I wish more people on both ends of the political spectrum felt that way. Either committing or supporting violence against those we disagree with, has no place in a civil society.
But his children no longer have a dad in their life. That is just heartbreaking to me. It’s hard for me to understand people who are so wrapped up in political rhetoric that they think taking a person’s life is acceptable.
As long as you understand that this opinion is wholeheartedly NOT shared by them at all.
That said, while I don't condone it I can't say I'm surprised by it. It seems stoking divisions is a large part of the modern media landscape and all it takes is one person with the motive and the means.
Agreed. Sadly the leader of one side openly and repeatedly calls for violence against anyone who disrupts his speeches [0]. The former leader of the other side condemns political violence and even calls his opponent after an attack out of concern for his welfare. [1]
[0] https://time.com/4203094/donald-trump-hecklers/
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/jul/14/bide...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/republican-s...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Attack_on_Paul_Pelosi#Misinfor...
Ironically, assassinated Charlie Kirk was one of the most reserved US public figures in this regard.
And while political violence is abhorrent Kirk was no angel. In the aftermath of this his views on gun violence have been echoed widely but he is a man that called for political opponents (namely Joe Biden) to face the death penalty [0]. That page outlines much more. So are his calls for political violence including the death of his opponents, inflammatory language like slurs[0], encouraging violence against immigrants and transgender athletes[0] “reserved”? I would hate to see what you consider out of line then
[0] https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-kirk/charlie-kirk-has-h...
Show me one example of any of those figures you listed inciting violence. I'm waiting. "inflammatory rhetoric" is not the same as saying "the Left is a national security problem"
I don't care about Kirk or his family, they can take care of themselves. I'd like this country to no self destruct in this glee for wanting to start another Civil War, though.
Damn, sounds like more terrible people who encourage violence then, wish they didn't encourage it either, kinda sounds like a problem America and its politics has in general.
There hasn’t been a day in the last decade that Trump wasn’t making the news for a new insanely inflammatory remark—including in the last 48 hours. To help you remember when that was: that’s when he called for War on an American city, using the visual language of Apocalypse Now, a movie about war crimes. That was in the same breath as his new “Secretary of War” detailing that war would be violent, pro-active and excessive. This is true for almost everyone in his cabinet: daily dehumanizing remarks, threats, calls to attack.
One vs. many thousands: There are three to four orders of magnitude of difference in how inflammatory each side is.
You want to prove me wrong? Give me one date, a single date in the last ten years and if I can’t find Trump publicly insulting to someone that day, I’ll concede.
The only examples of call to violence you can find are people quoting Trump and his enablers, or mocking their style. Those horrible things you read? Those insanely callous dismissal of Charlie Kirk, victim of gun violence? Those are quotes of Charlie Kirk, reacting to mass shootings.
You are wagging your finger and scream "Here’s a monster!" but what you are looking at is a mirror.
Can you link some examples?
Obama:
- "If they bring a knife to the fight, we're going to bring a gun." [0]
Biden:
- "If we were in high school, I'd take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him" [1]
- "We’re done talking about the debate, it’s time to put Trump in a bullseye." [2]
- the whole "Darth Biden" event speech was filled with statements framing political opponents as enemies of the country, kinda sinister from the head of the most powerful state in the world, no? ("Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our republic.", etc) [3]
Waltz:
- "When it’s an adult like Donald Trump, you bully the shit out of him back." [4]
- "I tell you that... because we need to whip his butt and put this guy behind us." [5]
Newsome:
- "But right now, with all due respect, we’re walking down a damn different path. We’re fighting fire with fire. And we’re gonna punch these sons of bitches in the mouth." [6] (apologies for the Twitter link, didn't find direct video elsewhere)
Would that be enough?
[0]: https://www.factcheck.org/2011/01/obama-guns-and-the-untouch...
[1]: https://edition.cnn.com/2018/03/21/politics/Joe-biden-donald...
[2]: https://nypost.com/2024/07/15/us-news/biden-defends-bullseye...
[3]: https://www.newsweek.com/read-everything-joe-biden-said-his-...
[4]: https://www.startribune.com/in-key-2028-state-tim-walz-says-...
[5]: https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2024-election/tim-walz-brea...
> There are three to four orders of magnitude of difference in how inflammatory each side is.
Not really.
One can only agree with this statement if he considers that calling Trump and his supporters Nazis, fascists, racists, etc, is not an inflammatory rhetoric, but a totally acceptable objective truth that just truthfully describes them. (Btw, do Nazis deserve to be shot on sight?)
However, if one doesn't consider this an objective truth, but a violent dehumanizing rhetorics, then suddenly he finds that one side routinely smears the other in the worst ways possible, and that the total amount of such rhetoric vastly drowns the messaging from another side.
> You are wagging your finger and scream "Here’s a monster!" but what you are looking at is a mirror.
That's a nice straw man you made. Please, refrain from messaging me again, if you don't plan to argue in good faith.
I'm not from the US, and do not have a horse in this fight, but I'm pretty sure that there are a lot of people in the US who believe that the most inflammatory and divisive leader America had in modern history was Obama. The main difference between Trump and Obama is that Trump is teared apart by the media, while Obama was cuddled by it.
(btw, speaking from my non-US experience, when a leader is cuddled by the press, it is a bad sign, not a good one)
Regarding your accusation that I work for Kremlin, you should be ashamed of yourself to say such things to a person who was literally beaten by Putin's polizai for protesting his policies. In your simplistic mindset, anyone who has a differing opinion from you surely must be a paid troll working for evil people. It is very fitting that you exhibit this attitude in a discussion about a person who was killed for his views. Should I be shot, too? I surely have it coming, right?
Good on you for protesting his policies. But maybe don’t spread his propaganda for free? I never celebrated, excused or wished death on anyone. Shame on you for implying that.
That said, these pale in comparison to Trump's many, many endorsements of or acceptance of violence. Even mocking an attack on Pelosi's husband. I've never heard Trump apologize for his words, actions, or inactions. He could not even be bothered to call the governor of a state whose elected representatives were attacked, saying even to speak would be a "waste of time". Only when one of his sycophants is harmed does he suddenly see a serious problem.
In fact Trump pardoned those who violently attacked national police as the attackers sought to disrupt the transfer of power. (Some of whom went on to rape and murder others.) The very people he urged to "fight like hell", and he endorsed by waiting to see whether they would succeed before changing his tune.
Meanwhile Democrats prosecute their own for violence and corruption.
Trump acts like a mob boss. Doing and saying whatever he wants, and punishing those who oppose him with whatever means he thinks he can get away with. Even boasting that his supporters would stand by him if he shot someone on a famous public street.
It is also telling that you weren't content with just stopping after the words 'disrupt the transfer of power', but felt necessary to add smear about rape and murder. I am not willing to even verify the veracity of this claim, and will just ask you this: how many of those who took part in BLM riots were convicted for rape and murder crimes, likely quite a few, right? Should we bring that in every conversation on every action supported by the politicians that you support?
> Meanwhile Democrats prosecute their own for violence and corruption.
No, they don't. They do, however, openly prosecute their political adversaries for fabricated crimes. It was quite characteristic that democrat-friendly talking heads spent months in late 2020-early 2021 how Trump is going to issue a presidential pardon for himself and his allies, and then Biden, four years later, did just that.
I am not Trump supporter. I'm just telling you that you are extremely biased and unwilling discuss politics in good faith: you just know what truth is and consider everyone who disagrees as being wrong or stupid or evil. That is exactly kind of mindset and rhetoric that inspired someone to kill Kirk. He was such a bad fascist, after all!
Waltz should not speak that way. Perhaps he is given more grace since his words didn't incite an insurrection which he watched closely and refused to intervene for hours in the hope it would succeed. Waltz also doesn't express the desire to be a dictactor, plans to give police unlimited power, ask foreign governments to hack his opponents for his gain, shake down foreign leaders for dirt on his opponents and their families, or openly weaponize the DoJ / ICE / IRS to persecute anyone who opposed him.
>> Meanwhile Democrats prosecute their own for violence and corruption.
> No, they don't.
I guess the prosecutions of Quintez Brown, Robert Menendez, and Eric Adams don't count?
> ...how many of those who took part in BLM riots were convicted for rape and murder crimes, likely quite a few, right?
Did Biden pardon BLM protesters who then went on to rape and murder?
> Should we bring that in every conversation on every action supported by the politicians that you support?
If there is a discussion on political violence and how seriously leaders handle it, then I'd say the consequences of pardoning such actors is in scope.
> ...you are extremely biased and unwilling discuss politics in good faith: you just know what truth is and consider everyone who disagrees as being wrong or stupid or evil.
If there is a disagreement, then thinking the other person may be wrong is common, no? I don't presume every disagreement is because of stupidity or evil. Though I do believe evil exists (not in any spiritual sense), and that evil is more manifest in some actions than others. Assassination is quite evil for example. I try not to hold any beliefs too strongly, since I've been very wrong in the past.
> That is exactly kind of mindset and rhetoric that inspired someone to kill Kirk. He was such a bad fascist, after all!
You know what inspired Kirk's killer? Perhaps you should inform the FBI. I'll wait for the facts because it's not clear to me what motivated this attacker. It's just as likely he played a lot of Helldivers, surfed 4chan, and thought Kirk wasn't far enough to the right.
That said, rhetoric like mine is far less likely to inspire violence than say a "Professor Watchlist" which--in practice--functions something like a who-to-harrass-or-kill list.
> Perhaps he is given more grace since his words didn't incite an insurrection which he watched closely and refused to intervene for hours in the hope it would succeed.
Yeah, tweeting non-stop urges for protesters to stay peaceful. It is a certain kind of delusion to think that this 'riot' was at attempt to overthrow the state. Of course, Democrat propaganda bent over themselves to present it that way, but anyone with critical thinking understands, that even if Capitol was taken over by the unarmed protesters, then what? Oh, Senate would capitulate and declare Trump God Emperor? Please.
If we stop talking about fabricated mythology of a horribre horrible coup attempt, and look at reality, Jan 6 riot was a relatively peaceful affair, far more peaceful than BLM protests from the previous summer. I happened to watch it all live, on youtube, as it happened, it culminated in QAnon shaman strolling down the halls saying 'God bless you' to every security guard who were just standing there and doing nothing.
It is no wonder that all these livestreams were promptly scrubbed off all social media afterwards, because if anyone would watch it, as it happened, the narrative of a coup would just fall apart.
> I guess the prosecutions of Quintez Brown, Robert Menendez, and Eric Adams don't count?
I don't know who are the first two, but Eric Adams is a name I know, and from what I understand he mas prosecuted after he broke ranks with the Dems on the migration issue.
So yeah, they prosecute insignificant pawns and those who broke rank, and they also fabricate criminal cases against their chief political opponents, trying to deny him the right to be a candidate in presidential elections. However, these attempts were found unconvincing by the supreme jury - people of the US, whe majority of whom voted to re-elect Trump as president.
> Did Biden pardon BLM protesters who then went on to rape and murder?
Why would he need to pardon people who were neither prosecuted nor convicted?
You want to know why a lot of those people, who are reactionary by nature, thought Obama was so divisive?
It's because they couldn't stomach being led by someone who wasn't white.
>The main difference between Trump and Obama is that Trump is teared apart by the media, while Obama was cuddled by it.
You'll notice that Obama was roundly (and rightfully) criticized by the left for his actual policies, and was criticized by the right for his skin color. For those who focus on policy ramifications, Obama was repeatedly critiqued. The problem is the right wing media machine couldn't outright drop a hard -er or call him "boy", so they had to use emotional cues to insult him personally. Forget about actual policy, especially because his signature policy, the Affordable Care Act, was copied verbatim from enacted GOP legislation.
Literally ignoring any and all recorded footage clearly demonstrating violence to the contrary, what kind of vocabulary judo do you have to perform to label a woman being shot to death[1] a "relatively peaceful affair." Calling anything "relatively peaceful" where someone dies by getting shot genuinely boggles my mind. By this standard, Charlie Kirk's debate was "relatively peaceful."
In the past, I have wanted to know, so I asked several of them over the years. Now I understand quite well.
> who are reactionary by nature
This is untrue.
> It's because they couldn't stomach being led by someone who wasn't white.
So is this.
> and was criticized by the right for his skin color.
This is not even remotely a fair characterization.
> so they had to use emotional cues to insult him personally.
Such as?
I tend to think that many white people voted for Obama in part because he was black. Like, we elected this guy, can we now finally put aside the question of racism? And then, somehow, instead of putting aside the question of race, it was dialled up to 11, with all these diversity quotas and DEI initiatives.
Btw you too are guilty of furthering this division: your instant reaction to criticism of Obama was to play the racist card! Of course, the only reason someone can criticise mr Obama is because they don't like the color of his skin!
But seriously, damage from BLM riots is estimated to be over 1 billion USD and the number of fatalities during those riots was far higher than one Ashley.
Comparing killing of Ashlei Babbitt and Charlie Kirk is highly inappropriate. The former is at worst a voluntary manslaughter (and actually classified as a justifiable use of force), and second is a first degree murder, premeditated and with a deliberate intent to kill.
I have roundly criticized Obama for the last 17 years since he was elected. I was critical during his tenure, and critical of his actions after his tenure. He doesn't get a pass.
I voted for him in 2008, not because he was black, or because he was a Democrat, but because I was sick of no-bid contract loving Neo Cons whose stock portfolio was antithetical to national security, and thus I wanted and voted for change.
But let's look at his actions and what I disliked.
Drone strikes? Yup. Critical of those. Bailing out Wall Street? Yup. Some of those bankers should have been jailed, versus bailed out with golden parachutes. Continuing the forever wars in the Middle East? Of course I critiqued those. Ignoring actions by our "friends" in the middle east that furthered Arab hatred of the US? Absolutely hated that too. Trying to pacify Putin after his attacks in Georgia, invasion of the Donbas? Yes. Was particularly hard on him for this. Not standing up to the GOP reactionary wing? Yes, I blamed that on him too. Failed healthcare policy? Of course I have issues with that.
Let's stop pretending that Obama was some sort of liberal or far leftist. The dude was pretty center-right by world standards, and only considered remotely left because the GOP had spent the Bush II administration pushing the Overton window about a hundred quadrillion light years to the right.
I could go on. But as someone who spent some time in GOP heavy rural areas during one of Obama's campaigns, I can tell you a lot of the people in those areas routinely began their critiques of Obama with a word that starts with an N and ends with an -ER.