this post was submitted on 10 Sep 2025
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But this guy wasn't even a tyrant. He was just a fucking pawn. And there's going to be somebody else ready to step in and take his place.
This doesn't solve anything. It just gives the right a much needed distraction and the illusion of having an excuse to crackdown hard on the left. They would have done it either way, but this basically buys them cover.
They never needed an excuse, really. They'd just make shit up.
Right? They've been treating the left so fairly this whole time and now we went and made them mad
*Edit - I misread OP's comment, and jumped on the wrong part.
Literally the opposite of what I said but sure. Would love to hear what the fuck you believe this accomplishes to stop fascism or even right wing propaganda? If the administration actually dials it back after this, I guess I'll buy you a fucking drink and we'll have a good laugh about how right you were the whole time.
Every time something like this happens, I honestly wonder how many people are actually this clueless and how many are just astroturfing/trolls working on behalf of the right and this administration to spread disinformation and outrage propaganda. I would like to believe it's a ratio of about 15:85, but I'm also an optimist.
Well it happens enough times an either civil war breaks out or maybe it strikes some fear into the tyrants hearts
What if the tyrants depend on manipulation and a narrative of victimhood for control, and you kinda suspect the tyrants aren't above sacrificing their own to control that victimhood narrative?
Then they're going to do it anyways. If anything isn't that a reason for more people to do it? There isn't an infinite amount of political people
Well, we wont have Charlie Kirk visiting schools, and recruiting more people to the Reich Wing anymore. So, that's a good accomplishment.
I just re-read your comment and didn't see the words "illusion of," so I actually did misunderstand you and apologize.
I'll edit my comment to acknowledge that, but I'm still going to celebrate the dead fascist because it's the news we need right now
Learn your fucking history. We hanged people at Nuremberg for doing exactly what Kirk did. Kirk was guilty of crimes against humanity. He's guilty of incitement to genocide.
https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_Streicher
So was this guy put on trial or was he just executed (allegedly by a civilian sharp shooter) during a time when the president keeps making false claims about needing to militarize American cities due to a lack of law and order?
Funny you bring up this guy going to Nuremberg bc I was actually just thinking the other day how different history might have turned out of we'd actually put the major players like Hitler or Mussolini on trial in front of the rest of the world.
Obviously this was a case of vigilante justice. But the man made his whole living trying to incite genocide against innocent people. The US government just blew up a boat full of Venezuelans, murdering them without trial, on the accusation of them being drug smugglers. Our closest ally, Israel, routinely executes people without trial for doing far less than what Kirk did.
The 2nd Amendment is always cited as being to protect against tyranny. That obviously entails extrajudicial violence. If there is ever a valid use for extrajudicial violence, it's in the prevention of genocide. The president will do all the evil he was going to do anyway. But he's a fascist, of course he's going to do that.
I'm sorry, but I'm not going to shed a tear for this guy. His last words were an attempt to incite violence against a minority group. If there is a Hell, he's burning there right now.
Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. He got exactly what was coming to him.
I never said I was shedding any tears for this guy.
I will shed tears if innocent people are going to be hurt as an excuse for retribution or restoring law and order. And I do think it's extremely fucked up his kids were apparently there to witness this.
This dude fucking sucked, but (allegedly) vigilante assassinations are a really dumb thing to cheer as somehow benefiting anyone.
The entire basis of the new right movement is a sense of shared victimhood. Now they have a martyr.
If this had been a random angry guy firing a gun from the crowd, I wouldn't really think twice about it. But honestly, I think a civilian sharpshooter from a building getting Charlie Kirk in the neck with a single shot from 200 yards away is suspicious as fuck.
Hopefully this is what you seem to believe it is, but honestly, this seems most likely to benefit Trump more than anyone else.
Show me any of these fascists being tried and convicted in a fair and just court, and I'll believe you.
"Don't fight back against Nazis or they'll get angry and start a crackdown? "
You're right, comrade. Man of the people. Just like that mystery sharp shooter in a workers uniform that quickly surrendered without incident.
The US has been at that point for months already. Fascists will find OR manufacture any excuse they want to do their fascist things. They don't need pretexts.
"You don't have to pretend to support democracy to control the free world. But it helps!" -the coffee mug on the desk of some dude I've probably talked to on Lemmy or Reddit at some point.
Seriously a sniper from 200 yards? He fires a single shot, then calmly gets arrested. That seems not at all suspicious?
Lost me at
Right, so…someone bought them cover from all that accountability that is going around from the…democrats, or the Supreme Court, or the military, or?
Or other countries that might be watching his descent into authoritarianism and asking questions about doing business with a man on a human rights watch list if he is continuing to crack down for no reason.
Or the part of his base that might have otherwise been taking notice of the Epstein birthday book released yesterday, and the note about purchasing at woman from Epstein with a giant check under a picture of him standing with Epstein and the check.
Or the part of their base composed of farmers starting to ask questions about wtf they're supposed to do with all of these crops China isn't buying
Or maybe even the members of the national guard who are reportedly having second thoughts about being used as pawns by this administration
But why tf think this guy might ever try taking advantage of optics during an event like this to help stabilize his shaky support?
I don't know why everyone thinks people are talked out of being fascists eventually. That's a completely ahistorical viewpoint.
Even in the "they thought they were free" interviews after Hitler some of the subjects were still kinda fucking pro-Hitler.
They will find a way to continue to love dear leader even if their entire lives and country are ruined.
I'd love to be wrong about this, but I just don't see that I am.
Yes, there is no middle ground between talking to and using a sniper rifle from 200 yards away.
There is no middle ground with fascists. They only solution, as demonstrated historically, is putting their dicks in the dirt.
Not what I said at all.
There are violent means to end fascism and authoritarianism and nonviolent means, but in all cases it has more to do with building massive support from people who aren't in the cult, not converting the cultists themselves into non-believers using rational argument.
What does this actually change for fascists? How does taking out Charlie Kirk change the course of the future in favor of the left?
When people on the left were run over by a psychotic asshole on the right in Charlottesville, did the left shrink back or did they rally behind the people that were attacked?
Taking him out means he is no longer recruiting new fascists in universities and colleges around the country. It is also one less fascist alive. Both are positives.
There's one less of them.
There are a number of ways that this is an inept comparison, but ultimately it doesn't matter. It's not relevant to what we were talking about.
You aren't converting cultists back to normal using rational debate and discourse. 1) that's just largely not how the human brain works, and 2) if rational discourse and debate decultified people the cult would be empty by now instead of swelling up with new members.
We live in a time of abundance of discourse and debate bro antics (this dude used to be a ringleader at those circuses) and it is more fascist and culty than ever.
Compare any in group's support for war and bloodlust pre and post an attack on a member of their perceived in group by a member of the perceived out-group.
Or don't. I'm sure this will fix everything and we can only go up from here.
I'm just not going to be particularly upset about this, and I also don't share your view that if it hadn't happened we were right on the brink of defeating fascism and this sent "the cause" some large distance backwards.
People are being kidnapped and disappeared daily. There are troops in DC and LA and they're planning to send them to other cities. Trump is using our military to commit war crimes without so much as even a wink and a nod from congress. The only thing we're "on the brink" of is a government sponsored domestic genocide.