Doom Report (Week 34: Death Comes for All)

The major news this week is that someone shot Charlie Kirk.  If you don’t know who that is ... well, first off, count yourself lucky.  To call him a “right-wing influencer” is a bit of an understatement; some of the things he’s said are truly horrible.  And of course, when someone like this dies—especially by violence, and especially especially by gun violence—some people will be heartbroken and some people will be angry and some will rejoice.  For my part, I’ll say that, exactly as was the case when I talked about Luigi Mangione’s shooting of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, two things can be true.  His shooting was horrifying; if you managed to avoid watching the video, please continue to do so—personally, I specifically avoided watching anything which might have the full video of the shooting in it, but just seeing the thumbnails of some of those videos in passing was enough to give me disturbing dreams.  It’s a horrible thing, the ultimate tragedy for his wife and two children (all of whom were there and witnessed the event), and I as much as anyone condemn this action or any similar action that ends in such an awful tragedy.

It is also true that Kirk once said:

I think it’s worth it.  I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.  That is a prudent deal.  It is rational.

(He was, in fact, talking about mass shootings at the moment he was shot.)  He also said that “prowling Blacks” go around targeting white people, that women should submit to their husbands, and that the “great replacement strategy” is happening every day at our southern border.  He was a racist, misogynist, xenophobic, homophobic, self-righteous prick, an absolute shitstain of a human being.  That doesn’t mean I’m glad he’s dead.  But his death doesn’t make him a better person either.  So much of the news has his right-wing nutjob colleagues saying that he only ever tried to have a civil debate, but that’s bullshit: he was fundamentally uncivil, fundamentally radical, deliberately provocative.  He sought to offend the maximum number of people because it pushed his rascist agenda and made him more money.  And, while my sympathy for his widow remains deep, it’s also true that she has stated that she will continue to push that agenda.

And while it’s good for people to call for an end to political violence, it’s also frustrating to hear the MAGA crowd go crazy blaming “the left” for Charlie Kirk’s death when they’ve been ignoring violence against Democrats for years.  Hell, just 3 months ago a Minnesota state representative was murdered and another seriously injured, and the response from Republicans was to make jokes and boost conspiracy theories.  Now they want to “crack down on universities” and treat the Democratic party “as a domestic terror organization,” while completely ignoring the school shooting that happened just a minute later less than 500 miles away.  I’d like to believe that these people really cared about Kirk and they miss their friend, but it’s awfully tempting to believe they’re just using this death as an excuse to go after their political opponents.  But, as I say, I suppose two things can be true.

For a fairly balanced (if longer) take on the shooting, try Even More News; they show a great deal of empathy for him as a human being, while still not forgiving his abhorrent views.  For shorter takes, I’d say it depends on which side of the empahty divide you want to land on: for a more somber, sympathetic view, try Seth Meyers; for a less sympathetic, unabashed, tell-it-like-it-is take, it’s tough to beat Christopher Titus.

Other things you need to know this week:

• Robert Reich has a great Substack article on the looming government shutdown, and what the Democrats should do.  His argument is quite effective—I like how he uses “disappear people from our streets,” reminiscent of my own thoughts in week 8—I thought his “then what?” conclusion was not particularly encouraging.  Adam Kinzinger also addressed this issue, coming to roughly the same conclusions, but also including a good explainer on how the shutdowns work.

• On this week’s Election Profit Makers, starting at around 35:20, you can hear David Rees bemoaning the same thing that another of my friends said to me this week: that Trump doesn’t seem to actually have a plan, or even an ideaology.  But I think David’s ultimate conclusion is correct: at the end of the day, racism is the simplest explanation.  For a guy who seems to particularly hate black women, and who once said that he wished his generals would be more like Hitler’s, Occam’s Razor tells us we should stop looking for complicated reasoning when white supremacy is right there.

• On this Monday’s Daily Show, Jon Stewart compares Trump to the kid from The Twilight Zone who keeps sending people to the cornfield; some of the side-by-side’s of people flattering the two of them are pretty spot-on.  But my favorite bit is around 15:00, where the Newsmax anchor gleefully reports that the Supreme Court has ruled that ICE may take race into consideration when deciding who to arrest, even as her name is clearly printed below her: Bianca de la Garza.

• That decision, among others, is covered by this week’s Strict Scrutiny, although my favorite bit is one of Kate Shaw’s “favorite things” (a segment they do at the end of the show to try to end on a more upbeat note).  Alexandra Petri’s article in The Atlantic entitled “Apologies: You Have Reached the End of Your Free-Trial Period of America!” is very short, and very funny.

Is there much hope this week?  No, sadly, not much.  James Talarico will run for Senate next year; this is not against Ted Cruz, but John Cornyn.  I won’t say Cornyn is just as bad as Cruz—“equally execrable” is not a phrase one uses in conjunction with Ted Cruz—but he’s pretty execrable all right.  And Talarico is a deeply religious Democrat who’s talked about how following the teachings of Jesus makes you necessarily liberal by today’s political standards, so at least he has a fighting chance as a Democrat in Texas.  What else ... Have I Got News for You? (the US version) is back for another season; catch new episodes Saturday on CNN, Sunday on HBO Max, or just watch clips on YouTube.  But, overall, a tough week.  Hopefully things get brighter.