An American Turning Point, Part 1
The one big question that matters now... where exactly is the faultline in American conscience? How many to the left of the crack in our national soul and how many to the right?
It was never going to be the case that the assassination of a major conservative political figure would meet with universal condemnation and regret. We passed the point where good manners mattered a half a decade or so ago. That ceased being possible when a Democrat President withheld Secret Service protection from the one candidate historically most at risk for assassination, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., during the 2024 nomination race; winning was more important than the life of a rival. Before that, lefty zealots had repeatedly portrayed the assassinations, theatrically at least, of both Bush 43 and Donald Trump. Cartoons, props, and lowdown rhetoric also gave us images of bloody bodies and decapitations of these men.
It can’t possibly have been the case that anyone was surprised by the fact of joyous celebrations of the murder of Charlie Kirk (presaged months ago by unapologetic public acclaim for the back shooting murder of a healthcare executive). It was to be expected by now that Dem politicians would accept no responsibility for the violent rhetoric they’d uttered in the past or that they would blame Kirk’s death on his 2nd Amendment support, and, yes celebrate his passing openly — despite his youth, young family, and a well established history of civility in his public political exchanges.
The ugliness we’ve seen the last three days was all inevitable the moment Charlie Kirk died. We have reached a fork in the road people may not have yet recognized. The shocking callousness of the true Trump/MAGA haters in all walks of life is now sensationally out in the open, no longer deniable as some tactless splinter by the party in which such people reside. Here’s what they may not have thought about in their high-fives at work…
People who voted for Hillary, Biden, and Kamala do not ALL subscribe to the legitimacy of murder as an acceptable instrument of a political party or movement. They may in fact be repelled, disgusted, even ashamed of being a political bedfellow with those who rejoice at high-powered bullets fired from rooftops at people who disagree with them. They may rethink how much of the agenda they’ve been spoonfed about the opposition over the years came from reliable sources and how much from no holds-barred hate.
So we are back where we began. Where precisely is that Faultline between the liberal/progressive voter and the homicidal maniacs who hope and proudly cheer for the painful deaths of their targeted foes?
We may soon come to see that the most rabid of TDS sufferers have exposed themselves as a dangerous minority too large to ignore and too unpredictable to elect to office, even if they’re running for dog catcher.
Ask around. If anyone you know is cheering the Kirk assassination, make your own views known and shared as widely as possible. I think this minority is nowhere near sizable enough to win a national election in the United States of America. But that’s me. Everyone knows I’m crazy.
Nolte: Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Flipped a Remarkable Switch in the MAGA Movement
What the left’s public execution of Charlie Kirk has done to mobilize the MAGA movement is something I never expected to see.
For more than 20 years, I’ve been a part of the conservative movement. Never a mover or shaker, but a cog happy to be overpaid to do my part. And an observer. Always an observer.
Last week, after the terrible news arrived that Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk had been assassinated, I observed something remarkable. It was so remarkable, it’s difficult to find the words, but I’ll try…
It was as if some years ago someone downloaded a computer program directly into the fractured and fragile right-of-center movement, a movement that has always been balkanized and squabbling over territory. This computer program sat there a long time waiting for a specific thing to happen, and when it did happen, a switch within each of us was flipped, and a miracle occurred.
We didn’t require a leader. There were no talking points issued. It just… happened.
All at once…
We understood what had changed forever and why.
We mobilized.
We prepared for action.
We instinctively knew what that action would be.
We knew we had the power to take that action.
We took that action and are doing so effectively.
We share an unprecedented resolve.
We’re in it for the long term, forever if needed.
And here’s the healthiest part of what’s happening: No one is standing around helplessly complaining about how the regime media aren’t fair. No one’s crybabying about media bias. No one’s wringing their hands that the media aren’t doing to the left what they always do to us. Instead, based entirely on group instinct, we instantly understood that it was up to us to hold accountable those who celebrate Charlie Kirk’s murder and those on the organized left (Democrats, media, academia, etc.) who put a fatwa on Charlie Kirk and the rest of us with their 24/7 “Nazi” and “fascist” and “white supremacist” talk.
This has never happened on our side before. The corporate media have lived in our heads forever, but the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk finally evicted those demons.
Today, we have arrived at a place that seemed impossible 20 years ago… The media no longer hold power over us. The media no longer matter. At long last, and after decades of hard work, with the flip of that switch, we realized that we have the power now, and what a joy it is to watch us effectively use that power to hold evil accountable, welcome converts, and mobilize against the wicked forces that seek our spiritual and physical destruction.
CNN, MSNBC, the New York Times, the Washington Post, CBS, ABC, NBC, NPR, PBS, are now white noise to us, no different from those lying about Israel murdering Charlie Kirk. Whatever, whatever, we say. We have work to do.
Better still, instead of empowering the media with our complaints, instead of giving the media control of our emotions as we rage against their countless sins, we’ve transformed those sins into something useful: fuel to make our arguments, bring in converts, and hold evil accountable.
All at once, we’ve become impervious to the media’s usual tricks with the dual revelation that 1) the media are irredeemable and not worth our time, and 2) through alternative and social media, we hold the power in our country.
Democrats and the media are calling for unity. In the past, we’ve fallen for that trap. But this time the switch flipped, and our collective voice said: Go away. You didn’t ask for unity during the George Floyd riots. You never ask for unity when it’s your side. You demand only fealty.
Democrats and the media are calling for us to tone it down. Another trap we’ve fallen into. Not this time. This time our collective voice said: Go away. You never demand that your side tone down the rhetoric. It’s only ever us, and when we do, when the best of us seeks to have a civil dialogue with you, you publicly execute him to terrorize the rest of us.
Democrats and the media are desperate to emotionally blackmail us as we seek accountability for those who celebrate murder. Ah, yes, the old “muh principles” trap. Collectively, we say: Go away. We saw what you did to a nobody rodeo clown who wore an Obama mask. You destroyed his career and made every Republican lawmaker answer for him. Today, there are literally thousands and thousands of credentialed Democrats (teachers, lawyers, academics, health care professionals, etc.) inciting murder against us by celebrating Charlie Kirk’s murder, and you’ve done nothing other than defend them.
Our collective responses are glorious, and the most important part is the “go away” part.
We’re done with the media. We don’t need them. We know they want us dead.
“They call us Nazis — what do you think they want to happen to us?” asks Kurt Schlichter.
We’re not them, and the terrible loss of a prince burned into us a moral clarity…
They loot and burn. We hold candlelight vigils.
They cheer violence and murder. We do not.
They champion and fund domestic terror groups like Antifa and Black Lives Matter. We do not.
They cancel and blacklist people over opinions. We seek long-overdue accountability for celebrating violence.
We hold the power now.
And we’re wielding it — peacefully, lawfully, relentlessly, and mercilessly.
Everything’s changed forever. Where this ultimately leads or how successful it will be, I can’t say. But at long last, we understand the mission, understand the enemy, have joined arms, and are on the march.
Reactions on social media to the murder of far-right activist Charlie Kirk have cost multiple people their jobs as authorities in numerous states clamp down on critical commentary.
Among those to have been fired, suspended or censured in recent days for their opinions include teachers, firefighters, journalists, politicians, a Secret Service employee, a junior strategist at Nasdaq and a worker for a prominent NFL team.
The dismissals come as the administration of Donald Trump promises to take action against foreign nationals it deems to be “praising, rationalizing or making light of” Kirk’s killing, himself a fervent free speech advocate.
Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, meanwhile, has ordered staff “to find and identify military members, and any individual associated with the Pentagon, who have mocked or appeared to condone Charlie Kirk’s murder”, NBC News reported Friday.
President-elect of Oxford Union to face disciplinary proceedings for Charlie Kirk remarks
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The outlet, citing two defense department officials, said several members of the military were relieved of their duties because of social media posts – and that “dozens” more, including civilian Pentagon employees, had been “called out on X”.
Along with government efforts to clamp down, a number of conservative figures and groups are attempting to collate and expose examples of commentary seen as objectionable.
Others have been subjected to torrents of online abuse or seen their offices flooded with calls demanding they be fired, part of a surge in rightwing rage that has followed the killing.
Some Republicans want to go further still and have proposed deporting Kirk’s critics from the United States, suing them into penury or banning them from social media for life.
Laura Loomer, a Trump loyalist, posted to X: “Prepare to have your whole future professional aspirations ruined if you are sick enough to celebrate his death. I’m going to make you wish you never opened your mouth.”
Republican congressman Clay Higgins said in a post on X that anyone who “ran their mouth with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous murder of that beautiful young man” needed to be “banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER”. The US deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, said on the same site that he had been disgusted to “see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action”.
Republicans’ anger at those disrespecting Kirk’s legacy contrasts with the mockery some of the same figures – including Kirk – directed at past victims of political violence, Reuters reported.
For example, when former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was clubbed over the head by a hammer-wielding conspiracy theorist during a break-in at their San Francisco home shortly before the 2022 midterm elections, Higgins posted a photo making fun of the attack. He later deleted the post.
Loomer falsely [?, never proven] suggested that Paul Pelosi and his assailant were lovers, calling the brutal assault on the octogenarian a “booty call gone wrong”. Speaking to a television audience a few days after the attack, a grinning Kirk called for the intruder to be sprung from jail.
“If some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out,” he said.
Loomer and Higgins did not return messages to Reuters seeking comment.
Scott Presler, a far-right activist with 2.3 million followers on X, asked for tips about teachers “celebrating Kirk’s death” – and he has shared posts and social media profiles of alleged wrongdoers, including details of their workplaces, Time reported.
In Florida, the state’s board of education issued a proactive memorandum specifically warning school employees not to post any personal viewpoints that “may undermine the trust of the students and families that they serve”.
Two educators in Clay county were removed from their classrooms and placed under state investigation on Thursday, one an elementary school teacher who posted to her personal social media account an article about the shooting, and the words: “This may not be the obituary we were all hoping to wake up to, but it is a close second for me.”
The other, a high school counselor, alluded in a post to Kirk’s position, expressed in 2023, that it was “worth it” to have “some gun deaths every single year” to protect the “God-given right” of gun ownership.
The counselor wrote, “37 years in public education, ready to take a bullet for my kids. No I’m not shedding a tear, he chose to sacrifice himself for the rights [to] be protected. Karma’s a bitch.”
The comments were “egregious” and “hateful”, Jennifer Bradley, a Republican state senator, said in a statement.
Arguably the most prominent individual to lose employment was Matthew Dowd, a veteran political analyst fired by MSNBC for suggesting on air that Kirk’s radical rhetoric may have contributed to the violence that killed him.
“Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions,” Dowd said, adding: “You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and then not expect awful actions to take place.”
The network and Dowd issued separate apologies. But in a Substack articlepublished Friday, Dowd said he was the victim of a “rightwing media mob”, and that his words had been misconstrued because he spoke before knowing Kirk was the target or had been fired upon.
Most of those who have been fired or suspended, however, are people in regular jobs whose comments displeased their employers or were otherwise exposed. They include a Secret Service agent who said Kirk “spewed hate and racism on his show” and “you can’t circumvent karma”.
The Carolina Panthers, an American football franchise, fired a communications coordinator who asked on Instagram: “Why are y’all sad? Your man said it was worth it,” another reference to Kirk’s previous comments on the constitution’s second amendment, guaranteeing Americans the right to bear arms.
A reporter covering pro basketball’s Phoenix Suns lost his job for posting comments including: “Truly don’t care if you think it’s insensitive or poor timing to decline to respect an evil man who died.”
Trump declines to call for unity after Charlie Kirk killing in stunning move
A New Orleans firefighter was reportedly thrust under investigation by her employer after posting – then deleting – a social media comment that called the bullet that struck Kirk “a gift from god”.
Delta Air Lines announced it had suspended employees over “social media content related to Kirk’s killing that the company judged to have gone “well beyond healthy, respectful debate”. According to a statement signed by Delta’s chief executive officer Ed Bastian, the suspensions would remain in effect pending an investigation, and the company made it a point to say “violations of our social media policy can carry meaningful consequences, including termination”.
Separately, American Airlines issued a statement on social media saying “employees who promote such violence on social media were immediately removed from service”.
“We will continue to initiate action with team members who display this kind of behavior,” American Airlines’ statement said.
The Hill gave numerous other examples of workers, including nurses, university employees, and others, fired or disciplined for their comments. A teacher in Oregon, it said, lost their job for saying Kirk’s death had “really brightened up my day”.
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