Trump’s Homeland Security Advisor Denies Victims of Far Right Shooting Equal Protection
There were two school shootings last Wednesday.
In the first, a 22-year old man raised in a white Republican family and pickled in gaming culture shot Charlie Kirk. Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who admitted he prayed that the culprit would not be a member of his Mormon culture, claims Tyler Robinson has been radicalized by left culture, but thus far the only evidence he has presented is a claim that Tyler is in a relationship with his roommate, whom Cox describes as transitioning. Kash Patel’s latest Fox hit describes a message Robinson left that appears to reference Kirk’s hatred: “some hatred cannot be negotiated with.”
An hour later and one state away, 16-year old Desmond Holly shot up Evergreen High School, putting two of his classmates in the hospital before taking his own life. The ADL describes that Holly had an account on an online gore site where he had celebrated far right shootings and seemed to speak in advance of his attack.
Holly had an account on the gore forum WatchPeopleDie, where he had commented on posts about shootings in Parkland (2018), Buffalo (2022) and at a Quebec City mosque (2017).
Holly appears to have joined the gore site on December 26, 2024, during the month window between the school shootings at Abundant Life Christian school in Madison, Wisconsin, and Antioch High School in Nashville, Tennessee.
Holly is one of several mass attackers who have been active on the platform.
Groundbreaking research from ADL Center on Extremism in August 2025 revealed that Natalie Rupnow and Solomon Henderson, the perpetrators of the Madison and Nashville school shootings, also used the site. As an example, in August, a Moroccan teenager announced plans to livestream a mass stabbing and shared a manifesto on WatchPeopleDie, as well as X and 8kun.
Holly also collected tactical gear, adorned that gear with extremist symbols and posted content emulating former shooters such as Rupnow and the 1999 Columbine High School shooters. Like many attackers, Holly assembled his gear in a piecemeal fashion, drawing inspiration from the equipment used by previous mass shooters. For example, Holly posted a now-deleted TikTok video in which he modelled a tactical helmet and a gas mask; the post’s background music featured a Serbian folk song that Brenton Tarrant played while livestreaming the 2019 Christchurch Mosque shootings.
Underneath his post, Holly engaged with several comments in a manner that suggested he was close to committing his own attack. He liked one comment reading, “You got close to a full setup now man time to make a move 👍.” He also liked a comment reading, “Just need an gopro its gonan be cool an pov [sic],” and responded, “A GoPro, battery, ear protection, and maybe a patch.” Responding to another commenter, he wrote, “I’m planning on getting a camera instead.”
The Evergreen shooting, like the Annunciation school shooting — before which Robin Westman posted videos cheering school shooters in advance of her attack — was probably preventable.
In seemingly stream-of-consciousness videos that she posted, the assailant fixated on guns, violence and school shooters. She displayed her own cache of weapons, bullets and what appear to be explosive devices, scrawled with antisemitic and racist language and threats against President Trump.
Or these tragic shootings would have been preventable had not the FBI reassigned key personnel to patrol the streets of DC, had not DHS put Thomas Fugate in charge of downsizing the office that used to try to prevent such things.
In response to the Kirk shooting, Donald Trump’s Homeland Security Advisor, Stephen Miller, projecting tactics that Charlie Kirk himself used (like doxing), used those tactics to claim that Democrats are part of a domestic terror movement that he promises to take out.
“It is a vast domestic terror movement,” said Miller, speaking of left-wing political organizations.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people,” he added. “It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.”
It’s easy to forget given how much damage Miller has done to this country, but in addition to Wormtongue or Deputy Chief of Staff, his primary title is Homeland Security Advisor.
His job is to keep Americans, all Americans — including the two kids killed and 21 people injured at Annunciation, the two kids injured at Evergreen, as well as his beloved political ally Charlie Kirk — safe. And yet his response to a wave of violence carried out by young people radicalized online is to try to address just one shooting, and to address it in the least effective way possible, by hunting down people who had nothing to do with the Kirk killing.
I get that Miller has chosen to stoke fascism rather than grieve. I get the danger to all of this.
But Miller’s screed did something else: it said that he doesn’t care about the 8 and 10 and 16 year olds who face radicalized people with guns in their schools, he won’t do the most obvious things to address those shootings.
And that, it seems, counsels an obvious response.
Stephen Miller has announced he will do nothing to address school shootings, generally. He will do nothing to address the radicalization happening in chat rooms, including chat rooms that would be freely accessible to law enforcement if they weren’t off terrorizing Latino grandmothers.
Stephen Miller has responded to the murder of someone he calls a friend not by doing the most common sense things to try to prevent further school shootings, all school shootings, but to do the exact opposite.
And every parent of children who attend schools should be furious about Miller’s abject refusal to do his job.





Maybe OT, but weren’t they deporting Ukrainian war survivors at the same time as they were screaming about how terrible it is that a Ukrainian war survivor and refugee was murdered?
Trying to, at least. Because … makes Pooty-Poot happy? Not white enough for Miller?
As to your question regarding Miller. It may have been. Ukrainians were discriminated against. As I remember the Nazis and the Russian communists didn’t think Ukrainians were up to their standards, what ever they were.
Don’t know what the attitude to wards Ukrainians was in the U.S.A. but in Canada in the 1950, 60, 70s I can recall various nationalities were referred to in derogatory terms. Some people used other terms when referring to various ethnic groups, such as Italians, Jews, Mexicans, etd. Once we hit the 1970s it had stopped or used only in some circles One friend of the family changed their last name so it was “english” sounding. They felt they could not get ahead in business with their own last name. Seems to have worked for them.
Similar to Brian Kilmeade standards for homelessness and Trump/ICE raids and local municipal takeovers in search of immigrants, caused calamity of killings in Ukraine,
“Interethnic conflict and violence were prominent aspects of war on the Eastern Front as individuals and population groups grappled with multiple invasions and occupations. The 1941 NKVD prison massacres provide an example of how ordinary people experienced and responded to events during World War II. As with many atrocities, the prison massacres affected people differently across Western Ukraine. Some people responded with violence due to shock, fear, and anger, while others reacted with passivity or indifference. The bitter memories of Soviet crimes committed during the 1939-1941 occupation ultimately reinforced anti-Soviet attitudes in Western Ukraine and affected how local inhabitants reacted to the Nazi occupation of the region. Anti-Soviet sentiments can also be seen as one of the reasons many Ukrainians and Poles fled the advancing Red Army in 1944, settling in Western Europe with hopes of immigrating to North America.”
https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/1941-nkvd-prison-massacres-western-ukraine
https://guides.lib.uconn.edu/ukraine/WWII
I can barely read through his screeds, but when I do, I learn they contain not one bit of actionable thought in finding resolution to the problem, other than eliminationism, that is. It’s “sound and the fury signifying nothing” all the way down.
This seems to be a recurring theme among the MAGA, as if they really do believe “the beatings will continue until morale improves” works in any way to advance their goals.
It’s NOT easy to forget how much damage Miller has done to this country.
Marcy has mentioned several times the transgender question that Kirk was responding to when he was shot, given the purported relationship Robinson has with a trans woman, as the prosecution’s likely motive angle. It’s interesting that the questioner asked if Kirk knew how many transgender perpetrators had committed mass shootings in the last ten years, and Kirk responded “Too many,” which is equivalent to either “I have no idea,” or “The number is so low that I’m gonna obfuscate.” The questioner then informed him that the number is 5 (I have no idea as to the accuracy of that), and then asked if he knew how many mass shooting all together had occurred over the last decade, to which Kirk’s response was the racist “gang shootings” obfuscation, just before he was shot.
Two things: The actual number of mass shootings in the last 10 years was 187, so trans-perpetrator shootings (if 5 is correct) account for 2.7% of the total.
https://rockinst.org/gun-violence/mass-shooting-factsheet/
The trans population in the US is roughly 1% of the total population, but it skews heavily toward the under-30 range, 2.7% of that cohort being trans.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/20/trans-people-us-data
The under-30 age group is also the most heavily represented in mass shootings data (roughly 45% of mass shooters under since 1966 according to the Rockefeller site above, and likely skewing higher in the last decade), so I’m guessing the point the questioner was making is that demonizing trans people as the cause of America’s gun-slaughter epidemic is a bogus, dishonest trope — which it obviously is. Over 90% of mass shooters are white, so that also might have been part of the argument the questioner was going to make.
Still, if the story of Robinson’s relationship with a trans woman is true, that will certainly make his motive easier for the prosecution to highlight.
Do we have any idea who his lawyer will be? I can’t find a mention of it yet, and he’s appearing for arraignment today, right?
Correction: over *95%* of mass shooters are *male* (not White).
My bad, but the point still stands.
It looks like Marcy will Live-Post the Hearing:
https://bsky.app/profile/emptywheel.bsky.social/post/3lyxexa36a22w
September 16, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Here’s the direct link to C-Span:
FBI Director Kash Patel Testifies at Oversight Hearing FBI Director Kash Patel testifies at oversight hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee.
September 16, 2025
https://www.c-span.org/event/senate-committee/fbi-director-kash-patel-testifies-at-oversight-hearing/436283
Thanks, harpie, very helpful.
Channel 5 News has a good interview with the gentleman who asked that question, applying his knowledge of statistics learned at UVU. He used the data to inform his debate points.
https://youtu.be/18FNK6ZNGuo
Thanks, that guy (“Hunter”) is pretty brilliant and level-headed, and the whole segment is worth watching. The dude is a former Mormon, as well. If Kirk hadn’t been shot, I’m guessing his debate with Kirk might have demolished Kirk’s trans-fantasy slurs, although I’m not sure where his stats came from. He’s a math guy, and seemed to be very well informed and empathetic.
It’s MAGA pro life math, don’tcha know.
5 shootings by transgender perps = “too many”, “Safety over liberty!”
1.2 million covid deaths = “high survival rate”, “personal choice”, “Liberty over safety!”
Also, a few deaths a year is an acceptable price for “liberty over safety”, per Kirk. The balance struck between liberty and safety is generally in flux due to multiple factors and viewpoints. The law should generally reflect the current social contract but pretty consistently proscribes violence and frequently proscribes discriminatory behavior, especially at the government level. Or it used to.
Huh. What a coincidence:
Just when people want to know more about right-wing political violence, this study ‘accidentally’ slides off government servers into the aether. Pam Bondi doesn’t seem to have a good grip on DOJ data.
The 404 Media story is paywalled, so I don’t know if it has a link to the Wayback Machine version of the disappeared report, but the Guardian article on it this morning provided the link:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250911012550/https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/what-nij-research-tells-us-about-domestic-terrorism
Thanks, Scott. I see in my Mastodon feed others have been archiving the report beyond Internet Archive. Thank goodness.
I think Bondi has a very good grip on information which is why we only see what she shows. If she releases some information it will be “safe” for dissemination. In other words, don’t expect to see the DOJ release anything detrimental to Donnie.
How sickening.
I knew nearly nothing about this guy Kirk until last week. A podcaster and not much else. Now, flags lowered and military escort for his remains. The right wing noise machine talks about him like he was another Bobby Sands. (Even Gov. Maura Healey (D. MA) ordered flags in MA to be lowered- why?)
Unless there is a massive turnout in 2026 to return the House and Senate to the Democrats were are as fucked as fucked could be.
Gov. Whitmer ordered flags to be lowered in Michigan — but the order was related to 9/11. Is that why Healey lowered the flags? Was this misinterpreted?
https://www.boston.com/news/politics/2025/09/12/flags-massachusetts-buildings-half-staff-charlie-kirk/
Ugh. Okay, Healey needs to hear from constituents that glorifying a rightwing hatemonger is the last reason for lowering a public flag.
Does Kirk’s wife qualify for the $5 million? Oh wait, never mind; MAGAs don’t care about money, just the principle.
https://apnews.com/article/ashli-babbitt-trump-settlement-6de2a507ddac903c68c5d3a25f35f24c
More re Healey:
I don’t endorse or support violence. But I’ve since learned Kirk had a record of homophobic statements and positions. Healey is the Commonwealth’s first openly gay governor. She doesn’t need to dance on his grave, but simply make a respectful statement of condolence and move on. Instead, she looks like a fool.
(IMO, this is why Dems are bad at politics. They need to find their inner Red Auerbach when dealing with the other side. Anyone who remembers Red would get the point.)
It’s MA state law:
https://malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleI/Chapter2/Section6A
to La Missy:
The Gov still could have contested the order from Trump because it clearly violates the relevant federal law (subsection m):
https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title4-section7&num=0&edition=prelim
went shopping at my local WA State grocery store yesterday, and when i returned to my car noticed that their flag was at half-staff. i lost it. and also sent a message to our local great paper, asking “wtf?”. will need to check to see if i got any response…
Sanctification: this guy is a saint to Donald.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/16/jd-vance-doxing-charlie-kirk-critics
Terry Moran, former ABC journalist posted on X, 12:06 a.m. on June 8, 2025 about Stephen Miller.
“The thing about Stephen Miller is not that he is the brains behind Trumpism. Yes, he is one of the people who conceptualizes the impulses of the Trumpist movement and translates them into policy. But that’s not what’s interesting about Miller. It’s not brains. It’s bile. Miller is a man who is richly endowed with the capacity for hatred. He’s a world-class hater. You can see this just by looking at him because you can see that his hatreds are his spiritual nourishment. He eats his hate. Trump is a world-class hater. But his hatred is only a means to an end, and that end is his own glorification. That’s his spiritual nourishment.”
Speaking of Terry Moran, did Trump ever find Garcia’s MS13 tattoo?
I wonder about the psychology and motivation of the men and women ripping apart the foundations of our democracy. I assume that for many of the Beltway Elite, it is the lust for power and wealth. Some must be true believers in the benefits for the country of returning to the Golden Age of the 1950’s or the Gilded Age at the Turn of the Century. For some, it is just a job and they’ll do what the job requires.
But for some, like Stephen Miller, hatred of Democrats seems to be the motivator. Stephen Miller seems to take sadistic glee in sticking the knife in as far as it goes and twisting it. In his screed yesterday, he talked about having a country with perfect families. Like Trump’s children coming from three or four different mothers?
Don’t bring logic and reason to a political fight.
Terry Moran’s attempt to carve out a niche distracts from the many things Stephen Miller is. It’s far more than “bile.” For starters, he is the day-to-day operator in the White House. He is most of Trump’s brains and is behind what turns into policy. He orchestrates the EOs and grand gestures, and keeps them to a narrow through line.
Moran also doesn’t seem to understand Trump’s malignant narcissism or the feedback loop it can create between his handlers like Miller and his unending, unquenchable need for narcissistic supply. Miller just has to stroke Trump’s ego while appealing to his ugliest impulses, provide opportunities for more reinforcement, and presto–Miller the monster has a Trumpy hand puppet.
I suspect Miller of being the “voice” behind the majority of Trump’s Executive Orders.
some people are just born hating. Miller maybe one of those. Just looking at Miller’s face, it looks hateful. Nothing pleasant about the man. Have never seen him laugh, be pleasant, say any anything nice. I don’t care if he is hateful. You can’t change it. Its best to simply avoid and ignore him.
That’s not a new quote. Moran posted it some time ago. Someone (perhaps Moran himself) must have resurfaced it.
Yes exactly, its not a new quote, in fact I think it’s actually the quote that got him fired from ABC News in the first place:
“ABC News cuts ties with Terry Moran over Stephen Miller social media post”
https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2025/06/10/abc-news-fired-abc-news-stephen-miller/84138778007/
Governor Cox is blaming the “dark Internet” and “the meme-ification that is happening in our society today,” like that hasn’t been a weapon for Trump to get to power.
An executive from Discord stated: “communications between the suspect’s roommate and a friend after the shooting where the roommate was recounting the contents of a note the suspect had left elsewhere.”
https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/15/politics/investigation-charlie-kirk-killing-wwk
Patel described the note:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/15/dna-evidence-charlie-kirk-shooter
There’s a lot of bravado from Kash and he seems an unreliable filter to relay the actual evidence.
Cox described the roommate as very cooperative. Combined with the Discord chats, what else is Patel referring to by “forensic evidence” and “aggressive interview posture”? Patel didn’t provide specific evidence.
Maybe a deleted post that had not yet been over-written entirely?
I can’t tell if Cox and Patel are describing the exact same thing, with different tone and posturing to make the FBI look more strongly. Or if Patel is bringing additional details into his version.
“Aggressive interview posture” indicates interrogation techniques, and given this admin’s record I’m picturing something draconian and possibly illegal (though that word itself has lost all meaning these days).
It doesn’t’ matter what these people have to say. Most of it is simply an attempt to gain more views and keep themselves in the news and to get their own slant out into the media. It would be funny if these camera hoggs held a news conferance and no one showed up. They’d have to spin a new story to gain attention. When they hold these inquiries it would be a good idea to turn off the mike of the person who is being questioned until its their turn to speak and once they start to speak the questioners mike is turned off. This talking over each other is so rude. I see the teenagers next door do it a fair amount while talking about their motorcycles and they make more sense than the idiots in office being paid a fair chunk of change.
Of course, the “vast domestic terror movement” that Miller describes actually exists – it’s simply on the other end of the political spectrum, and his friend Charlie’s group Turning Point USA is a key node in that network. Every accusation is a confession.
I’m thinking of how much Hillary Clinton was mocked for her repetition of consultant Chris Lehane’s phrase, “vast right-wing conspiracy” though it’s absolutely correct a network of interleaved communications exists to unify, reinforce, and amplify the right-wing’s messaging.
It’s the same kind of mockery the right-wing deserves for thinking an incredibly big tent with highly diverse constituents like the Democratic Party could ever organize a “vast domestic terror movement.”
Shit.
How did I not know that was his.
I went to school w/Lehane. He was a rabid basketball fan.
And he couldn’t come up with a basketball metaphor?!
I mutter to myself daily, “It just doesn’t work like that.”
Look at how the New York Democrats are acting about Zohran Mamdani.
As if they could organize a terrorist movement with big institutional centrist Dems on one side and the grass roots on the other. lt’s like herding cats or wrangling squirrels.
These go beyond confessions to justifications–specifically, for the kind of collective punishment authoritarians dream of visiting on opponents.
Autumn looms, and with it more protests, anti-MAGA folks taking to the streets with their signs. Trump and Miller’s invective is surely designed to put the fear of God in those potential protestors, lest they thwart another blue city takeover as they did in Chicago, apparently.
The goal is a submissive, servile populace, paralyzed by fear, silenced so as not to challenge the barrage of lies pouring out of the firehouse in the White House. Making vaccines less (or un-) available only adds to the menace they want us to perceive around collective action…which is why Rayne reminds us to wear our masks.
Autumn protests. Yes.
October 18th is the next large No Kings Day.
These go beyond confessions to justifications–specifically, for the kind of collective punishment authoritarians dream of visiting on opponents.
Autumn looms, and with it more protests, anti-MAGA folks taking to the streets with their signs. Trump and Miller’s invective is surely designed to put the fear of God in those potential protestors, lest they thwart another blue city takeover as they did in Chicago, apparently.
The goal is a submissive, servile populace, paralyzed by fear, silenced so as not to challenge the firehose of lies pouring out of the White House. Making vaccines less (or un-) available only adds to the menace they want us to perceive around collective action…which is why Rayne reminds us to wear our masks.
And that network is transnational; the Guardian makes some of those links explicit here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2025/sep/16/far-right-march-london-transatlantic
Exactly: and what right has elmo to stick his nose into another sovereign nation’s politics and tell us that we’re on the verge of a civil war? He should take a look closer to home. We don’t have a mass shooting every day or handcuff and lock up foreign factory workers after inviting their governments to invest in our countries. (South Korea – take your money home, keep it for somebody who isn’t a fucking megalomaniacal lunatic.)
Personal rule: don’t take advice about how to run your multiethnic democracy from a white South African.
The screw up with the Korean workers was epic and stupid or epically stupid. Other countries and corporations need to understand you can not trust what Trump & co have said, even if committed to a legal document. Tossing 400 workers in a concentration camp is just over the top. Those workers were there to train American workers for future jobs and this is the reward. Right, time to forget about the U.S.A. until Trump and his shit show figure out no one cares about what they want. Trump’s carry on is like a toddler throwing a tantrum or a teenager who thinkers they are the cock of the walk. I recall a boy like that in the sibling’s 8th grade. He was warned and still didn’t stop. He stopped after the female sibling took one shot at his jaw and he hit the floor.
From everyone’s favorite, Ken Dilanian, has an Exclusive report at MSNBC, using data from the CATO institute.
“Trump’s deportations divert FBI agents off child predator cases
Officials warn that President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is leaving domestic terrorists, including online extremists who prey on children, unpoliced.”
https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/news/trumps-deportations-divert-fbi-agents-child-predator-cases-rcna231481
I’ve derided Dilanian here in the past, but he seems like he’s getting it now. This week’s coverage has revealed him to be using his research to *contradict* the MAGA party line, which he used to simply parrot.
Our Ken is becoming a journalist!
Ken is a LE mouthpiece. This is a story from LE. So he’s a useful source.
He fails journalism, just like whathisname who used to be at WaPo, when his sources snooker him.
A point of anecdata: flew into IAD last weekend from overseas, and while the Immigration side of the ICE operation was busy (the secondary immigration screening room was full), Customs was… nonexistent(?). Pulled bags of of baggage carousels, and wheeled them to the airline agents that were rechecking bags, and didn’t see anyone doing any Customs inspections.
Just want to share this depressing Adam Klasfeld observation:
https://bsky.app/profile/klasfeldreports.com/post/3lyxf4pg6p52n
September 16, 2025 at 9:05 AM
Links to:
Rising This Week:
The political violence docket From Luigi Mangione to Ryan Routh to Tyler Robinson, U.S. courts are teeming this week with cases involving attempted or completed political assassinations. https://www.allrisenews.com/p/kirk-political-violence-docket
Adam Klasfeld Sep 14, 2025 Paid
The way the Right immediately blamed Trans before anyone was arrested freaks me out. The involvement of a Trans romantic partner gives them an excuse. Reckon they’re coming after us now.
I hope Mangione’s lawyers can point out all the times the police did stuff out of sight (and blocked/turned off body cams), and claimed what they found as “evidence”.
Heard the author and read the articles just yesterday – sorry if someone else has posted it, but Smerconish highlighted today on his show. Facts indicate that right-wing violent acts are far more frequent – as much as 5x more. This was done by the Cato Institute. Also, I saw some spikes in the recent data that it started getting crazier right about the time Trump showed up to run for President in 2015.
https://www.cato.org/blog/politically-motivated-violence-rare-united-states
If people knew more of the facts, the temperature might not be so high right now in the country.
Thanks for linking that article. Another interesting takeaway, which Cato doesn’t say explicitly but which can be inferred from omission, is that there are no left-wing equivalents to the OK City bombing or the Pulse attack. And even if one removes those two events from the 50-year data, right-wing political murders still number about three times higher than left-wing murders.
Well, Trump is an accelerant.
In both words and actions, he never passes on an opportunity to throw a figurative Molotov cocktail on the brush pile.
You have to wonder what his school records look like.
Probably like someone else took the tests for him.
I have known about the schism in MAGA for some time now due the gaming forums I’m in. The vin diagram in ideology sometimes is a complete circle when it comes to hatred, misogyny and anti-LGBTQ+, but their methods diverge on the execution of their hatred. I had always assumed it was about captializing on the warring power plays for internet clicks (and it is), but for differnet reasons.
The Charlie Kirk’s MAGA Christian Nationalism online echo-chamber uses memes and shock hate speech to deliver rule-based order (under christofacist ideology), while the MAGA Nick Fuentes’ Blackpill Accelerationsm group uses dark humor memes and hate speech to deliver ruin to rule-based order.
It has been scary fascinating to see this play out in real life with CKs killing, although I have been seeing these different MAGA agruments for years on social media and gaming forums.
I cannot find the original video synopsis of this article that the author put out (it has since been deleted), but I did find the original article and it is the perfect explanation on the difference between these two factions. It also helps you understand the nihilistic underpinnings of almost all the “accelerant” shooters.
https://open.substack.com/pub/cybelecanterel/p/lost-in-the-kingdom-of-kitsch
Make no mistake, CKs killing was MAGA on MAGA hatred, which is why the administration took a stutter-step to regroup and focus the hatred back on Dems. They were very surprised that their dinner guest, Violence, began to eat their own.
Thanks Discontinued Barbie. Here’s another link to Cy Canterel that I posted the other day. She does a really good job of describing the ideology of the two factions: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcw02sEslog
Thank you. I was looking for that! I can get people to digest that better than the article.
“Blackpill Accelerationism group uses dark humor memes and hate speech to deliver ruin to rule-based order.”
If the suspect was associated with Blackpill Accelerationism, that may help explain the meme like engravings found on the ammunition. A wink and a nod to others in the group that he’s one of them.
Interesting. I don’t think anyone has yet identified similar groups on the left because they’re more nebulous in identity — but we definitely have nihilists and anarchic types who embrace negation. Some of them are witting and unwitting parts of influence operations intent on sowing demoralization, and some of them are just reflexive, likely out of learned helplessness.
Thanks for sharing.
“They were very surprised that their dinner guest, Violence, began to eat their own.”
That. Yet another example of their cultivated leopard gnawing on their faces, only this time they know they can’t let on at all that they are being chewed on by their beloved pet.
All the anti-trans, anti-Democratic Party, anti-antifa chatter is MAGA’s desperate attempt to redirect their toothy pet’s attention: go chew on the left, kitty, please stop chewing on us!
Yes Rayne!! DARVO at its finest.
What I also find scary fascinating is that Social Media’s algorithms are designed so that all the haters, puruse the same hateful forums, and consume the same hateful rhetoric.
It’s like Kevin Bacon’s TV show The Following. All the psychopaths and mentally unwell, found friends online and decided to put a band together. But it’s worse than the show because Social Media makes country sized, GDP levels of wealth putting all these people together to bring their violence idiology to the national stage.
Hateful attention has the the highest ROI for the savvy grifters/influencers, who model their SM revenue streams and create a financial windfall for themselves using adjacent agruments that still create clicks based on hate and outrage.
I have only traversed into the dark MAGA underbelly a couple of times, only to find that the inside jokes & memes are outside of my understanding and frankly my age bracket. Albeit, I can feel the heat of hatred oozing from the comments. Young MAGA is bathing in this kitsch daily and regular people don’t even understand the nuances of the different kinds of hatred to combat them. Instead, we have had a ridiculous number of public figures, extolling the virtues of Charlie Kirk, without. understanding the prepackaged hatred he and others have been selling.
As a final note on the business model just look at CKs media savvy wife showing as much sincerity as Kyle Rittenhouse’s testimony, during her first statement to the public asking for support. I would laugh if the consequences weren’t so scary and so obviously deadly.
LOL “I’m not a victim, you are! I CAN’T be a victim, you MUST be!”
I guess this is when DARVO backfires on them.
Thanks, Discontinued Barbie and Mike from Delaware. Very helpful. Recently I have been thinking a lot about kitsch and Marshall McLuhan. And now I realize why.
Also, thanks to Cy Canterel. Brilliant. Makes so much more sense now.
Cy’s article made a lot of things click for me too.
So glad I read this. Thank you, Discontinued Barbie!
I see the loop operating a little differently–like Canterel, but more hellish. Yes, kitsch supplies a potent emotional narcotic, and the repetition of chants (especially at rallies) serves to bond MAGAts strongly to each other and (more importantly) *against* all outsiders.
But without regular injections of terror, all but the most devoted Trump fans would stray from the herd. Tribalism this intense relies not just on kitschy carrots, but also on an insistent drumbeat of threat: “they” will take “your” country, your daughter, your life. Because “they” exist like Satan, beyond all boundaries. Don’t you dare talk to “them”!
Thanks for this link. It helps explain to me how I came to grieve for my mother, whom I adored. I never cried for/over her I just retreated to kitschy reminders of the years she spent growing up. It really opened my eyes to how my mind works. I love this place & the contributors. I learn so much.
Why is the Utah County, Utah, going through so much incriminating-only evidence on Robinson in front of the camera? Seems like prosecution on the airwaves instead of in court.
I think there’s a high likelihood this prosecution will devolve into a shitshow.
I worry too about the roommate. W/o them as a witness, this case would be a lot flimsier.
In Miller’s world, any killing is a joyous occasion as the vast right wing conspiracy can use it to blame the left and the indoctrinated will believe and repeat it.
As you can see, the article below is almost 3 years old. Also, whatever remedies may have been considered at that time may no longer be supported. Still, the article has some interesting data:
“The difference between Republicans and MAGA Republicans is violence” –
by Garen Wintemute, Nov. 13, 2022
https://cvp.ucdavis.edu/insights/difference-between-republicans-and-maga-republicans-violence
OMG, That study is: Fascinating. Depressing. Prescient. Uncanny…Absolutely must-read for anyone here. (Was going to add “…who’s interested in the subject of political violence” but realized it applies to everything we talk about on EW.)
Thank you, SL, for posting this link. If anything, the study’s age (2022) gives it even more immediacy, since those are the exact seeds we are reaping now in the form of the nightmare whirlwind.
IIRC, Gov. Cox said that the shooter was radicalized on the web and that he went to the dark web.
I think Gov. Cox should let us know the specific web sites. So far, the only reference has been to Discord and games.
I think Cox and his family may be blurring two different aspects – his complicated sexual orientation and his violence. I doubt that his sexual orientation was a result of the internet. But his resort to violence might be.
You need a more complete understand of ‘grophy’ culture and Nick Fuentes and incels. Google Nick Fuentes and fem boys.
Off topic, but Politico reports that the House is going to vote on a resolution honoring Charlie Kirk.
They find time for this, but Speaker Johnson still refuses to have the plaque honoring law enforcement personnel for saving their lives from extremist domestic terrorists on Jan 6 installed on the Capitol.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/jan-6-cops-plaque-lawsuit-b2769180.html
Stephen Miller is a sick, deviant man, and even his family and acquaintances from high school think so. He apparently has some gross inadequacy anxieties that manifest in the form of grotesque displays of phony macho puffery where he is gonna beat up the whole world to prove how tough he is. I hope someone is recording every word and every action this inadequate little man is saying and doing, for future criminal trials. Lawlessness does not last forever, Mr. Miller.
Also record his words and actions for history to see and read. Like the Gunpowder Plot it should not be forgot.
OT, but critical: The Chairman of the FCC has threatened to pull the broadcast license of ABC over comments made by Jimmy Kimmel, and accordingly, ABC has ‘Indefinitely’ pulled the ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ show off the air.
https://www.https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!f_0G!
Disney/ABC must be pushed to sue the FCC, or we have just taken a giant step down the fascist road.