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SirTophamHatt's avatar

I am not a wigger and i don’t spend much time defending wiggers, but the framing here is just dishonest. No one is saying that the murder of Charlie Kirk is “predictive of a ‘wave of violence’”, they are saying that the OPEN CELEBRATION of his murder by large segments of the online left is indicative of a sentiment that could lead to many copycat murders. There was no similar celebration on the right following the Hortman murder (no one cared, lol) so that is not analogous in the slightest. I’m not even sure why i should bother with the rest of the article when the very beginning is founded on such a lousy straw man for a premise.

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Never Forget's avatar

Correct.

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Jim's avatar

Who is celebrating? As in, is there anyone with an actual name, someone who matters, and not just anonymous social media accounts? If social media weirdos get you worked up, you're going to have a bad time.

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SirTophamHatt's avatar

Yeah, there’s lots. Ever heard of the streamer called “Destiny” (Steven Bonnell)? He has over a million followers between various platforms, and was celebrating it openly. Even on mainstream TV like MSNBC there were people implying he deserved it, etc. And those are just a couple examples that come to mind.

If I had twitter open in front of me right now i could find about a dozen more instances of prominent leftists (not just random accounts with 50 followers!) doing the same in minutes.

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Benjamin Harris's avatar

Mid interpreting Destiny’s position is wigger behavior

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Steady Drumbeat's avatar

Please give me the quote in which Steven Bonnell celebrated the assassination ‘openly.’ I’ve heard him say, repeatedly, that ‘no one should die of political violence in the United States.’ What I’ve seen described as him celebrating has been his quite reasonable statement that he will publicly condemn Kirk’s murder only after the leader of the Republican Party, Donald Trump, calls for a decrease in temperature from all sides.

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Jim's avatar

So social media people, exactly my point

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SirTophamHatt's avatar

Why do people on social media not matter? They form the opinions of hundreds of thousands in real life.

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Jim's avatar

Social media is optimized for outrage. Someone is always willing to push the envelope. Don’t feed the machine, put your attention towards better uses.

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SirTophamHatt's avatar

Now you’re moving goalposts. Even if I conceded that point, it does not refute the argument of my original comment.

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SirTophamHatt's avatar

Here is an example from our very own substack!

This woman has 36k subscribers

https://open.substack.com/pub/planetcritical/p/charlie-kirk?r=11s7wd&utm_medium=ios

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Kryptogal (Kate, if you like)'s avatar

It's a funny comparison but somewhat makes sense, given that there are more black people in the US with naturally conservative/right-wing attitudes, they just don't and won't vote Republican bc right wingers always make it so consistently and constantly clear that they don't like them and think they're below them. If it wasn't for that, there'd be more black right wingers than white right wingers.

However, I want to point out that that conservatives being characterized by having hysterical threat-detection systems when it comes to out groups, with essentially zero capacity for rational thought any time they perceive any (usually imagined and always exaggerated) out-group threat because they go into a furious emotional tail-spin...has always been a thing and is in fact pretty much their primary defining characteristic, along with liking hierarchies. They acted EXACTLY like this after 9/11, except back then it went on for years and years on end. Anyone who was even slightly critical of say invading Iraq was declared a terrorist, etc. The GOP literally renamed French Fries in federal cafeterias to Freedom Fries from 2003 to 2006 because they were so upset that France didn't want to join the Iraq war even though they were strong allies in Afghanistan and in general. They spent about 7 years straight acting like total morons who thought everyone was a terrorist, including anyone who ever voted for a Democrat in their life. It's really a shame that most millennials have no memory of this. The only difference was that at the time, it was all on Fox News and the actual GOP and right wing radio, because they weren't all online yet.

Democrats absolutely fucked up, and badly, by capitulating to BLM riots and woke cancelation mobs in general. I attribute that to basically happening because some of least serious, dumbest, statistically incompetent bleeding hearts among them -- aka young high school and college aged women and their teachers -- were some of the first people to really get into social media and as early adopters they held excessive power there. Add in a bunch of catty, envious journalists trying to make a living in NYC in a profession that has become ultra-competitive because it's disappearing, and that was fuel on the fire for ramping up hysteria and cancellation, as they were ALL on Twitter and the primary power users a decade ago. Then of course just add in that the DNC I'm fact cannot afford to alienate black voters or they'll never win again, so they're unwilling to say no or speak against them in instances where they're acting like conservatives and clearly wrong and insisting on fearful non-truths....and you get what you got. It was a big, BIG mistake, showed a lot of cowardice, and now they're living with the backlash.

Anyway I don't disagree with you, just pointing out that the current fear/tribalistic rabid anger response is not actually unusual or different than the past, it's exactly how they acted in the 2000s and eventually people got sick of it, which they will again.

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Ronigan's avatar

Wow that was a jumbled mess to read through. Anyways, in the words of Bill Maher, I'm gonna file you under: Part of the problem.

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Kryptogal (Kate, if you like)'s avatar

Weird since I'm probably the biggest Bill Maher fan you'll meet.

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Ronigan's avatar

Yeah that's obvious since you have his instinct to characterize the right as dumb and hysterical instead of engaging with their points.

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Kryptogal (Kate, if you like)'s avatar

They sometimes have valid points when they're not in triggered mode by a perceived out-group threat. But when they are there's no point in engaging bc they are in fact hysterical, you just have to wait til they calm down.

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Kryptogal (Kate, if you like)'s avatar

When the point is "every Democrat is a terrorist" or "they all want you dead" there is nothing to engage with, that is hysteria.

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Ronigan's avatar

Really? Because as a rational actor, you could just look at the input they are getting to form that output. You might end up saying "You're right, a lot of those people *do* want people like you dead. They're saying it."

Are you going to argue that I'm wrong? There aren't tons of people out there praising Charlie Kirk's murder? He didn't get murdered for his political views, and my parents actually *don't* have similar enough views to his that those same people would be laughing at their deaths too if they knew their political views?

Of course not, you're going to deflect, because despite all that talk about "right-wing tribalism" you know that admitting that would make your side look bad.

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Kryptogal (Kate, if you like)'s avatar

Yes you're wrong, there are not a lot of people doing that, there is a statistically tiny itty bitty tiny group of people doing that, who are being retweeted, reposted, and amplified 1,000 times over by right wing accounts. Just like there was a statistically tiny, itty bitty tiny number of cops who shot black people last decade, but those times were reposted, retweeted and amplified 1,000 times over and made people freak out and think cops were literally trying to kill black people. I believe this was DL's point. Hysterical people reacting emotionally cannot and will not comprehend statistical matters. You can go onto any one of the hundreds of big left leaning Substack accounts and read them and read the comments and see what yourself what they are actually saying and no one is celebrating. Some people say they don't care. Are people allowed to not care? Does that mean they want millions of people dead? Of course it does not, that's hysteria.

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Erek Tinker's avatar

I saw just as many right leaning people wishing harm on Democrats (actually more, way more) than the obverse.

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Erek Tinker's avatar

So you agree with her. Because you just did exactly what she said.

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Bruce London's avatar

So you believe posts and notes on Substack are a reflection and sampling of Conservatives? What would you say to someone who claimed the celebratory messages regarding Kirk’s murder is a demonstration of the immorality of Leftists? Do you really believe the relatively few people who post on Substack are representative of the mainstream of Left or Right? It’s more representative of the extremes than the mainstream.

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Bruce London's avatar

Couldn’t read beyond your first bs claim that “right wingers always make it so consistently and constantly clear that they don't like them and think they're below them.” What total bullshit! What you should be saying is that blacks have been brainwashed by the left and left-wing shills in the mainstream media to believe that bs.

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Kryptogal (Kate, if you like)'s avatar

I mean, you can just read through their posts and notes here on Substack. They make it pretty clear and don't hide it. Probably at least partly bc TOS won't delete or suspend an account for that here, unlike most sites.

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Mike 🇺🇸 🏴‍☠️ ن's avatar

Just a minor issue. BLM got bodycams for cops expanded. That was their one good position and thankfully the only one they really were successful in getting others to adopt.

You are right about 01/06 though, there has been no wide ranging consequences for it. At the time I was too pissed off at the riots to care (they happened in my city). I should have been more far sighted.

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DJ's avatar

They also got rid of no-knock warrants and qualified immunity in a few states. There's a comprehensive list here:

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/articles/List_of_police_reforms_related_to_the_George_Floyd_protests#States_and_municipalities

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Mike 🇺🇸 🏴‍☠️ ن's avatar

No knock warrants I think should be extremely limited to where you have lives immediately threatened.

Qualified immunity is good in principle but in practice it is a shitshow if you look at the individual cases (I remember one where a cop punched a guy who was cuffed and immobile), there are some really shitty applications of it.

Thanks for the list.

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Richard Hanania's avatar

Great essay.

BTW, are you aware you can just embed notes in these articles by posting the link? Much easier.

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Bruce London's avatar

Just a suggestion. Refrain from making videos. You come across as a complete moron when you talk and stream yourself.

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Michael A Alexander's avatar

There is no return to a Romney or Bush right. Republicans are a working class party now. They have nothing to offer working class voters that will materially improve their lives. Their working-class base knows this, but that never was the reason they voted Republican. They voted for the potential for right-wing social policy, opposition to abortion and affirmative action top of the list. Well Roe is gone, and so is AA. The dog caught the car. All that is left is double down on increasing right-wing ideas. Why do you suppose Trump ran the way he did? He saw the unmet market need for a racist, over-the-top xenophobe, and that is what he provided, first as Birther-in-Chief and then with the diatribe after descending the escalator. His market intuition was right, he soared to the top of the Republican field and subsequently made the GOP his bitch.

There is no going back.

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Light Granite's avatar

Republicans do not care about the working class. The GOP remains a party of the elite despite support from rural Americans.

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Spencer's avatar

<Belief that there is a conspiracy to genocide them by “elites”>

There is no conspiracy to genocide whites but there is an effort, sometimes carried out behind the scenes, to reduce them to a minority *in their own countries* and against many of their wishes, as well as a granting of state privilege to minorities. So, yeah, lots of honkees be mad. Moralizing against xenophobia, which is not even immoral, doesn’t rebut the desire to keep one’s homeland (what’s left of it).

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SirTophamHatt's avatar

Very well said. I was so incensed by the first straw man this article begins with (see my main comment) that i didn’t even bother to address this one. Although to be fair, some WigNats have been know to use the phrase “white genocide” or some variation thereof in their rhetoric, so it’s not an entirely unfair mischaracterization provided he’s describing those types specifically.

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Dr Livci's avatar

Pretty crappy article overall. Ill give it 2/10. What conservatives are specifically mad about and find scary is the scale of support for Charlies murder openly expressed on the left. Conservatives have never openly cheered like this over a liberal being murdered to my knowledge. So your framing is really off. Also Jan 6 isn't really analogues ro Jan6. Way more people were arrested over Jan 6 and tons of Republicans condemned it. Like lots. Nothing like that happened with BLM and the Dems. So yeah very bad framing, very bad analogues etc.

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Light Granite's avatar

Conservatives made fun of Trayvon martin being killed. Conservatives collectively yawned when Peyton Gendron killed several blacks shopping at a supermarket. Conservatives made fun of Paul pelosi getting attacked by a guy with a hammer. They were dismissive after Robert Bowers killed multiple Jews at the tree of life synagogue.

Conservatives are selective in their outrage.

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Dr Livci's avatar

Nah Trayvon literally attacked someone so it's not comparable at all. The conservatives were mocking how you guys pretend he was attacked for no reason. Yawning likewise isn't comparable to how you guys are acting about Charlie. If you are talking about 4chan being happy about jews about getting shot okay but conflating anonmyous 4chan edgelords with vanilla Conservatives is the best you can come up with which shows how weak your comparisons are. Furthermore show me a mainstream conservative thats dismissive about jewish victimhood in general. Go ahead.

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geoduck's avatar

You cited "the left", no mainstream or vanilla about it. Let's say Greta Thunberg gets ventilated. Are you prepared to offer your personal guarantee of only the classiest behavior from "the right"?

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Erek Tinker's avatar

We could probably find out by looking up how the right behaved when Rachel Corrie got flattened. The Israeli right made pancakes with her face on them.

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Light Granite's avatar

I thought you believed in self defense? Mr Martin stood his ground. I guess he was the wrong phenotype.

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Erek Tinker's avatar

Trayvon Martin defended himself against someone who attacked him.

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Kryptogal (Kate, if you like)'s avatar

99% haven't said anything like this though, there are literally heartfelt condolences and tributes to the tragedy by prominent and nobody liberals, that vastly dwarf in both quantity, effort, and authenticity the reactions of a few vulgar Tik Tokkers...that was the standard and normal reaction that you can see all over this site and elsewhere. But more to the point, I think you're making the wrong analogy. The people who are saying they don't care or that he deserved it are basically thinking something like "well yeah, that's what happens when you support unrestricted high powered firearms for any psycho to obtain...people end up getting shot." To them it's just an example of someone fucking around with obviously dangerous things ending up having it go badly, not an actual wish that he or anyone else would die. The proper analogy is more like when conservatives would say, which they basically all did in the 80s, "well that's what ends up happening when you have buttsex with other guys, you get AIDS and die." Or when people think "well that's what happens when you try to climb Mount Everest, you end up freezing to death on a mountain" or "well, that's what happens when you join the NFL, you get brain damage dummy." It's not the same thing as wishing death upon someone, it's just not having sympathy.

Not that I am supporting that view, I think trying to have open conversation on college campuses like Kirk did is a good thing to do and a horrible thing to be murdered for. And yes, there were a few dumbasses on TikTok expressing glee, but they're random morons that most people think were in severely bad taste doing that, who then had their accounts amplified and retweeted/reposted a thousand times. No party or tribe ever takes ownership of the fringe psycho assholes on their side, because they don't view them as on their side. Only people on the other side view them that way.

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Timothy Gutwald's avatar

Have you met any leftists cheering this murder in real life? Even if it’s 300k twitter accounts, that .1% of the population. It’s awful and deplorable but it’s not representative of anything but twitter. And sure some Republicans condemned January 6th but the president of the United States is a republican who pardoned the participants so that seems to swamp whatever condemnation occurred.

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Erek Tinker's avatar

Yes they have. It's absurd to claim that Republicans don't celebrate political violence aimed at the left. Either dishonest or stupid. Always hard to tell with Republicans.

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JJJ's avatar

lol I ain't heard the word wigger in 20 years, brother

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Pootie Tang Capital's avatar

Use the occasion to rewatch Pootie tang! It’s really good, only 69 minutes long, and free on YouTube

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JJJ's avatar

ah man I love Pootie Tang. I can see it’s your thing.

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Farmer Todd's avatar

Wigga please

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Michael A Alexander's avatar

The collapse of the KKK was in 1926. It peaked in the previous year.

https://chart-studio.plotly.com/~cimar/1416.embed

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Jared Penner's avatar

I’m interested in seeing you explore this idea further.

I agree with your premise that the “per capita” debate recently applied to trans shootings doesn’t hold water. My understanding of right wing rhetoric is that per capita is typically applied to black crime (“13% pop, 50% murders”). As someone that sees white nat as more dangerous than black nat, would you apply ethnic filtered lenses to other violent or economic crimes? Is the white nat application of per capita flawed there as well?

You also mention crime as a major pillar of right wing constituencies along with other religious themed aims. I think you left out “The Great Replacement” of ethnic whites through increased level of legal immigration and relaxed view on illegal immigration as they see it. How would sink the popular appeal of that part of the conservative life raft?

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LB's avatar

lol

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WILL TELL's avatar

I agree with almost everything you said save for the conclusion in the final paragraph.

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Pootie Tang Capital's avatar

You forgot to add “financially illiterate and constantly falling for scams as a result of knowing fuck all about how anything works”

The CharliesMurderers website was down within 48 hours, but managed a big crypto crowdfund from ragepigs who, presumably, thought GoDaddy would be perfectly fine with hosting a revenge doxing website. (Jk they never thought that far in advance)

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nik's avatar

Okay sure, but I am not a “wigger right” and almost none of the right is “wigger right” given your definition, and it’s almost certain that none of these “wiggers” will be reading this post because you purposely painted a fake and shallow strawman to attack, so what exactly was the point here? Maybe it’s you who doesn’t understand per capita after all

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I Subscribe To Those I Like's avatar

Well, I guess we’re all Niggers now, ehm, I mean Wiggers, that’s fine, don’t care, after all, it’s just another frame for “Redneck”, “White Trash” etc.

The point is we “Wiggers” now see the framing crystal clear; this is now the life we have under GNC and if you don’t like or dare notice, you’re dead.

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SirTophamHatt's avatar

It’s not really synonymous with those things, although there’s some overlap. “Rednecks” and “White Trash” do not necessarily fetishize race in the same way that Wiggers do. That’s not the derogatory implication of those names.

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