Author | Lightnews

Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · 24d

Where is this from? Smells like Chotiner (complimentary).

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · 29d

A mentat but only for remembering old-timey slurs.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 21

I thought I wasn’t a fan of them, but I’m increasingly thinking that I was being judgmental. They could be some of our strongest soldiers, it seems.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 17

You can have something called recrudescence, where symptoms of a prior stroke can reappear during times of stress.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 15

The right will be told that the left are celebrating, just like they were told that democratic cities are burning hellscapes, and they will believe it.

Just like they believed that the J6ers were heroes, then antifa infiltrators, and then heroes again.

We cannot stop this from the outside.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 15

I think it’s important for leading figures on the left to speak out against his killing, both because that is moral and because they have an obligation to minimize political violence if they can.

But we can’t fool ourselves that it’s reaching the right. They will be told the left is cheering.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 15

Kirk’s death is now a prop in a culture war narrative, and they will turn him into whatever is most useful in that fight.

So far, they seem to want him to be a white supremacist MLK. So he will be. In the same way that right wingers forget that Trump was President in 2020, during lockdowns.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 15

The thirst for catharsis against their established enemies, regardless of the details, can be seen in the multiple threats against HBCUs and Black students at NYU. Their suspects were all white, no Black person had anything to do with Kirk’s death. And yet, the threats.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 15

The main thing that has undermined this drive is the demographics of the shooter. His true motives are unknown, but he is a white, cisgender young man from a conservative Utah family. I think that more than anything is the reason for Cox’s tone. This shooter does not fit well.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 15

The right has been fed a concentrated stream of propaganda over the past decade priming them for the idea of a righteous civil war against a persecuting left wing. I think Kirk’s death offers an opportunity to seek catharsis from the tension and actually try to start a violent uprising.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 14

You imply I don’t know much of Kirk’s work, but you’re wrong. I have followed him a lot, and he has NOT been known as a civil figure; on the contrary, he is known to be antagonistic and belligerent. Keeping a calm tone of voice when he speaks is not what matters. He always sought to humiliate.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 14

He is a civil figure only in the sense that he marks the boundary of the “respectable” right wing. He still felt the need to pay lip service to denying various forms of bigotry, and he was profoundly resented for it by further right figures like Nick Fuentes.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 14

I understand that we need to reckon with the beliefs of the average right wing person, which involves understanding what they thought of him.

But we also need to reckon with WHY they think those things. I believe that the current hagiography of Kirk is partly borne of trauma, but also opportunistic

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 14

This isn’t whataboutism? That implies that I’m switching topics to something irrelevant as a distraction. It doesn’t mean that no one can say the literal words “what about?”

The right wing is now *claiming* that he was a figure representing civil discourse. These same ppl claim Trump is anti-war.

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Noblesse Ob-la-di Ob-la-da @couldntbeme.bsky.social · Sep 14

His “calm, civil discourse” that he published as YouTube videos with titles like “Charlie Kirk DESTROYS liberal snowflakes?”

What about when his org published lists of academics he disagreed with for their followers to harass and threaten until some left academia?

Does the truth matter at all?

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