Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point, has been assassinated in Utah, ISA.
I don't like what Turning Point has to say.
I don't like how it says it.
But nothing justifies the assassination of political opponents.
And nothing justifies the portrayal of a lone assassin, as would appear to inevitably be the case here, as a representative of a cause.
Violence of any sort has no place in politics or policy.
Nor does hate, even when fear is unavoidable (and in the modern political environment, that is the case).
I would hope for considerable political responsibility at this time, even as I fear it is not being delivered.
We all have a right to live. What is so hard to understand about that?
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Yet you spend so much time calling everyone who disagrees with your heavily slanted world view a fascist.
You constantly spew hate and bile.
You also constantly encourage attacks on anyone with a conservative view and defend those who perpetrate such violent attacks as long as they are on your side.
You truly are a disgusting, hypocritical little man.
I call people fascists because they are. Discussing facts is not to promote hate. Fascists do, and you seem intent on proving the point.
None of the people you regularly describe as fascists are. Calling them so is encouraging hatred.
Yet you claim not to be promoting hatred.
Like I said, you are a hypocrite.
You are also a great example of Godwins law. You long ago lost the argument and so are only left with the pathetic response of labelling people who disagree with you as fascists.
When you realise that people like you don’t have the moral high ground, and that it is the left that promote and use violence far more than any right wing
group then you’ll have some decency. Somehow I doubt that will ever happen though as to admit that would be to admit your own disgusting moral turpitude.
No one who has ever been a fascist to describe themselves as such, accepting, perhaps, Mussolini.
Just like tax havens, who always deny what they are such things, fascist always refuse to accept the accusation made of them, even though criteria that prove their behaviour to be precisely what fascism is, exist.
You can, of course, seek to continue to play this game of double movement, but the rest of us can tell what you are. I presume that you are a fascist. You would not deny it otherwise.
I will condemn the far left. I will condemn the far right. There is almost a far left at present, but the far right is real, prevalent, and a massive threat to the well-being of most people in this country. I reserve the right to say so.
Meanwhile, please don’t bother to reply because I will only delete any further comments from you. I am not too keen on liars.
Come on now Quinn, Richard has never called upon anyone to be shot or killed here. He is a Quaker. Look it up.
He has always proposed policies to solve problems so that people would stop calling each other Fascists, Trotskyists, the enemy within etc.
I also think that you ignore history. I’ve seen a lot of decent people with decent ideas killed in the U.S. over the years – Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Bobby Kennedy, civil rights supporters, even President Lincoln (Neo-liberalism has its origins in the U.S. deep south) – the list is long.
The Right Wing in America has made a sewer out of American politics as it fights to maintain the illusion of the American Dream and hide the truth from the American people.
Consider this exchange from the film ‘Mississippi Burning’ (1988) between two FBI agents – Mr Ward, a do it by the book agent played by William Dafoe and Mr Anderson played by the late great Gene Hackman – a man of more direct means, as they take on the Klu Klux clan:
Ward (to Anderson): ‘Just don’t lose sight of whose rights are being violated’.
Anderson: ‘Don’t put me on your perch Mr Ward.’
Ward: ‘Don’t drag me into you gutter Mr Anderson!’
Anderson: ‘These people are crawling out of the sewer Mr Ward!!! Maybe the sewers where we outta be!?’
The American Right has been playing with fire for a long time. All I’m saying is that for it to think that it will not be burnt as well when it plays with fire is a gross underestimation of what they think they are doing. In fact its not even that is it? They are so self righteous that they cannot see that what they are actually doing will make it impossible for anyone to get what they want.
Quinn you condemn attacking people but have just done the same yourself. You need to look up the word “hypocrisy”!!!
There are very few people with a conservative world view left in political conversations. Ask Rory Stewart or John Major or Joh Gray. What is called “conservativism” by the media isn’t. The conservative party went through a revolution and we are not allowed to talk about.
Hate and bile? I’ve been reading this blog for a while and, in the words of seasoned politicians, I do not recognise the scenario that you describe. Your posts however are different matter altogether.
@Quinn
Verbal attacks (see almost everything Donald Trump releases from his mouth) and Physical attacks (Charlie Kirk and the latest, last 24 hours, Colorado High School shooting) are two VERY Different things.
Indeed
I had never heard of him until last night, but I feel for his wife and children, despite the fact that he said empathy was a bad thing.
Of course violence has no place in politics. On either side. And sadly both Republican and Democrat politicians have been victims of violent crimes in recent years.
I thought the liberal gun laws in Utah were meant to deter gun crime?
And does MAGA have its Horst Wessel? The saintly victim of the “radical left”?
And indeed might this give Trump cause to employ emergency powers to control the midterms next year? National guard soldiers and immigration officials at every polling station perhaps? For security of course. And to check voting credentials.
In Florida, we already have policing at polling stations and have for years.
It occasionally happens here. But it is very light touch. Not a gun in sight, let alone camo or the National Guard (not that we have one)
In the USA, 90% of ALL law enforcement officers carry guns no matter where they are or what activities they are performing.
When we go to the polls in November 2026, there will be a law enforcement officer(s) from the City of Fort Myers Police Department, City of Cape Coral Police Department or the Lee County Sheriff’s Department at each polling place. There will also be vetted and trained non-armed civilian volunteer observers from each party on the ballot at each polling location.
The civilian observers are vetted and trained by the Lee County Supervisors of Elections Office. The last time I looked into the matter, the training to be a civilian election observer involved six one-hour courses.
This is NOT to be confused with civilian (non-county employees) poll workers which are vetted and trained via a completely different procedure. The civilian poll workers are not volunteers as they are paid.
Thanks
Is the England “Territorial Army” and the US National Guard different versions of the same thing???
Oh no….totally different
I have voted at almost every election in England where I have been eligible – local and national – since the early 1990s. Our polling stations are usually very local – within perhaps a 5 or 10 minute walk – primary schools, church halls, etc. Having voted near home, I often walk past or near another one or two more of them on my usual morning walk to the train station for my commute when I am in the office.
I cannot recall one situation when I have ever seen the police in uniform at a Polling Station – not once. Let alone someone in military uniform. God forbid anyone official who is armed with a gun. By and large our polling stations are staffed by a handful of volunteers and/or staff from the local authority (three to six, usually middle aged or older – someone checking identity against the list and crossing you off, someone passing over the voting paper, etc) and there may be patient representatives of one or more parties outside asking for your number (so they can check who from their own lists of expected supporters has or hasn’t voted yet and perhaps offer lifts by car later). All very pleasant and parochial. Voting days tend to be rather pleasance – many people are doing their civic duty, and by law the broadcast media cannot obsess over everyday politics until the polls have closed.
The Army Reserve is very much not “on display” anywhere in the UK, at any time apart from the lead up to Remembrance Sunday. It has only 25,000 members (up from about 15,000 in 2010, but down about 80,000 in the 1970s). There are around 150,000 police. And a General Election has around 30,000 polling stations.
The US National Guard has over 400,000 members. With the US population being about 5 times the UK, the military reservists are about 15 times larger, or 3 times larger as a proportion of population.
Agreed. I have seen a police officer (note ‘a’), but who knows, they may have been voting.
“by law the broadcast media cannot obsess over everyday politics until the polls have closed.”
This is the same in the USA. The broadcast media cannot report on polling results until all polls are closed.
This can be a little annoying in Florida, if you are anxiously awaiting election returns, as the state spans two time Zones (Central and Eastern Time).
Here’s what should concern us all.
If you preach the politics of hate — in whatever form, this is what happens. Reactionary politics, breeds a counter reaction. It always has.
It was noted that when Trump spoke about it, he attacked opponents. He made no mention of Democrats recently assassinated. Political assassinations. His approach is one of retribution, and there are those on the right of politics in the US that want this.
There is little from Trump that is conciliatory, or about bringing people together.
Trump’s video statement. “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence”.
Note, the “other political violence”.
Trump said “radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people”.
Typical Trump – It looks like he will use this to go after the “left”.
I think Arnold Schwarzenegger made one of the best comments when he says “politics has become a disease in this country, and it’s deadly”.
“We must… walk back from the extremes. If we can’t agree on anything else, we must find agreement that we don’t solve our debates with violence,”.
Increasingly, debate is less civilised, blame culture politics rules the day — the media is full of it.
We know there is a far right, fascist agenda. The fascists are full of hatred and always will be. It really is all they have got, hate and blame.
And some of them will use violence like this as a pretence to maintain law and order, when the real aim is to further their agenda.
That is the danger from Trump right now.
This is far better put than my rambling post. Trump’s rhetoric in response to this murder clearly indicates their intentions going forward, no call for de-escalation, no calming words. This man’s death is a useful tool. The hypocrisy is staggering.
I’m also not sure why Starmer is commenting when he can barely muster the words to condemn Israel’s actions in Gaza, which is political violence on an industrial scale.
“If you preach the politics of hate — in whatever form, this is what happens.”
I wonder if anyone on here has heard a single word Charlie Kirk actually said, rather than relying on what you read about him in a distorted and biased press. Unlike some who block all dissenting voices or refuse to debate with those who disagree with them, Charlie Kirk went where he knew he would not be popular and let those who held contrary voices put their points to him. He didn’t shout them down or shut them up, he wanted to talk with them. That’s what he was doing in Utah. Not a private meeting, not a ‘closed to the public’ rally. An open forum.
“When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts. When marriages stop talking, divorce happens. When civilization stops talking, civil war ensues. When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes a lot easier to want to commit violence against that group.” – Charlie Kirk
Does that sound like hate?
Very obviously, I did know about Kirk. I had noted what he had been saying for a long time. He was a right wing extremist filled with hate, most esecially for migrants. He denied human empathy, and your comment is classic DARVO – Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender, a sure sign of right wing extremism.
“Charlie Kirk went where he knew he would not be popular”
@Amy Stringer
What are you talking about???
Charlie Kirk was in the state of Utah which is on the whitest and most conservative states in the USA.
I have no doubt that Charlie Kirk is popular, if not very popular, in Utah.
I do not buy your argument in regards to Charlie Kirk.
“His approach is one of retribution”
Donald Trump views the assassination of Charlie Kirk as a direct attack on himself.
Donald Trump could not care less about Charlie Kirk or his family.
The shooter could not get to trump so he shot Charlie Kirk for a proxy.
I agree that “nothing justifies the assassination of political opponents”. Unfortunately, this is not agreed by many countries, such as Israel, and (it now seems) too many individuals in the USA.
And on the same day there was yet another school shooting – except nobody bothers to report that any more.
And no doubt a great deal more fuss will be made about this killing by Trump and his cronies than was made about the shooting of four Democrat state politicians (two died) a few months ago, or the burning down of a Democrat Governors house, or, indeed, the violence against a Senator and two Mayors – both Democrat – by ICE agents. And, finally, the military take over of two Democrat controlled cities – so far. And the ongoing threats by Trump that Chicago will soon learn why the Department of Defence, has been renamed the Department of War.
Furthermore, we might add to that the constant and total blocking and rejection of ANY attempt to restrict the sale of firearms to any US citizen who wants one – which has been made easier since Trump’s return to power.
So yes, again, I agree about violence against politicians, or indeed anyone. We all have the right to live our lives without fear. But, ‘you reap what you sow’, as the saying goes. And Republicans and those on the right in the US have been oh, so very, very keen to use violent rhetoric (Trump being one of the worst – let’s not forget his role in the January 6th insurrection or his call to arms of white nationalist militias). So we can wish things were otherwise, and we can certainly hope that the situation in countries outside the US remains relatively violence free, as has historically been the case. But in the US we now have a combination of a massive amount of weaponry in the hands of anyone who wants some, rabidly right wing politicians and their supporters who really do see Democrats/liberals/progressives as THE ENEMY, and an unhinged President who will do anything top stay in power, and worst still, is surrounded by people who see no reason to question oppose anything he wants to do. In short, my guess would be that politically motivated killing is only just beginning.
Many of his opponents are going to say he reaped what he sowed, and that the Right-Wing politics he spouted is based on othering and marginalising groups. They will say it’s only natural that his rhetoric led to people wishing him harm, harm that was so much easier to perpetuate in a heavily divided, heavily armed country with rampant mental health issues amongst its population. I agree with this to an extent, but not that he should have expected death as a result of his words. That notion is ridiculous. Words can be challenged and argued against; that is the whole point. Every time this man opened his mouth, he damaged the Right-Wing cause. Silenced, he can now stand for anything they want him to. He didn’t want to die, he didn’t expect to die, he didn’t deserve to die.
Unfortunately, whoever killed this man has handed the Trump administration a gift. They have been seeking a diversion from the Epstein scandal and a pretext for further authoritarian clampdowns. They now have it. They have a clear indication of violence from the Left, and a means to divert the attention away from the violence of the Trump regime: forced deportation, stripping of healthcare, unleashing of corporate power, all indirect violence easily overshadowed by the public assassination of one man. It has even allowed them to ignore yet another school shooting, carried out on the same day. Trump and his ghouls will ride the coattails of this man’s death as far as it will take them and will shed nothing but crocodile tears, and I fear the opposition to Trump’s regime has just been dealt a blow they may never recover from. Once fascists consolidate their grip, they are never removed by peaceful means.
All that said, let’s not forget that this man’s children weren’t political.
Tom B says: “Unfortunately, whoever killed this man has handed the Trump administration a gift. They have been seeking a diversion from the Epstein scandal and a pretext for further authoritarian clampdowns. They now have it.”
Does make you think, doesn’t it? Until they actually catch the person, and interview the person, etc …one does wonder if this incident is all it appears to be, on the surface? I would put NOTHING past Trump’s regime, to be honest.
This IS quite a diversion, isn’t it? And is being played to the hilt, as such.
The simplest answer is often the correct one. Leftist ideology is as capable of inciting violence as the Right, although not quite as overtime and dedicated. It was likely another lone male gunman radicalised by internet rhetoric. That won’t stop the Trump administration from using this event. If only the Democrats had capitalised on the now quickly forgotten murder of Democrat representatives.
Sorry, but killing people has always been a part of politics.
Maybe your headline should be Killing People Should Not be a part of Politics.
Just made me think about Trump not telling the people in Doha, Qatar, that Israel was going to attack until after it happened. That was definitely political.
I’m afraid I agree with you.
A core part of our political apparatus is the state being the only entity with legal and legitimate access to violence.
The state legislates how much violence is permitted in our supply chains and it decides when it exposes its citizens to violence in warfare.
The state also uses violence to suppress dissent and most of our “justice” is state sanctioned violence.
Violence is part of politics. Controlling violence seems to be one of the things we’re using as a marker of a civilised society.
This is a disturbing development in US politics which have now become so polarised that opposing sides believe that violence is justified. Trump’s condemnation of this act of violence rings hollow as he is the politician who has done most to foster a climate of violence by refusing to acknowledge that he had lost the 2020 election and gracefully accept a peaceful transfer of power. People died on 6th January too and Trump let out of prison the legally convicted rioters. His claim that his opponents description of him as “fascist” has fostered the climate which led to the assassination is merely opportunistic. It has been shown on this blog and elsewhere that that description of Trump and his policies is factually accurate. I am not a pacifist, but I do believe that violence should only be resorted to in extremis
and random shootings like this will ,I fear, only lead to more violence and repression by the Trump regime. I am put in mind of the use Hitler made of the Reichstag fire to curb opposition in Germany in 1933.
Agreed
20thC fascism viewed violence as a necessary tool for suppressing internal opposition, achieving goals, and maintaining the state’s power, from beating people up on the street to assassination, but it didn’t just use it, it relished and gloried in it.
There was also an element of violence begetting violence, some opponents of fascism saw no problem in responding in kind.
It’s 21stC descendants needn’t be the same in every respect, political ideas evolve, but there’s certainly, at a minimum, “a cult of violent chauvinism and a nationalism that serves racism” (Griffiths 2017) in modern descendants.
“Responding in kind” as well as the obvious & important moral issue, is also a tactical mistake, but it is likely to happen, and it will likely be used as a justification by fascists to increase the scale of their own violence.
“Donald Trump vows to find everyone ‘who contributed to this atrocity’”….
Just look in a mirror mate.
The killing of Vom Rath , a German diplomat in Paris, by a German Jew named Herschel Grynszpan became the excuse for Kristallnacht.
I would not be surprised if something similar happens in the US.
I fear you may be right.
Trump is calling it war.
Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination directly led to the deaths of thousands …
I feel as much empathy for Charlie Kirk as Charlie Kirk felt for the victims of mass shootings, and their families. I feel as much empathy for Charlie Kirk as Charlie Kirk felt for the screaming mothers and children, as their families were torn apart by ICE and loved ones were (by all appearances) disappeared.
Is that a deterioration of the moral/ethical self? Maybe it is. The right has declared war on us, on our way of living. War inflicts damage on more than just our physical bodies.
There is a book called “The Hiding Place” by Corrie ten Boom, which describes the Holocaust from the perspective of one who suffered it. As a child, I was amazed and inspired by it. As an adult, I find it all too easy to fall short of that example, especially when I see every instance of compassion exploited as weakness, and hate weaponized against people who never deserved it.
I had never heard of Kirk but I understand he was very important to the Trump campaign in bringing in young, especially young male voters to the Trump campaign. Right wingers mention his willingness to “debate” his audience implying that he was tolerant of others ideas but just before he was shot he answered a question from the audience about how many trans people had been involved in shootings and his answer ( to applause ) was “too many”. As this shooting pretty well mimicked Trumps shooting (man on roof with rifle) you would think this over militarized country would have taken the trouble to check it out first. So much for safety and security.
Oh, but it is.
Austerity is murder. Politics often makes people of a nation die slowly and not necessarily instantaneously by the bullet. The Charlie Kirk assassination is a distraction as the USA has many multiple shootings and associated deaths annually. The slow deaths from austerity and poverty keep trundling along but don’t make headlines.
https://theconversation.com/turning-point-uk-new-conservative-youth-group-doesnt-fit-traditional-understandings-of-the-far-right-111669
2019, but just as relevant. I have read about professors in the US who have been offered protection because of being put on Turning Points watchlist.