I think we should all stop and wait for the perpetrator to be apprehended. Everyone is assuming that this is someone from the left. It is quite possible that it is a right-winger whose motivation may have been to martyr Charlie Kirk in hopes of triggering a bloodbath or an even stricter crackdown on our civil liberties by the Trump Administration. We know from the two attempts on Trump's life during the campaign that the right is quite capable of shooting or killing their own.
No, it is not Trump, it is Republicans and Republicanism which has rotted your Democracy with a cancer spread from Nixon and compounded by Reagan and the Bushes, and with particular treachery by Gingrich and McConnell and a hundred unprincipled lickspittles like Priebus, further metastasized via vile media platforming the phoney articulate, like Limbaugh and Kirk. Donald TRUMP is the foul excressence of a gangrenous America!
actually we have always had political violence in America and the whole world before and since. It is worse now with Trump and will become a lot worse. When we still had a democracy political violence was somewhat limited by "balance of powers". and some respect for minority rights [not racial minorities of course, just the losers of the last election]. We were still the last best hope on earth. It remains to be seen if a new hope will emerge to save us.
i took me a minute to absorb what you said here and discover that i agree with it. i have spent the morning thinking about all the things both sides are saying about the killing. I find ir easy to to feel that both sides are not thinking at all but just repeating the political memes they have been taught over their lifetimes.
i do hope that American can recover from this period of insanity...much worse since Trump, but not all that unique in either American history or the history of every country in the world.
I think "less capitalism" is a good idea. We tried it since the New Deal and up at least until the time of Reagan, I believe the genius of American democracy [i don't know much about other democracies] is that it forces us --our rulers...to take into consideration the perspectives of the people who disagree with us...which saves us from the inevitable idiocy of only paying attention to our own ideas.
Trumpism is destroying that. It struck me that at the very time Trump was accusing the Left of causing the shooting of Kirk, he was displaying exactly the kind of rhetoric he was accusing the Left of.
I will keep this post in the same folder I used for the articles I collected when DJT was campaigning to become #45.
I read, I listen, and I compare using the ruler I develop to critique my own actions as an individual and the actions I take on as the co-leader of my own family. Experiences teach. That is how humans learn.
I am exhausted from my own attempts to put down in words how I feel about Donald J. Trump. I am at wits end in accounting for how his actions are being interpreted and with what ideological intent. But actions define. All persons. And when actions are taken that are not commensurate with the office that grants authority and responsibility alike, I am not conflicted nor constrained, I am certain.
Seeing this era in American politics unfold - day by day, event by event, I can only hope that all Americans ask themselves how they would respond if each and every one of the actions came to their doorstep, personally. Judgment is not beyond the individual, it is precisely an individual purview. I can’t believe otherwise. And accountability is the collective rendering. We either have a co-equal branch system of governance or we have tyranny.
I support your stated view and second the notion of others here, “Right on”.
However this current arc continues to act counter to our collective allegiance to the ascribed ideals of citizenship, we should at the very least not fail to call it what it acts like.
trump can ALWAYS be counted on to say and do the WRONG thing in any crisis. He's no leader, he's a stochastic terrorist, looking for opportunities to incite violence all the time.
Ezra Klein actually praised Kirk for “doing politics the right way”. Spreading lies, hatred, bigotry and anti-democracy ideas like Christian nationalism, saying a “patriot” should bail the guy that viciously attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband is not doing politics the “right way”. It is deliberate undermining of our democracy and inciting violence.
“No, Charlie Kirk Was Not Practicing Politics the Right Way
His assassination deserves full condemnation; his full impact should not be sidestepped.”
I think we should all stop and wait for the perpetrator to be apprehended. Everyone is assuming that this is someone from the left. It is quite possible that it is a right-winger whose motivation may have been to martyr Charlie Kirk in hopes of triggering a bloodbath or an even stricter crackdown on our civil liberties by the Trump Administration. We know from the two attempts on Trump's life during the campaign that the right is quite capable of shooting or killing their own.
Right on, Paul. Exactly what I was thinking. I foresee at least one retribution killing.
No, it is not Trump, it is Republicans and Republicanism which has rotted your Democracy with a cancer spread from Nixon and compounded by Reagan and the Bushes, and with particular treachery by Gingrich and McConnell and a hundred unprincipled lickspittles like Priebus, further metastasized via vile media platforming the phoney articulate, like Limbaugh and Kirk. Donald TRUMP is the foul excressence of a gangrenous America!
actually we have always had political violence in America and the whole world before and since. It is worse now with Trump and will become a lot worse. When we still had a democracy political violence was somewhat limited by "balance of powers". and some respect for minority rights [not racial minorities of course, just the losers of the last election]. We were still the last best hope on earth. It remains to be seen if a new hope will emerge to save us.
I despair for the America I have loved and lived extensively in and for all the Muricans I admire.
The last best hope passes to a less capitalistic EUROPE now.
pete
i took me a minute to absorb what you said here and discover that i agree with it. i have spent the morning thinking about all the things both sides are saying about the killing. I find ir easy to to feel that both sides are not thinking at all but just repeating the political memes they have been taught over their lifetimes.
i do hope that American can recover from this period of insanity...much worse since Trump, but not all that unique in either American history or the history of every country in the world.
I think "less capitalism" is a good idea. We tried it since the New Deal and up at least until the time of Reagan, I believe the genius of American democracy [i don't know much about other democracies] is that it forces us --our rulers...to take into consideration the perspectives of the people who disagree with us...which saves us from the inevitable idiocy of only paying attention to our own ideas.
Trumpism is destroying that. It struck me that at the very time Trump was accusing the Left of causing the shooting of Kirk, he was displaying exactly the kind of rhetoric he was accusing the Left of.
I will keep this post in the same folder I used for the articles I collected when DJT was campaigning to become #45.
I read, I listen, and I compare using the ruler I develop to critique my own actions as an individual and the actions I take on as the co-leader of my own family. Experiences teach. That is how humans learn.
I am exhausted from my own attempts to put down in words how I feel about Donald J. Trump. I am at wits end in accounting for how his actions are being interpreted and with what ideological intent. But actions define. All persons. And when actions are taken that are not commensurate with the office that grants authority and responsibility alike, I am not conflicted nor constrained, I am certain.
Seeing this era in American politics unfold - day by day, event by event, I can only hope that all Americans ask themselves how they would respond if each and every one of the actions came to their doorstep, personally. Judgment is not beyond the individual, it is precisely an individual purview. I can’t believe otherwise. And accountability is the collective rendering. We either have a co-equal branch system of governance or we have tyranny.
I support your stated view and second the notion of others here, “Right on”.
However this current arc continues to act counter to our collective allegiance to the ascribed ideals of citizenship, we should at the very least not fail to call it what it acts like.
Agreed!! And every Democrat elected to public office should be clearly reminding people of that fact every day!!
trump can ALWAYS be counted on to say and do the WRONG thing in any crisis. He's no leader, he's a stochastic terrorist, looking for opportunities to incite violence all the time.
Ezra Klein actually praised Kirk for “doing politics the right way”. Spreading lies, hatred, bigotry and anti-democracy ideas like Christian nationalism, saying a “patriot” should bail the guy that viciously attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband is not doing politics the “right way”. It is deliberate undermining of our democracy and inciting violence.
“No, Charlie Kirk Was Not Practicing Politics the Right Way
His assassination deserves full condemnation; his full impact should not be sidestepped.”
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/09/charlie-kirk-legacy-ezra-klein-2020-election-trump-turning-point/