Dem
47
GOP
53
There's been quite a bit of news related to the death of Charlie Kirk in the past few days. Here's the rundown:
The Case Against Robinson: The main new development yesterday is that the state of Utah has formally charged Tyler Robinson with seven criminal counts, the most serious of which is aggravated murder. Utah prosecutors will seek the death penalty. In Utah, the primary means of execution is lethal injection, but the necessary components are increasingly hard to come by. So, if Robinson were to be subject to the death penalty, well, by the time it's imposed he could be left with only the secondary option, which is a firing squad.
The prosecutors are clearly being governed by political considerations and/or emotion, as the death penalty is almost always limited to cases with multiple deaths and/or with aggravating circumstances (like torture). Consistent with the notion that politics/emotion is involved here, there is a lot of "explosive" stuff in the charging documents, including alleged text messages between Robinson and his roommate (and alleged romantic partner). The entire text-message exchange is here; this is a representative passage:
Robinson: I am still ok my love, but am stuck in orem for a little while longer yet. Shouldn't be long until I can come home, but I gotta grab my rifle still. To be honest I had hoped to keep this secret till I died of old age. I am sorry to involve you.
Roommate: you weren't the one who did it right????
Robinson: I am, I'm sorry
Roommate: I thought they caught the person?
Robinson: no, they grabbed some crazy old dude, then interrogated someone in similar clothing. I had planned to grab my rifle from my drop point shortly after, but most of that side of town got locked down. Its quiet, almost enough to get out, but theres one vehicle lingering.
Roommate: Why?
Robinson: Why did I do it?
Roommate: Yeah
Robinson: I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out. If I am able to grab my rifle unseen, I will have left no evidence. Going to attempt to retrieve it again, hopefully they have moved on. I haven't seen anything about them finding it.
If someone, or many someones, wanted to demonstrate that: (1) Robinson was LGBTQ, and (2) Robinson was guilty, this exchange would be THE smoking gun. It's almost too perfect. Couple that with the writing style, which is not very text-messagey, but is very hacky, and quite a few people smell a rat. Click on the link above, and read the comments for examples.
Blogger Ken Klippenstein, followed by The Washington Post, laid hands on a bunch of Discord chats that Robinson was part of. The messages there, for what it is worth, read much more like they were written by an information-age person in their early twenties. And the tale they tell is that Robinson was mostly apolitical, and that the views he did express do not fit neatly into the right-left spectrum (for example, he was strongly pro-gun, but also pro-LGBTQ tolerance).
WrongThink Will Be Punished: We wrote last week that "When people are as angry and upset as the friends, fans and supporters of Charlie Kirk are, they will generally FIND someone who will pay for what has happened." Nothing that has taken place since has given us cause to rethink that observation. Although there is a suspect in custody, and one who has allegedly confessed and may face execution, many people on the right are out for far more blood than just that of Tyler Robinson. Here's a rundown of some of the things that are happening, or are being pursued, already:
- There is an effort, apparently centrally organized, to identify people who said critical things about Charlie Kirk online, and to try to get them fired. There have been dozens and dozens of news stories about people who got suspended/terminated, both from public- and private-sector jobs. Here is one fairly good list, for those who are interested.
On that note, one reader who wrote in this weekend was doxxed (although there was no punishment imposed, as far as we know). If any reader who wrote about Charlie Kirk in this past weekend's mailbag would like us to go back and anonymize them, let us know at comments@electoral-vote.com. If we run any Charlie Kirk letters this weekend, we will identify them only as "Anonymous in STATE," unless the reader tells us otherwise.- "Attorney General" Pam Bondi, who must not have paid much attention in law school, suggested that anyone who says mean things about Charlie Kirk might be punished for engaging in hate speech. That is a rather novel interpretation of the term "hate speech" which, incidentally, is also not illegal. Later, after much blowback, including from conservatives (you know you've overstepped when even Ted Cruz is telling you to dial it back), Bondi "clarified" that she was referring to "violent rhetoric." That's at least something that is punishable, although only in very narrow circumstances.
- Bondi also threatened to prosecute a Michigan Office Depot employee who refused to make copies of a flier for a vigil in Kirk's honor. To be honest, we wish we were friends with that employee, so we could collaborate on a setup. What we'd like to do is create a flier for the "Charlie Kirk Memorial Drag Show," and have that employee refuse that flier, too. How would Bondi process that? Her head would probably explode.
- When it comes time to shut down WrongThink, that also means any WrongThink coming from the government. And so, Bondi also ordered that a study illustrating the incontrovertible fact that most domestic terrorism in the U.S. is right-wing terrorism be scrubbed from the DoJ website.
- As promised/threatened, Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ordered his department to revoke visas of any immigrant or visitor to the U.S. who "celebrated" Kirk's death online. Of course, that could cover a broad range of remarks, from "Thank God the bastard's dead; I always hated him and only wish I'd killed him myself" to "I don't approve of what happened, but I don't feel a sense of loss, either." Rubio has not specified where the line is, probably because he and his people are making it up on the fly.
- Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have both vaguely threatened to investigate/prosecute "the left." It is unclear exactly what this means, and to what extent it is serious, as opposed to being red-meat-flavored hot air for the base. The one clue is that Trump said it would not only be an investigation, but a "MAJOR investigation." Usually, when he adds those kinds of meaningless superlatives, he's blowing smoke out his rear.
- Trump did get specific in one way, however. He said he wants to designate Antifa, and other left-wing "radical groups," as domestic terrorists. The justification is that these groups engage in violence and, in Trump's words, "got away with murder." It is worth noting that the only specific example Trump came up with, Antifa, is an overwhelmingly non-violent movement, and is also more like a philosophy than an organized political faction. It's like saying "We're going after gay pride, because they got away with murder" or "We're going after environmentalists, because they got away with murder."
- Elon Musk, who just so happens to control eX-Twitter, has been threatening violence against the left, and telling his followers to prepare for civil war. Kirk's widow, Erika, seemed to be expressing similar thoughts when, in her first public remarks after the shooting, she decreed: "You have no idea what you have unleashed across this country and this world."
- Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) is calling for the red states to secede and form their own country. She is, as readers may recall, a duly elected member of the United States Congress. One wonders how that comports with the Fourteenth Amendment, which reads:
No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.Greene says she'd like the division to be "peaceful," but note that the Amendment does not give an exception for "peaceful" insurrection.We will note, once again, that we don't really know where the line is between "I'm upset over Charlie Kirk's death" and "I'm going to use Charlie Kirk's death to justify something I wanted to do anyhow." For example, it's hard to believe that Trump never once thought about investigating left-wing groups until Kirk was killed a week ago.
There are at least a few things that we are confident are opportunistic. First, J.D. Vance guest-hosted Kirk's podcast from the official vice-presidential residence. The VP claimed that he wanted to honor Kirk, and maybe he did, but we are 100% sure that he also saw a golden opportunity to connect with younger Republicans, in advance of his planned 2028 presidential run.
In addition, the various redistricting efforts underway in red states are now claiming to be doing their work in Kirk's name, and in service of his memory. Does anyone, even the most MAGA-y of MAGA Republicans really buy this? Does anyone really imagine that they would not be trying to gerrymander their maps, but for Kirk's passing?
Meanwhile, various right-wing groups are doing fundraising in Kirk's name, including solicitations being sent out in his widow's name. If she approved of her name, and her husband's death, being used in this way, so quickly (the first one went out less than 24 hours after he died), that's pretty icky. If she did not approve, and was coerced or her name was utilized without permission by others, that's even ickier.
No True Scotsman: We imagine readers are largely familiar with the "No True Scotsman" fallacy. Just in case, it's a logical fallacy that goes something like this:
Person 1: No Scotsman likes hot chocolate.
Person 2: Well, Duncan likes hot chocolate, and he's a Scotsman.
Person 1: If he likes hot chocolate, then he's not a true Scotsman.
In other words, if you decide that a particular behavior defines a class of people, then anyone who does not engage in that behavior is automatically excluded from that class of people, even if it makes no sense to do so.
In the past week in particular, we've seen two expressions of a logical fallacy that doesn't really have a name, but is basically the opposite of "No True Scotsman." In this fallacy, you don't use a behavior/characteristic to EXCLUDE people from a group, no matter how illogical, you use a behavior/characteristic to INCLUDE people in a group, no matter how illogical. Here's what we mean, based on re-jiggering the example above:
Person 1: Duncan likes hot chocolate.
Person 2: Well, Duncan is a Scotsman.
Person 1: Then it must be that all Scotsmen like hot chocolate.
You probably see where we are going with this. People who commit assassinations or murders are extreme outliers. They are less than 0.01% of the populace, and less than 0.01% of whatever community they are a part of. And yet, there is much energy expended in proposing that if assassin/murderer/mass shooter [X] has [noticeable quality Y], then everyone who has [noticeable quality Y] is a potential assassin/murderer/mass shooter. The obvious example of this, right now, is the right-wing longing for Robinson to be trans, which will then lead them to pass judgment on all trans people.
The other expression of the reverse No True Scotsman fallacy is the absolutely crazy notion that some number of online windbags represent their entire political faction. Have people forgotten that online discourse is often a sewer, that it brings out the worst in people, and that many people on social media are trolls who are just looking to get attention, or clicks, or a rise out of people? The obvious example of this is the now-frequent assertion, which has come from people as high-up on the food chain as Trump and Vance, that "Democrats are celebrating Kirk's murder" or "liberals are celebrating Kirk's murder." Nonsense. Some very small number of people, who CLAIM to be Democrats/liberals, and who may or may not be telling the truth, are celebrating his death. They quite clearly do not speak for the vast majority of liberals, Democrats, or Americans.
Much fairer, we would say, is to look at the leadership of a political faction. After all, those individuals got votes, sometimes millions of them, from people who said "This is my preferred representative." Here's what the last three Democratic presidents said, in response to Kirk's death:
- Bill Clinton: "I'm saddened and angered by Charlie Kirk's murder. And I hope we all go through some serious introspection and redouble our efforts to engage in debate passionately, yet peacefully. Hillary and I are keeping Erika, their two young children, and their family in our prayers."
- Barack Obama: "We don't yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie's family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children."
- Joe Biden: "There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk's family and loved ones."
Biden's comment is a little extra-generous, because Kirk once called for him to be executed for crimes against America.
Of course, those three men are, to a greater or lesser extent, moderate liberals. How about the progressives? Well, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) recorded a video, shortly after Kirk's death, that was nearly pitch-perfect in denouncing political violence:
Sanders makes very clear that he did not agree with Kirk, but that violence is not an answer.
Last week, we proposed that some leeway should be granted to people who were reeling from someone they regarded as a friend, a colleague, an inspiration, etc. But we think the leeway period has ended. Folks who continue to engage in divisive rhetoric, and to dishonestly misrepresent millions of Americans on the basis of bad behavior by thousands of Americans, deserve to be challenged on their harmful and hateful words.
And that's the latest. (Z)