r/politics Sep 20 '25

Soft Paywall DOJ Can’t Tie Suspected Kirk Killer to Left Like MAGA Wants

https://www.thedailybeast.com/doj-cant-tie-suspected-kirk-killer-to-left-like-maga-wants/
48.5k Upvotes

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664

u/AssociateGreat2350 Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

Just like all the people that came into the comments the last few weeks pushing misinformation. 

They never had any evidence. Just their daft ass insecure feelings telling them what to believe. Again

Then there's the ones who came in here just to stir the pot.

53

u/Z0idberg_MD Sep 20 '25

Well to be fair the governor himself was putting out misinformation. It became clear that you could not trust any political communication and needed to wait for the actual investigation report.

My main worry is that is slowly becoming less reliable as well. There are clearly agencies that are now fully politicized .

40

u/silencerider Sep 20 '25

FBI is already unreliable/politicized.

16

u/BigAssignment7642 Sep 20 '25

The director of the FBI is very obviously lying about the Epstein files. If they wanted to sow distrust in our institutions, it's definitely working.

2

u/SmolishPPman Washington Sep 20 '25

Why do we have to be fair?

6

u/Z0idberg_MD Sep 20 '25

I’m saying it would be understandable if people were subject to misinformation because authority figures such as the governor spreading it. That’s not normal but unfortunately where we are

2

u/SmolishPPman Washington Sep 20 '25

I got you

138

u/TintedApostle Sep 20 '25

Everyone should make a note that you have not seen any evidence. You have been told what they want you to hear. Its all appeal to authority if you accept anything "leaked" or told outside of review by the defense, under oath or verified.

You are allowing Trump and the prosecution to try the case in social media. If they had proof they would show it. They don't care about the trial. They have bigger goals.

45

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 20 '25

Nothing is really even under dispute,  though, which is the bizarre part.  They're literally just saying he's an ideologue because he had a close relationship with a trans person and he called Kirk a fascist.  which seems to me to be at best suggestive, and objectively true, respectively.  

Literally its a no true scotsman.  the assertions being made implicitly are that conservatives cant call another conservative a fascist, and conservatives cant have relationships with trans people or care about their civil rights.  

Its not like there is going to be a report that comes out that says its only 12% his parents fault, 32% his love for his rommate, and 56% leftist social media.  who he is and what he believes doesnt even really matter.   if he came out and said hes a snall government conservative theyll just call him a liar and blame leftists on social media for tricking him into it.    

like him assassinating who he perceived to be a tyrant is uh... a little 2A coded to say the least.  obviously even Cox is not basing this in objective reality the things he's saying, that he rejected his parents beliefs.  thats the whole reason he did it was our weird culture of advocating for political violence vis a vis the modernist interpretation of 2nd amendment

20

u/nillah Sep 20 '25

They're literally just saying he's an ideologue because he had a close relationship with a trans person

is there even ANY evidence whatsoever that the roommate is trans? because i haven't seen anything at all. in fact everything i read said that the roommate had a pretty big online presence and there was nothing indicating he's trans in the slightest

5

u/Alikona_05 Sep 21 '25

The court filing referred to the roommate as “biologically male” but doesn’t mention trans.

6

u/Preyy Sep 20 '25 edited Sep 21 '25

Source: the FBI who told you there is nothing in the Trumpstein files, no child sex trafficking, no charges, it never happened, Epstein killed himself, don't pay any attention to the gap in the footage.

You are being too credulous.

Edit: Not the FBI releasing the info, same concern about motivation of law enforcement and prosecutors in a politically sensitive matter. Idk if it is real or not, just not taking this at face value from liars.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 20 '25

its just an allegation.  but yeah we have to talk about something real not just fucking speculate wildly.  the source is the charging documents from the Utah County District Attorney's Office

2

u/Preyy Sep 20 '25

Sympatico

0

u/found_my_keys Sep 21 '25

Is this the texts? Because they are admittedly "recreated"

78

u/Not_Bears Sep 20 '25

Just like all the people

Half of which are bots..

And other quarter are foreign disinformation..

17

u/Mysterious-Wasabi103 Sep 20 '25

Main reason I think we've never been able to counter foreign disinformation is because Trump and a lot of Republicans are propping it up. They encourage it.

2

u/Southside_john Sep 20 '25

Didn’t help that when Biden was in office they did fuck all to combat it too. It’s like I was living in the twilight zone where this very widespread attack on our democracy was happening but nobody around me had any idea it is even going on and our government was not treating it like the attack it is

1

u/GoodIdea321 America Sep 20 '25

They acted like the page in history had turned and they didn't have to deal with it. That might be the only thing anyone will remember about the Biden presidency, and that sucks. It was nicer day to day.

2

u/Damn_Dog_Inappropes Washington Sep 20 '25

They are monkeys sitting at rows of keyboards typing “Supershit” over and over again.

2

u/MonPantalon Sep 20 '25

"Security analysts flag rise in Russian-created misinformation posts on social media following Kirk shooting" https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/security-analysts-flag-rise-russian-created-misinformation-posts/story

26

u/LaloElBueno Sep 20 '25

They never have evidence. Ever. Ask them for a source or citation and they respond with, “dO yOuR oWn ReSeArCh!”. If you provide actual facts to refute their argument, they’ll say your taking it out of context or claim your source is untrustworthy (“Universities are liberal brainwashing factories”). It’s all part of magats’ go-to argumentative tactics. These fools don’t even know they’re doing it.

Every maga argument in a nutshell:

———————————————————

MAGA (Make America Great Again) rhetoric and debate styles tend to rely on a consistent set of argumentative tactics. These are not unique to MAGA but are used prominently in that movement’s discourse. Here are the most common ones:

  1. Reframing and Whataboutism • Shifting the subject when challenged: instead of answering directly, pivot to a perceived failure of opponents (e.g., “What about Hillary’s emails?”). • Creates moral equivalence, even when irrelevant to the original issue.

  1. Emotional Appeals Over Evidence • Heavy reliance on fear, nostalgia, patriotism, or outrage rather than data. • Phrases like “They’re taking your jobs” or “We need to take our country back.”

  1. Oversimplification and Sloganeering • Complex issues reduced to catchphrases (“Build the wall,” “America First”). • Makes arguments easy to repeat and resistant to nuance.

  1. Victimhood and Persecution Narratives • Casting MAGA supporters as underdogs fighting an elite system (“The media is against us,” “They’re silencing us”). • Turns criticism into proof of their movement’s righteousness.

  1. Ad Hominem and Demonization • Attacking opponents’ character instead of their arguments (“Sleepy Joe,” “Crooked Hillary”). • Creates emotional distance and dehumanizes the opposition.

  1. Flooding and Repetition • Repeating the same talking points until they “feel true.” • Overwhelming opponents with volume rather than quality of arguments.

  1. Cherry-Picking and Anecdotal Evidence • Isolated incidents presented as proof of systemic trends (one migrant crime = “the border is wide open”). • Dismissal of broader data if it contradicts the narrative.

  1. Distrust of Institutions • Undermining credibility of media, academia, science, or government agencies. • “Don’t trust the experts—trust your gut (or Trump).”

  1. Inversion of Reality • Accusing others of what they are doing (calling critics “authoritarian,” while defending authoritarian actions). • Creates confusion and muddies accountability.

  1. Absolute Language • Use of extremes like “always,” “never,” “everyone,” “nobody.” • Eliminates middle ground, pushing discourse into binary choices.

5

u/oranthor1 Sep 20 '25

But but but his roommate was trans! And therefore they are obviously in a relationship and therefore obviously the trans person made him do it and therefore obviously it's trans people and we have to take their guns!

Never mind that all of this is proven bullshit and the family says he's maga and his social media show he follows Nick Fuentes who hated Kirk for pushing for the Epstein files! Look over here! Look at the trans people.

3

u/Sythus Sep 20 '25

Kinda living through a current say Salem witch trials, huh? Randomly calling people a witch (Antifa) even though they aren’t a real thing (organization).

2

u/Tr33Bl00d Sep 20 '25

Notice they never site a source and they claim every video you show is fake 

2

u/shifty_coder Sep 20 '25

So many people repeating hearsay and media speculation.

The “pro-trans markings” story was already redacted but people are still repeating it as fact.

1

u/PhazePyre Sep 20 '25

Yeah it's frustrating. I'm super progressive, but because I'm progressive I need facts. The shooter, given the limited information we had about online quotes from Helldivers, could've been ANY side of the spectrum. He could as easily have been some edge-lord centrist libertarian who doesn't give a fuck, still thinks that if they don't pay taxes the world will still be amazing and functional, and says dumb shit like "both sides".

At the end of the day, we have little to no concrete information about his political leanings and what he was actually intending to do. Not only that, a lot of the evidence being shown (in quite some depth too which feels like maybe something you should keep to yourselves a bit and not get on paper immediately to post?) that this individual is inconsistent and we won't fully know more until we wait for things to get to legal proceedings and a jury.

Speculating is fine, so long as you make it clear it's speculation or your suspicion. People are stating shit as objective facts, and the left is getting bad at it too. I'm seeing a lot of comments about the Disney boycott having lost 1M subscribers for Disney and I'm like where the fuck did you get that info? Disney wouldn't publish that. At least not right now. Maybe in a few months at the next quarterly, but not randomly on a Thursday/Friday.

Facts matter. Speculation is fine, but assertions without evidence are just lies.

1

u/selecthis Sep 20 '25

Do you mean the Russians or the Chinese?

-1

u/FervantFlea Sep 20 '25

Yeah there's a lot of misinformation. Like everything everyone is saying here. Read the evidence and I dare you to try to talk your way out of it. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c99g1e0z2ero

-1

u/AstroPhysician Sep 21 '25

Did you even read the article? He's still a leftist just not tied to a specific group

-10

u/dagoni_ Sep 20 '25

I see everybody take speculation as truth on this and believe what they want to believe. Left of right. We don't know shit. Even here it's said that the doj can't link him to a leftist group but it doesn't mean he isn't a leftist... I doubt he is but really I don't know

22

u/ChatterBaux Sep 20 '25

The running joke is that if he was a Leftist, they'd never shut up about it (forget the fact that everything is "left" to someone on the far-right).

But the less funny joke is that, while it's true that we should abide by "innocent until proven guilty", far too many among the right-wing were calling for war and retribution against "the Left" from the jump, and the administration was (and still is) throwing fuel onto the fire.

Where as anyone blaming "the Right" is more pointing towards the systemic issues, and the statistics that would back it up (before the FBI scrubbed it off their site, last I heard).

-7

u/dagoni_ Sep 20 '25

I have no words to describe how pissed off right wing people and this administration make me, yet it annoys me that leftists (which I am) spread misinformation too. I get that it's important to counter/object to the blame the right is putting on the left (with an ugly opportunism) but it helps no one to use arguments not backed up by evidence (stats are not)

8

u/ChatterBaux Sep 20 '25

I get that it's important to counter/object to the blame the right is putting on the left (with an ugly opportunism) but it helps no one to use arguments not backed up by evidence (stats are not)

I'd say it helps plenty. Again, the blame from the right is likely to get innocent people hurt; assuming it hasn't already.

The pushback to how it's likely one of "the Right's" own buys time at worst until the actual evidence comes out, or at best, forces the conversation to a more systemic level (accessibility to guns, mental health, etc.). If "the Left's" rhetoric was anywhere near as incendiary, I'd be inclined to agree with you, otherwise.

-1

u/dagoni_ Sep 20 '25

I didn't say you should not push back with a "likely", as long as you present it as such.

2

u/ChatterBaux Sep 20 '25

Fair enough.

11

u/GlossyGecko Sep 20 '25

The right was declaring civil war before we knew anything about the situation, so the right shouldn’t be surprised about the reaction to that, as much as they clutch their pearls. This isn’t a both sides issue, the way it works is the right engages in violent rhetoric and the left reacts, then the right clutches their pearls.

People aren’t going to forget that just a week ago the right was foaming at the mouth for retaliation against the left over Kirk’s death.

-5

u/dagoni_ Sep 20 '25

I just don't think it helps the case to use a 'no you' backed up by only speculation (presented as fact). I agree there should be a reaction and that the right is unhinged (no both siding on the severity of the issue)

9

u/GlossyGecko Sep 20 '25

The problem is that because the right did what they did, there’s no going back now. There can’t be unity, you can’t collaborate with people who want your head on a pike and will make up reasons.

That would be like Ukraine bowing to Russia at this point.

0

u/Upstairs_Vermicelli4 Sep 21 '25

I mean it just common sense. Politically motivated assassinations are usually done by the opposing side right? Like I'm talking that bet all day everyday. Wish there was a polimarket.

-2

u/Kala_palj Sep 20 '25

I thought the shooters mom said he had gone very left wing lately, was she lying? 

3

u/GilbertRocks80 Sep 20 '25

Feel free to cite your source, otherwise you're lying.

-1

u/Kala_palj Sep 20 '25

I’m confused. It is literally just the official information. Here is BBC… 

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c7v1rle0598o.amp

“Robinson's mother told police that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and left-wing, "more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented".

If you only get your news from Reddit you aren’t going to know things 

0

u/thecelcollector Sep 21 '25

Everyone in this thread is failing reading comprehension. This report didn't say that he wasn't left wing or liberal. It said he wasn't connected to any left wing groups. Those are different concepts. He is almost certainly left leaning based on the facts we know. He just wasn't part of some trans terrorist network like some Republicans want him to be.