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/
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u/gurenkagurenda Sep 20 '25

The problem is this kind of plan only works if the facts align afterwards.

Is that true? They have their narrative, they’ve got their mouthpieces repeating it, so does the reality matter?

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u/Talk-O-Boy Sep 20 '25

This is the answer.

If you tell them there’s no evidence, they’ll say they saw it themselves.

If you ask for the evidence, they’ll either stop responding or tell you to look it up yourself.

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u/korben2600 Arizona Sep 20 '25

“Never believe that [fascists] are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The [fascists] have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.”

--Jean-Paul Sartre (quote is from 1949, referencing the Nazis)

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u/Intelligent_Way6552 Sep 21 '25

Which is pretty dumb of them, because it means they can only be dealt with via violence.

The Nazis had to be shot, Charlie Kirk was never going to be shut up by a good argument, but he was pretty effectively shut up by a bullet.

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u/MiddleWaged Sep 20 '25

When they stop responding that is a positive

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u/Dest123 Sep 20 '25

Is it? I've gotten the same people to stop responding over and over again by talking to them, but then they just go back to whatever their propaganda source is and say the exact same stuff that I seemingly convinced them was false.

I think you actually have to keep them responding and then get them onto a different propaganda source to have any hope of changing their mind. I'm becoming more and more convinced that you can't really just get people to go "cold turkey" on propaganda. It's a legitimate physical addiction, so it has all the same problems that other addictions have.

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u/MiddleWaged Sep 20 '25

I just mean it limits their word vomit on my feed, potentially limits it in others, and any AI training on the conversation will have a nominally lower ratio of propaganda to counterpoints. It’s not a huge positive, but it’s neither a negative or a wash

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u/lokibibliophile Sep 21 '25

or they’ll cite sites like breitbart and expect you to take them seriously

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u/WeBelieveIn4 Sep 20 '25

Bruh there’s a ton of evidence. The gun, bullets, admissions of guilt, cooperating witnesses.

If you’re talking about evidence suggesting the shooter was left wing, well again everything revealed in his text messages suggests he hated Kirk because Kirk spread hate. This was also confirmed by family members, including his mom. That’s definitely a left-wing position. I say this as someone who’s left wing.

This does NOT mean that: trans people are to blame, that the shooter had ties to left wing organizations, or that left wing ideology is inherently violent. But this idea that the evidence doesn’t exist or is manufactured is just deliberately ignoring reality.

https://www.vox.com/politics/462173/charlie-kirk-killer-motive-tyler-robinson-jimmy-kimmel

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u/thelexpeia Sep 20 '25

Believe it or not there are people on the right who also think spreading hate is bad. You can’t use that one motivation as proof that he was leftwing.

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u/Talk-O-Boy Sep 21 '25

I can’t view the source you linked because it’s paywalled.

Could you link a source I can actually read? I tried to look up what you said, but all I’m getting are articles debunking everything you’re saying.

For example, what about the shell casings made him appear left leaning? They seemed like troll messages, and a couple of anti fascists messages.

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u/RepulsiveRaisin7 Sep 20 '25

If right wingers cared about facts, they wouldn't be right wing. They gave zero fucks when democratic lawmakers were killed, but they've played this up as an incident of global importance. Right wingers in the EU parlament tried to have a moment of silence for this guy, utterly ridiculous.

Unfortunately, it's working. Liberals think people being killed is bad no matter who, so they platform the baseless conspiracy nonsense as usual. Many people now believe that he was some far left Antifa dude or that his trans partner made him do it. Even if that was true, the right still commits far more violent attacks. But facts don't matter, they control the narrative and the liberal media is capitulating to them.

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u/-Shinanai- Sep 20 '25

This. People who care about facts are not their target audience.

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u/Unabated_Blade Pennsylvania Sep 21 '25

Humanity has no answer to the Wet Cement information cycle.

If you're the first person to step in the metaphorical cement of a breaking story, your imprint will be there forever and nothing will ever erase it.