“DEMOCRATS OWN THIS!” bellowed Nancy Mace. And also “Time to bring back the death penalty.” She was not alone. Immediately after Charlie Kirk was shot, before he’d even breathed his last, right-wingers chorused in unison about how The Left was to blame, and poor Charlie was a martyr to the cause of freedom of speech, and he was the target of hate from The Left because of his conservative views that had cost his life, and this is war, and by god they’re all gonna pay with their lives. The White House Occupant vowed to throw liberals into a dungeon if they so much as had thoughts that were too loud.
And then a couple of days later, when it turned out that the gunman was — as just about anyone who’s been paying attention could have predicted — a MAGA himself, the rhetoric abruptly pivoted, at least for some of them, from “KILL THE LIBS” to “thoughts and prayers everybody, thoughts and prayers — even for the killer”.
The strategy shifted from claiming the gunman must have been a transgender Marxist undocumented person of color, to insisting that despite the right-wing background of the killer himself, The Left still made him do it somehow — by, um, not letting conservatives have their way enough. Or something.
But during those first couple of days denizens of MAGA World really fired on all cylinders in their presumptions of who actually fired the bullets. And they had plenty of help from the media, both of the rabid reactionary variety like Fox “News” and even mainstream, relatively more sane quarters. Almost all of whom were willing either to engage in unhinged speculation or repeat the unhinged speculation that others were engaging in.
At best, the narrative was that “they” killed him, and “they” were celebrating his death. It’s often hard to know who this ubiquitous and nebulous “they” is supposed to be, but it clearly wasn’t Democrats, who pretty much unanimously decried the shooting in no uncertain terms.
All the publicity this assassination elicited overshadowed a concurrent shooting, at a school in Colorado. Again the shooter was (surprise) a right-wing fanatic. But even after this became known, the media did not try to pigeonhole him ideologically, nor did they boldly conjecture about how his politics triggered his trigger finger. Instead, they cautioned against jumping to conclusions about his motives, and merely noted that (in the words of the AP report) he had been “radicalized by some extremist network.” Hmmm… Now doncha wonder just what network that might have been?
Librulmedia bias strikes yet again.
The Propaganda Professor 
Bring back the death penalty?
It’s Utah. They’ve had the death penalty for the last 48 years. When the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in 1976, it was the first state to execute someone.
If I remember correctly, Utah executed someone within the last few months.,
Shhh!! Don’t tell Nancy Mace. It makes much better campaign fodder if she calls to bring back something GREAT the librulz did away with.
He was a hard core leftist living with a transitioning transgender!
Sure, his politics are more sensational than rational, and we know many on the left are dying to hang Republicans with real facts. But It occurs to me that the confused and angry conservatives I see in the opinion pages are beginning to see through the lunatic gamble of the king’s politics and realizing that they are not going to become “tired of winning,” any time soon. His distaste for sensible regulations are hurting those who work for bureaucracies as well as the public, and are bringing up prices as high as they can go–making many consumer products so high priced as to be unaffordable. But I have begun to understand that the many outrageous lies in politics today are considered to be philosophically accepted maxims stating that, (the ends justify the mean). However, it it is no longer always helpful to try and create peace and acceptance in a world that no longer values either. And Objective truth is no longer automatically expected to promote victory (which often goes to those who makes the most empty promises (that they can’t really keep). But still. In response to conservatives many voters have sacrificed logic by giving up their reliance on objective facts.
Although Trumpers anger me by lying, and their willingness to distort given facts, most of their audience seems to be willing to accept their views regardless if they are factual or not? So what we need to do is not to oppose them, but instead, sincerely ask them why objective reasoning is no longer valued by conservatives? And why will many candidates win when limiting discussions and ignoring facts?
During the last election it was mainly Trumpers who relied on their abilities to spread lies. So what the left needs to do is ask what the reasons are, that Trumpers now accept such lies unquestionably? Because only when they have a need to listen to truth instead of fake facts, will they see who is lying. And why they don’t abandon conservative blowhards who are finally being caught in own their lies! i.e. Why do they assume that climate scientists with PhDs are only lying for their own benefits? And we also need to ask them to explain why believing their own global warming lies are not supposedly going to cause harm, when they ignore real facts? Once we know those thing, perhaps knowing how to answer them will be filled in automatically by all the rest?
Peter W. Johnson
Superior, WI. 54880
If the shooter had been black, the killing would be blamed on Black lives matter. If the killer was Latino, Asian, Greek or New Zealander, it would’ve been blamed on one member of those groups. And if the killer was Italian maybe the Pope would have been deemed the killer. This all reminds me of one of those episodes of Law and Order, where a large crowed is screaming in front of the Courthouse, and blaming cops for not finding the killer yet.
I guess we all like to blame what we don’t understand on others, and unfortunately politicians are very good at doing that,