We Told You So

Things will get worse.

Charlie Kirk & Trump Circa 2021— Wiki

I have never owned a crystal ball, but I still find myself saying “I told you so” on a daily basis. Take my article Trump & Musk Aren’t Ready For What They Are Unleashing, where I said, “The stage is set for a violent revolution; this gradual disenfranchisement will pull the trigger.” Or my other article, There Will Be 20 Million Luigi Mangiones, where I said, “This is not a threat, nor a call to arms, but a realistic assessment of American society and the direction in which it is headed. Mangione was just the warm-up, a taste of what is to come. Millions more will be carved into his image over the coming months and years.” And now, Charlie Kirk is dead. I, along with countless others, was right, yet I am still not happy about it.

Kirk was a racist, homophobic, misogynistic, Islamophobic, nationalist, white supremacist, anti-intellectual fascist who consistently spouted damaging misinformation and drove hateful violence. You will forgive me if I do not shed a tear at the passing of someone so toxic.

But this is still an awful moment, as no one should ever be killed for their political beliefs, and like all left-leaning commentators and politicians, I am not an advocate for violence, and I denounce such actions.

I mourn the fact that this was even possible in the first place, how ubiquitous these violent acts and their ensuing trauma are in America, the immense pain and fear this murder leaves those who followed Kirk, and what this will do to America’s society and its already crumbling political discourse. But also, I mourn not being able to hold him, and his demonstrably false and damaging rhetoric, to account and be able to heal the damage. That is the power of political discourse. Now, he has been silenced, and this remediation can’t happen. The damage he created will live on in martyrdom. His voice, while deeply harmful, was a key component in America repairing itself, and it should never have been snuffed out.

I do have to call out some outrageous hypocrisy, though.

Kirk was a staunch advocate for the Second Amendment and its more extreme interpretations. He even repeatedly claimed that a certain number of deaths a year is a necessary evil to uphold this “freedom” — though, where I come from, the freedom to take another’s life is not considered a freedom; it’s seen as psychopathic. Hence why our politically-motivated killings are almost non-existent. There is a deep irony to Kirk’s death; he protected the violent acts that would eventually end his life.

You can witness this hypocrisy within the reams of politicians and commentators who supported the violent January 6th insurrection, using Kirk’s death to smear Democrats as the party of violence and the left as a national security risk.

But it also comes from the pro-Second Amendment politicians decrying this act. One of the major justifications for the Second Amendment is that it offers citizens protection against the US government becoming tyrannical, as it enables the people to rise up and violently rebel against tyranny and its supporters. Kirk was a close confidante, critical mouthpiece and propagandist for the Trump administration, which is unquestionably fascist and tyrannical in nature.

So, let me be crystal clear here: You cannot decry the death of Charlie Kirk while simultaneously supporting an amendment designed to codify and enable violent insurrectionary actions against the very sort of political movement he enabled. It is one or the other.