at the mainstream media narrative, what politicians are saying, and social media buzz.

All they see is someone on the left murdering a conservative commentator.

No they don't, because the shooter hasn't been identified.

Currently the news of his assassination is saturating every news outlet. Everyone in the US and even many people abroad have heard the news and you would be naïve to imagine it doesn't color their impression of the left (which these days includes anyone to the left of MAGA).

It will color their impression of the left if that's what the media focuses on. People generally form opinions based on what trusted elite institutions (i.e. politicians, news media) say, not only in terms of what to think, but even what they focus on. To use your 9/11 example, the public didn't form a thirst for war spontaneously: the White House pushed for it, the media went all-in, and that drove the public to desire war. IF the shooter is identified as left-wing, and IF the mainstream media unifies around a message of "left-wingers are evil terrorists and must be wiped out", then your fears will be founded. But right now they're premature.

[MacAnDàil]

For once malloc is right. Even from thousands of miles away the horror of this senseless act of obviously leftist political violence has shaken me to the core of my soul and made it clear that the only moral course of action is to regard Trump and the MAGA movement with total sympathy and wholeheartedly support them however we can in everything they do.

Laugh all you like, but that is not far from how most people understand politics. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the vast majority of Americans were baying for war with any predominantly Islamic country that one could tangentally link with the attacks while rallying decisively toward the hard right. It took a good five years for Americans to calm down enough for Democrats to become politically viable again. Five years from now, the MAGA regime will be too deeply entrenched to remove even if public opinion turns against it.

No, even in 2001, not even two months after 9/11, the Democrats won two governerships off the Republicans. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Unit ... _elections

[Torco]

Five years from now, the MAGA regime will be too deeply entrenched to remove even if public opinion turns against it.

you're just counting the hours, aren't you?

cause some mid-tier conservative pundit got publicly shot. Travis is right, kirk wasn't so famous that his death moves the needle that much, or for that long. If, say, musk bought the farm, now that could be something else

maybe if it happened while he was sharing the spotlight with Trump or right afterwards (and again, I'd put money on a right-winger doing the deed)

It depends, i suppose, on how strongly the magas push the narrative that because of this heinous act blabla we must disappear all leftists to salvador or whatever else. high profile assasinations don't spin themselves into pogroms against political dissidents, after all.

I don't know about Boehner(sp), but Trump did disappear over the weekend, long enough for people to think he had died (20 minutes without an attack on California's governor, as John Stewart put it).....now everyone is looking at Trump's hand, as though that proves or disproves it, based upon how much concealer makeup he put over any veins or discolor on the back of one hand.

sooo... it is not known ?

[alice]

All they see is someone on the left murdering a conservative commentator.

No they don't, because the shooter hasn't been identified.

Since this post it has emerged that the shooter was politically somewhat to the right, which is very embarrassing for a lot of people, not least N*g*l F*r*g*, who got front page space in a certain daily tabloid to loudly blame "The Left".

[Karch]

Since this post it has emerged that the shooter was politically somewhat to the right, [...]

I do not believe a rightwinger would engrave his bullets with "notices your bulge OwO" or "Hey fascist! Catch!".

[keenir]

Since this post it has emerged that the shooter was politically somewhat to the right, [...]

I do not believe a rightwinger would engrave his bullets with "notices your bulge OwO"

so...a fascist who either belittled manhoods, or had a little trouble hitting on people. not impossible.

or "Hey fascist! Catch!".

strangely, history teaches us that not all fascists like each other.

[Nortaneous]

Since this post it has emerged that the shooter was politically somewhat to the right, [...]

I do not believe a rightwinger would engrave his bullets with "notices your bulge OwO" or "Hey fascist! Catch!".

no ron paul groypers?

[Almoura]

I do not believe a rightwinger would engrave his bullets with "notices your bulge OwO" or "Hey fascist! Catch!".

I regret to inform you that young right wingers are often both terminally online and fond of irony.

[Ahzoh]

Since this post it has emerged that the shooter was politically somewhat to the right, [...]

I do not believe a rightwinger would engrave his bullets with "notices your bulge OwO" or "Hey fascist! Catch!".

You have no idea how drowning deep in irony most online fascists are. You could go to 4chan and you will absolutely see extreme rightwingers/neo-nazis making these memes. Especially owo-type memes, which are heavily furry-coded (they like to mock furries but nazi furries also exist btw). The "hey fascist catch" one is also specifically a Helldivers meme. The arrow code is supposed to summon a super-nuke near your position and it's done as a joke when someone says something dumb or cringe.

As a related tangent, fascists are obsessed with sexuality and manhood. Combined with their general misogyny and you get this intense closet-gay energy being exuded by some of these types of people.

[Karch]

You have no idea how drowning deep in irony most online fascists are.

On the contrary. I could write an essay about the ways online fascists use irony, and this isn't one of them. Calling people "fascists" is a leftist shibboleth.

no ron paul groypers?

nah this isn't 2018

[Torco]

he was, apparently, ethnically maga. then again, yeah, "catch fascist" is easily a thing a leftist might write on a bullet. then then again, it's also a thing a fash might write to make people thing a leftist did it. then then then again...

what really strikes me is how US-centric the worldwide right is. the EU, latin america, everywhere throughout the world rightos are worshipping at the altar of this one guy's death. i mean, i know i'm the one who always goes "remember the us basically controls the world", but even so.

[Raphael]

Well, it's pretty rare that right-wingers can point to an actual rather than invented bad thing done to them, so I guess that they have to make the most of it when they can.

(Of course, the USA doesn't control the world, but there's no point in telling you that.)

[Ketsuban]

no ron paul groypers?

nah this isn't 2018

And yet the shooter used "notices ur bulge OwO whats this". It's almost as if a hallmark of groypers is using ancient memes and ostensibly progressive symbols as a smokescreen.

[Ahzoh]

You have no idea how drowning deep in irony most online fascists are.

On the contrary. I could write an essay about the ways online fascists use irony, and this isn't one of them.

Then you're willfully blind. These phrases absolutely are a part of the ways fascist use irony. He was a groyper. Most of these are 4chan-type memes.

Yeah, often it is only the leftists that call extreme rightwingers fascists, but extreme rightwingers will co-opt leftwing/progressive vocabulary (e.g. woke) and memes as part of their ironic mockery and troll tactics.

They like to hide behind plausible deniability and obfuscation. That's part of the fascist's whole game.

[jcb]

They like to hide behind plausible deniability and obfuscation. That's part of the fascist's whole game.

Indeed. Anybody who's watched Sam Hyde knows this well.

***

Apparently, the (alleged) shooter (Tyler Robinson)'s partner is a transgender woman.
- https://news.sky.com/story/charlie-kirk ... r-13431020

This actually makes it more likely that he's a groyper.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJ7RWsbebp0

To summarize, some groypers hate (cis-)women so much that they refuse to have them as a partner, which therefore leaves them other possibilities for partnerships:
- Be celibate. (Nick Fuentes (the leader of the groypers) has bragged about being celibate as a way to get back at women.)
- Be gay. (There's allegedly a leaked video of Destiny (the leftist streamer) sucking the dick of Nick Fuentes.)
- Convince/convert a man into becoming a trans-woman, and date them. (This is possibly what's happened here.) (This option sorta reminds me of how clownfish change sex due to social conditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeTk8_qabCc )

Despite the extreme misogyny of groypers, there are still some cis-woman groypers, like the woman who (allegedly) stole Nancy Pelosi's laptop during the Jan 6, 2021 attempted coup. (They were never able to prove it or find the item.)
- https://www.bellingcat.com/news/america ... azi-salute

Also relevant, if anybody's been asked to explain groypers to a normy:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ptbwAg5Kt2M

[Raphael]

To summarize, some groypers hate (cis-)women so much that they refuse to have them as a partner, which therefore leaves them other possibilities for partnerships:
- Be celibate. (Nick Fuentes (the leader of the groypers) has bragged about being celibate as a way to get back at women.)

NOOOOOOOOooooooooooooooo! Being denied the opportunity to fuck Nick Fuentes! What a horrible, horrible punishment for the world's women! That'll show 'em! For sure!

[Ahzoh]

summarize, some groypers hate (cis-)women so much that they refuse to have them as a partner, which therefore leaves them other possibilities for partnerships:
- Be celibate. (Nick Fuentes (the leader of the groypers) has bragged about being celibate as a way to get back at women.)
- Be gay. (There's allegedly a leaked video of Destiny (the leftist streamer) sucking the dick of Nick Fuentes.)
- Convince/convert a man into becoming a trans-woman, and date them. (This is possibly what's happened here.) (This option sorta reminds me of how clownfish change sex due to social conditions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeTk8_qabCc )

The more likely answer is that, like many bigots, they fetishize and "chase" the things they hate. There is many a story of a white supremacist neo-nazi who turns out to have and maintain relations with black women. Fetishization and objectification is part of their dehumanizing.

[malloc]

Trying to look on the bright side, what are our plans going forward with this terrible situation? This latest assassination has turned the general public decisively against the left and liberalism while giving Trump the excuse he needs to crush his opposition. We need some plan for reaching the average person and making our case to them despite their intense skepticism. It seems genuinely insurmountable, though.

[CopyrightedName]

??? I've seen zero evidence that the public has "turned decisively against the left". What general public perspective I could find showed the public focused on non-partisan and bi-partisan concerns about rising political violence. The right has engaged in vindictive cancel culture mobs and calls for civil war, but the right is not "the general public", and it's not clear why you seem to think it is.

In any case, here's a detailed, sober-minded analysis of the aftermath and the current political moment, from YouTuber Zaid Tabani, that I recommend folks watch:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNxxsv9rbV0&t=2139s

[zompist]

This latest assassination has turned the general public decisively against the left and liberalism while giving Trump the excuse he needs to crush his opposition.

Let's try to quantify this decisive turn a little. Nate Silver's aggregation of multiple polls has the following results:

Today, after the assassination, after this massive earthquake shift toward Trump: -7.3.
One week ago, before the assassination, before this overwhelming, unstoppable change: -7.3.

That's favorability rating-- to be precise, 51.9% of respondents disapprove of Trump, 44.6% approve. One week previous, before this tidal wave of unprecedented proportions, 51.9% of respondents disapproved of Trump, 44.6% approved.

As for what to do about it, didn't you find socialist group that was showing films? I bet they do more than that, have you asked?

Not sure exactly where you are, but there are at least 5 Invisible/No Kings protests in the St Louis area in October.

That you're thinking of resistance is a good thing, but we are not your ChatGPT. Do some research.