By far the best take of the dozens I've read on the Kirk killing and its significance. Soberest, most incisive, and intellectually honest. Now a paid subscriber.
One of the things I find most objectionable about the right’s response to the reaction is characterizing “failure to feel bad” as “celebrating”.
Lots of bad things happen. Most of them you don’t hear about, let alone have a visceral reaction to. I don’t appreciate the demand to go out of my way to grieve an extremely objectionable podcaster who is friends with the evil president. I 100% promise I had nothing to do with the deed, but that’s all you’re getting from me.
Thoughtful as always. Thanks John. This is the type of sober and insightful commentary that so many of those now praising Kirk ridiculously pretend he was all about. Of course we should always support his and others of that ilk to speak freely. But as you say, his actual speech was filled with hate, bigotry, and disinformation. Hoping we can at least get through the next few years without a significant escalation of politicized violence and even greater tyranny is indeed probably the most ambitious we can be at this point.
I agree that this is a wonderful “take” on the situation and its significance. Thank you, John, for your insightfulness and intellectual rigor, as always. I went to high school and college in the 1960s and know all to well to much of what you reference. I have been an independent since I could vote, and in hindsight, I think my views have their roots in what I saw back then of both the Democratic and Republican Parties we are living with now. Keep up the good work. While I don’t always agree with you, I respect the rigor, intelligence and balance with which you approach your craft.
that simple game i can only watch and speculate on, "Who goes Nazi?," just got a great deal more complex, analyzing various components of this new miasma in the journalism bidness, measuring the levels of complicity, the "scurrying for cover," and even the mere praise of Kirk's "market share" of the attention economy (cf, Klein).
I wonder if this will leave a deeper wound on the ambling beast, given the unprecedented collision of political extremism, free speech wars, celebrity, and one of the most shocking, grisly public spectacles of violence in the social media age.
Well yeah, not a near death experience. But feels like a sort of singular event that could fester in new and unforeseen ways. Or maybe I’m just still shocked.
Very incisive remarks. I'm heartened by the voices willing to calmly and accurately describe for the record what Kirk's record and messages really were. It shows that there are people––hopefully a lot of us––who have not succumbed to either the intimidation by the right or the deluded idea that demonstrations of civility will move the hardcore right. They won't.
But I do feel this murder may point to something for which there is very little precedent in US history. This shooter may have had most of his hours and most of his brain and heart immersed in a medium of communication and sociality that hasn't existed before. Reporters can't even figure out how to begin to translate his meme-driven inscriptions because they are not real language. They seem more like an encrypted code for an underground society that doesn't have political goals or ideologies at all, beyond the solidarity created by performing or miming violence for each other. There have been a lot of violent undergrounds in the US, but none quite like this looks to be.
I don't think I quite agree that it's as wrong to blame Kirk for creating the conditions of his murder as it is to blame MLK, if only because we don't really understand what those conditions are yet. There's no indictment, no public record of the killer's social media posts, etc. I appreciate the focus on the macro but I also think the specifics of this crime—whether the killer is a somebody from the fever swamps of 4chan or somebody Kirk knew personally, for example—remain important to the question of whether this killing is continuous with the kind of right-wing violence Kirk actively financed and encouraged.
By far the best take of the dozens I've read on the Kirk killing and its significance. Soberest, most incisive, and intellectually honest. Now a paid subscriber.
One of the things I find most objectionable about the right’s response to the reaction is characterizing “failure to feel bad” as “celebrating”.
Lots of bad things happen. Most of them you don’t hear about, let alone have a visceral reaction to. I don’t appreciate the demand to go out of my way to grieve an extremely objectionable podcaster who is friends with the evil president. I 100% promise I had nothing to do with the deed, but that’s all you’re getting from me.
You are one of the only people I can still bear to read. Thank you.
There is a clarity with your writing here that I really appreciate. Thank you.
"The nation seems to slouch onward into its uncertain future like some huge inarticulate beast,.."
Published two years after Didion's Slouching Towards Bethlehem. That was a slouchy era.
Or Louisiana in the time of David Duke slouching toward Baton Rouge.
Thoughtful as always. Thanks John. This is the type of sober and insightful commentary that so many of those now praising Kirk ridiculously pretend he was all about. Of course we should always support his and others of that ilk to speak freely. But as you say, his actual speech was filled with hate, bigotry, and disinformation. Hoping we can at least get through the next few years without a significant escalation of politicized violence and even greater tyranny is indeed probably the most ambitious we can be at this point.
You've said what needed to be said and said it well.
What a wonderful piece — I've been #GanzPilled, and just upgraded to a paid subscription.
John you always come through
I agree that this is a wonderful “take” on the situation and its significance. Thank you, John, for your insightfulness and intellectual rigor, as always. I went to high school and college in the 1960s and know all to well to much of what you reference. I have been an independent since I could vote, and in hindsight, I think my views have their roots in what I saw back then of both the Democratic and Republican Parties we are living with now. Keep up the good work. While I don’t always agree with you, I respect the rigor, intelligence and balance with which you approach your craft.
that simple game i can only watch and speculate on, "Who goes Nazi?," just got a great deal more complex, analyzing various components of this new miasma in the journalism bidness, measuring the levels of complicity, the "scurrying for cover," and even the mere praise of Kirk's "market share" of the attention economy (cf, Klein).
If only more pundits were like you and Jamelle, and only more Republicans like Spencer Cox, we'd be in a much better place.
Spot-on in a precise and measured way. So much so, I will 100% be quoting some of it in the near future.
I wonder if this will leave a deeper wound on the ambling beast, given the unprecedented collision of political extremism, free speech wars, celebrity, and one of the most shocking, grisly public spectacles of violence in the social media age.
Deeper than the civil war? Doubt it.
Well yeah, not a near death experience. But feels like a sort of singular event that could fester in new and unforeseen ways. Or maybe I’m just still shocked.
Very incisive remarks. I'm heartened by the voices willing to calmly and accurately describe for the record what Kirk's record and messages really were. It shows that there are people––hopefully a lot of us––who have not succumbed to either the intimidation by the right or the deluded idea that demonstrations of civility will move the hardcore right. They won't.
But I do feel this murder may point to something for which there is very little precedent in US history. This shooter may have had most of his hours and most of his brain and heart immersed in a medium of communication and sociality that hasn't existed before. Reporters can't even figure out how to begin to translate his meme-driven inscriptions because they are not real language. They seem more like an encrypted code for an underground society that doesn't have political goals or ideologies at all, beyond the solidarity created by performing or miming violence for each other. There have been a lot of violent undergrounds in the US, but none quite like this looks to be.
I don't think I quite agree that it's as wrong to blame Kirk for creating the conditions of his murder as it is to blame MLK, if only because we don't really understand what those conditions are yet. There's no indictment, no public record of the killer's social media posts, etc. I appreciate the focus on the macro but I also think the specifics of this crime—whether the killer is a somebody from the fever swamps of 4chan or somebody Kirk knew personally, for example—remain important to the question of whether this killing is continuous with the kind of right-wing violence Kirk actively financed and encouraged.