SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 2025
Jesse Watters returns: Yesterday, at 5 p.m., Jesse Watters was back on The Five. In the broadest sense, he made the same presentation he'd made on Wednesday's program.
Needless to say, he has the perfect right to say what he thinks. Early in yesterday's five o'clock hour, Martha MacCallum tossed to Watters.
Here's the first thing he said about the arrest of Tyler Robinson, age 22:
MACCALLUM (9/12/25): Your thoughts on how this played out, Jesse.
WATTERS: Well, so he was a smart kid and he got a scholarship and dropped out after one semester. So something happened in the first semester and it went crazy. And so he went back to live with his parents, and then he isolated and became all online and went loco. And he was a bad seed and the family did the right thing and I'm glad they did.
With respect to Robinson: It went crazy, then he went loco, and he was a bad seed.
To watch the full segment from The Five, you can just click here. As to what may have happened to Robinson "in the first semester" (or thereabouts), we'll offer one possibility down below.
Last evening, Watters continued from there. Along the way, he may have explained his absence from Thursday's Fox News Channel shows:
WATTERS (continuing directly): I want to talk about Charlie though. I'm still shook. I can't believe it. It's not going away, this feeling that I have.
We were at a funeral service for Emma's grandmother last night, and everyone came up to me and talked about Charlie. He touched so many people—and he died honorably. He died fighting in the battle of ideas. And that's what he loved to do. He loved to do battle—verbally!
And the left is losing the battle of ideas, and they're losing badly. They're losing on DEI, on trans, on the border, on crime. And because they can't win an argument, they're trying to kill...
We're going to stop right there.
We agree with one chunk of what Watters said. Speaking broadly, "the left" has been losing the battle of ideas with respect to the southern border, but also with respect to various aspects of "DEI" and "trans."
We Blues have often advanced ideas and policies in those areas which are very hard to defend, not just within the realm of public opinion but also on the merits.
Viewed broadly, Blue America has been losing some of those battles. But then, this highly unsophisticated thinker transitioned over to this:
And because they can't win an argument, they're trying to kill.
In the formulation of this fuzzy thinker, there "they" are going again!
As we noted yesterday, "they" is a dangerous word. Within the context of "cable news," it encourages viewers to condemn extremely large groups of people—to condemn and denounce them en masse.
Did a 22-year-old man named Tyler Robinson commit an act of murder this week? All of a sudden, the answer starts to seem to be this:
Robinson didn't conduct that killing. As it turns out, "they" did!
Full disclosure! In last November's presidential election, 75.0 million people voted for Candidate Harris.
Question: How many of those people killed the late Charlie Kirk this week?
Answer: None of them did! Tyler Robinson apparently killed Charlie Kirk, and he didn't vote!
Also this:
Last November, 77.3 million people voted for Candidate Trump. Back in June, how many of those people murdered Melissa Hortman, the Democratic (DFL) speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives?
Answer: At the very most, one (1) of those 77.3 million people did! The other 77.3 mullion people didn't shoot and kill that highly regarded political figure.
Simply put, Jesse Watters isn't a sophisticated political analyst. That doesn't mean that he's a bad person. It means he's a person person.
At one time, fuzzy thinkers of this type would not have bene hired to play key roles in American broadcast news. Today, the instinct to engage in dangerous acts of generalization and conflation make Watters a perfect fit for the apparent purposes of the Fox News Channel.
Fellow citizens, we aren't making this up! Here's what he actually said:
Because "they" can't win an argument, "they" are trying to kill!
That's the amazingly flyweight construction which came from Watters upon his return. His group accusation last night was delivered with less vehemence than had been the case on Wednesday. But he was still trafficking a very dangerous pair of words:
He was trading in the glory of "us" versus the demonic "them."
That is very dangerous conduct. It seems to be what the bosses of this "cable news" channel want.
As to what may have happened to Tyler Robinson, we'll link you to what's shown below. It's a PBS report from 2017—the year in which one (1) person shot Rep. Gabby Giffords, wounding her for life:
For Some Young Men, a Dangerous Age for Mental Illness
Jared Loughner, the 22-year-old suspect accused of killing six people this week and wounding 14 others, including his target Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, joins an infamous roster of gunmen—23-year-old Virginia Tech shooter Seung-hui Cho, Columbine high school seniors Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, and others.
The shooting has, once again, focused attention on a young man with possible mental illness who slipped through the cracks. But why is it that so many of these perpetrators are young men?
The first signs of severe mental illness often appear in adolescence and early adulthood, doctors say. Schizophrenia, for example, is usually diagnosed in men in their late teens to mid-20s, and in women about five years older...
And so on from there.
Was an onset of severe mental illness involved in what happened in Utah this week? Refashioning that in WattersSpeak, might that explain why it went crazy with the bad seed, after which he went loco?
We have no way to answer that question. Almost surely, the major organs of our national press will be reluctant to speak to medical specialists.
Meanwhile and overall, this:
"They" is a dangerous word! Watters is drawn to such dangerous words because, if we're willing to be honest, he has no business being cast in the prominent role he now holds.
(We ourselves shouldn't be running the Bolshoi Ballet. Jesse Watters shouldn't be starring on Fox.)
In conclusion, this:
Many people have said many dumb things over the past many years. Some have been Red and some have been Blue, but we're all in this nation together.
We're all in this flailing nation together—but, as Franklin is said to have said, only if we can keep it!
They say the 22-year old, cisgender white male who killed Charlie Kirk, is named Tyler Robinson.
ReplyDeleteIf guilty, I'm blaming him.
Apparently a groyper.
DeleteThere's conflicting evidence, @Anon 12:22.
DeleteWhat is the evidence he is not a groyper? Please be specific in your response.
Delete@Anon 1:30: Reported by the Guardian:
DeleteIn a phone interview on Friday, one of Tyler Robinson’s high school friends, who asked to remain anonymous, said that the suspect was “pretty left on everything” and was “the only member of his family that was really leftist.”
“The rest of his family was very hard Republican,” the friend said.
That report doesn’t say what leftist positions Tyler supported, only that the friend thought they were leftist.
DeleteHis grandmother said the family was "hard Republican". I suspect he was radicalized during his first semester at college. As I said yesterday, it isn't hard to be to the left of "hard Republicans" and Mormons, since they are extreme to begin with. Anything to the left of such views, including centrist Republican views, would seem left. But adolescent rebellion against parental views, in the form of political discussions over dinner or in a classroom doesn't amount to becoming a radical leftist (as Trump calls us).
DeleteThe Groyper and gamer participation, which is documented and not sourced to a school friend, is hard core right and white supremacist. It is to the right of Charlie Kirk. How would you account for that kind of a swing from high school left to Groyper in one year?
There is no controversy about the gamer/Groyper stuff because it was engraved on his weapon. There is a complete absence of lefty stuff on the weapon.
If Robinson were seeking a way to both rebel against parents and do something consequential, the killing makes more sense as part of Fuentes Groyper War against Kirk. Robinson may have hoped that committing such an act would help him gain acceptance into a new peer group based on hate, white supremacism and guns, walking the walk instead of just talking the talk. These shooters are idolized on the internet in bro websites.
Your theory that he was liberal needs some actual evidence that any liberal belief or group encouraged or nurtured such an extreme act. I doubt you can find anything like that, much less something that this kid would have encountered in Southern Utah.
Saying that something is controversial because there is a competing explanation requires that you consider the strength of evidence of both explanations, not just say, well people disagree (or disagreed at an earlier point in time before the gamer evidence was found on the weapon).
@Anon 2:43 Is that just an observation or is it intended to rebut the idea that there is conflicting evidence? If it's an observation, it is a correct one. If it is a rebuttal, it fails.
Delete@ Anon 2:51: "Your theory that he was liberal needs some actual evidence that any liberal belief or group encouraged or nurtured such an extreme act."
DeleteHold up. MY theory that he was liberal? Back up and show me where I said that.
Anon: The shooter is a groyper!
DeleteMe: Maybe. But also, maybe not.
Anon: You're claiming he was liberal? WHERE'S YOUR EVIDENCE?
This is a stupid argument. Others here can read what you said and what I said and decide for themselves. You have become a waste of time.
DeleteOK. Then toddle on over here. The Economic Times wrote up a whole piece about it.
DeleteYou are majorly confused. I'm not the person denying this stuff -- you were. Now there is a new piece of disinformation being promoted by Fox (without a credible source) about the shooter having a trans partner. There is no support for that, but it rehabilitates the right's contention that the shooter was liberal, as did your stupid claim that the groyper stuff is controversial. Credible sources have released the info about the markings on the ammo.
DeleteThe right has a vested interest in having MAGA followers believe that the shooter was a liberal. Unless you want to further that disinfo, you need to read before you comment. You don't seem to be keeping up with developments and now you want to pretend that I am the one who is confused about it.
I don't recall the old Quaker engaging in these sorts of mean-spirited games. Maybe I just wasn't paying attention. The old Quaker used to look stuff up and say intelligent things, not these sorts of pseudo-flames.
Dude. You're way out over your skis here. Refer back to my post at 3:03. You stated flatly that the shooter is a groyper. What do YOU have for evidence. I see a photo of him aping a Pepe meme and his enthusiasm for on online game. You say I'm "denying" this evidence and you're wrong. All I did was say, "Hey, there's evidence that points in a different direction." My position is we don't have enough info to say he's a groyper or a liberal or just a screwed up guy.
DeleteFor some reason, you need to go to war to defend your speculation about who he is.
Other evidence includes gamer memes and groyper references engraved on bullet casings in his weapon. To refresh your memory, here is the beginning of the thread:
Delete"AnonymousSeptember 13, 2025 at 12:22 PM
Apparently a groyper.
Quaker in a BasementSeptember 13, 2025 at 12:39 PM
There's conflicting evidence, @Anon 12:22.
AnonymousSeptember 13, 2025 at 1:30 PM
What is the evidence he is not a groyper? Please be specific in your response."
I did not write the comment saying that he was obviously a groyper, but it is consistent with everything I've been reading, so I genuinely wanted to know what the conflicting evidence was. You had none. I tried to point that out and then you started showing attitude. That means you had nothing and don't want to admit it.
As far as I'm concerned, this conversation is over. I had thought better of you but you're little different than Leroy and AC/MA. My goal is to understand what happened, not to play games with trolls.
Good lord. You didn't even write the comment I was responding to and yet you dove down this bottomless rabbit hole?
DeleteShoo!
Somerby says: "As we noted yesterday, "they" is a dangerous word. Within the context of "cable news," it encourages viewers to condemn extremely large groups of people—to condemn and denounce them en masse."
ReplyDeleteSomerby is incorrect about this. It isn't the size of the group that matters but the condemning and denouncing. Somerby has often said that grouping people into categories is problematic, but that is how humans think. We categorize things by attributes and then assign words to them, separating dogs from cats and trees from shrubs. We do that with everything in our world and we aren't going to stop how we think because of politics.
The difficulty is when people demonize members of groups based on stereotypes (the mental concepts of who belongs in which category). The problem is Watters and Kirk and Trump and so many others calling liberals violent, spawn of the devil, infected by demons, and so on. Those negative stereotypes of liberals, falling on confused ears, result in mass shootings, whether of Jews or blacks or immigrants, or mean girls at school, or liberals. It is the hate that is the problem, not the categories to which people belong.
Somerby seems to think that making America more homogeneous by excluding immigrants will make us all get along better. That is ridiculous. Excluding groups from public discourse helps nothing. Teaching our children and young adults and the rest of our populace how to interact in a civil and respectful manner that involves listening to others and responding to points made during discussion instead of name-calling, will bring us back to more peaceful times and make democracy function better as a form of government. We lost that when we did away with civics classes in schools and stopped demanding apologies from miscreants who broke rules in Congress and the media. Trump breaks every single rule of polite society with impunity and without consequence, but he wasn't the first to do that, and the right is far worse than the left.
People who define disagreement as political violence are abusing language and contributing to chaos. That needs to stop. How do we stop it? By calling it out whenever and wherever it occurs. And that isn't the job of the press but of the opposition and of everyday citizens, pundits, party leaders, celebrities and yes, influencers.
Somerby doesn't seem to mind that our freedoms are being taken away by Trump's fascist administration. The only way we can call out bad behavior is through the exercise of free speech, but that is demonstrably gone now. That makes Trump the problem (and his accomplices). When he oversteps or becomes too ill to function, we need to resist his replacement with a Trump-clone and fight for our rights by voting for a Democrat. That means we (yes, including Somerby) need to stop attacking our own party and unite to fight fascism already instituted by the right. Peacefully but with vigor, as people like Gavin Newsom and Wes Moore are doing, yes, and Bernie and AOC too. We have leaders. We need to be better followers.
Somerby's unwillingness to unite with the left to preserve democracy, his constant whining that democracy is dead because we object to what "they" are doing, makes him not a freedom fighter but a subservient goon in Trump's army of self-interested know-nothings. He has chosen his side. We need to choose ours, individually and together.
No one on the left had anything to do with shooting Kirk. We had a demonstration of where fetishizing guns and encouraging hate among youth leads. It is not too late to eschew hate, but I don't see Trump doing it. He has already said he doesn't care what is going wrong in our country. We have not encouraged violence on the left and no one is suggesting we should do it now. When Trump starts to persecute the left in Kirk's name, we need to resist, peacefully, as we have been doing with the other right wing efforts to subvert our government. And we need to keep doing it, acknowledge what needs to happen, unite and work together.
Somerby needs to stop this blog.
DeleteThe public was briefly misled by the Groyper and gamer memes exhibited by this shooter. There are some here who are similarly misled by Somerby's disguised white supremacist garbage, his quotes of fascist and right wing poets and authors, his worship of sacred Homer and his labeling of Democrats as Troy, blamed for their own death for some unexplained reason in Somerby's right wing bro warrior culture, closely aligned with Fuentes' groypers, incel shooter-worshippers, and other violent assholes lurking in the dark corners of the internet.
Only Somerby knows whether he is paid for this Trump promoting party-line propaganda or not (Robinson probably was unpaid too), but it is obvious it isn't helping our country get back to basics. He is still part of the problem, not any kind of solution. Advocating for fewer categories is not the answer to what ails our nation.
You forgot his misogyny...
Delete“We have leaders. We need to be better followers.”
DeleteYo, Slabby (that’s what I’m calling you now, since you post slabs of text decrying Somerby’s blog), WTF are you talking about? In a representative democracy, the people nominally lead the officials they’ve elected.
Better followers? What does that even mean?
Do you really mean “better citizens”?
Or do you mean,
“Meek and obedient, you follow the leader
Down well trodden corridors, into the valley of steel”? (Pink Floyd, Sheep)
I’m confused.
Leroy
No, I said what I meant. I mean that we need to go to the demonstrations, write to our congress members, donate to candidates and the organizations doing the hard work (including funding lawsuits), talk to our friends and neighbors about our views, vote vote vote vote.
DeleteLeroy, you are a troll. I answered most of your questions in my comment. Calling people "Slabby" is far from civil and you show no willingness to actually think about things other people say here.
Even if the followers on the left were "sheep" they would be doing good by opposing the fascist wannabe dictator in the White House. But I am referring to the circular firing squad in which Democrats kill their own by engaging in such excessive criticism that we are left feeling like our party is shit, can't get anything done, has no spine, and isn't worth supporting. I am sick of the criticism from within (Somerby pretends to be such) that weakens our ability to fight the real political enemies on the right. First Democrats attacked Biden, then Harris, and now there is widespread complaint that Democrats cannot do anything right, despite having won in 2020 and conducted an excellent response to covid that arguably saved our economic (in order for Trump to wreck it). Maybe a better way to say this would be that we need to believe in ourselves and our party, our ability to take back our democracy and stop what the fascist govt has done.
It is fine if you disagree with that, but responding by distorting what I said and feigning confusion is not civil discussion. It is the crappy way the right behaves, and it has no place if we are trying to have discourse here in comments instead of trolling and propaganda.
Kirk's death shows Trump deserves a third term.
Delete"Calling people 'Slabby' is far from civil"
DeleteIf you don't like the name he gives you, choose one yourself.
I did. I chose Anonymous.
DeleteEither you post nearly all the comments here or others have chosen the same name.
DeleteQuaker, you haven't been sounding like your old self for quite a while now. Did the original Quaker go away and bequeath you his name?
DeleteI have been in Europe for several weeks and posted hardly anything here. There are plenty of other people who share my views and several trolls who don't bother with nyms. This idea that anyone should have to use one is silly. It is a choice. Calling other people names is not discourse and just harrassment. Give it a rest and try to focus on what is being said, not who said what. Unless we've reached the point where people are going to turn in their neighbors for slandering der Fuhrer, names don't matter.
Hey, you want to get your knickers twisted because Leroy called you "Slabby"?
DeleteGo on an go for it.
And no, I'm still me.
Pointing out that name-calling is not discussion isn't exactly having "knickers twisted". I get it that Leroy has trouble reading but that's his problem.
DeleteSomerby seems to be advocating for us to ally with the right, join them to form one big "us". I don't see how any of us can do that without accepting their beliefs and actions. People are defined by the things we say and especially the things we do. The right is too evil to excuse much less accept. Somerby never explains how we get past that fact.
ReplyDeleteMusk wrote “Either we fight back or they will kill us.” Is that reasonable? This is how I feel:
ReplyDeleteMillions of the people around me are publicly cheering a Republican’s murder by a liberal. Even more people are justifying it or saying it was OK. That includes some of my fellow posters here. I feel like a lot of people are at war with me and I need to enlist.
You enlisted when you started voting for republicans. Gingrich laid out the playbook during the Clinton years: Democrats are the enemy, never say a kind word, always attack.
DeleteAnd, by the way, millions of people aren’t publicly cheering Kirk’s death, the killer wasn’t a liberal, and you are a vile propagandist.
The killer is not a liberal. He seems to be a groyper.
Delete"Millions" are publicly cheering?
DeleteAre you actually seeing or hearing or reading people cheering? Or are you reading and hearing people who tell you this is happening?
"Musk wrote 'Either we fight back or they will kill us.'”
Delete"They"? They who?
They the groypers.
DeleteRight wingers know that liberals are cheering because other right wingers tell them that liberals are cheering.
DeleteIn David's defense.
DeleteHe was the one who came here and told us not to celebrate the deaths of Epstein or bin Laden.
Musk is a known nutcase. David, why do you listen to anything Musk says? If anyone is insane, it is him.
DeleteWith RFK Jr. on the job, the right can claim that liberals are trying to kill them vaccines and corn syrup. We may be thinking Musk refers to liberals with guns (which isn't really a thing) when he is actually talking about health policies and windmills or similar coded speech.
DeleteSomerby might have spent some time talking about the way the right and the left are speaking different languages, but Somerby himself uses more coded speech than plain speaking, just as the young man who shot Kirk used memes to communicate his political leanings.
The Wall Street Journal got misled by the TRN marking on the bullets and thought that was a transgender support message. It is actually the manufacturers mark from a Turkish bullet, an abbreviation of the company name with nothing at all to do with trans people. Meanwhile, anti-abortion agitators (largely on the right) have claimed that liberals have killed millions by supporting abortion rights.
Truth is distorted by lies but also by abuses of the meanings of words. Claiming that a public health policy has killed people is an example of that. Use of hysterical and hyped up language, together with fake anecdotes and lies, to build a picture of murderous liberals who must be punished, is what Trump and his people have been doing. Musk's statement is evidence of that. Elsewhere, people have been calling this kind of distortion "weaponizing" language.
It is a fact that Trump wants to persecute his political enemies on the left and that he is stating he intends to do that. The lack of justification is irrelevant. He thinks he can do whatever he wants, and he wants to go after liberals with the instruments of power. If that isn't grounds for impeachment, nothing is. I expect that our best chance to recover our country is to vote for Democrats in the midterms, form a majority in the House and Senate, introduce articles of impeachment, then remove Trump and his people from office for their crimes against democracy.
I have never heard Somerby express any concrete plan for saving our democracy. I've never heard him come close to advocating anything helpful to non-MAGA America.
Debating whether there is actually liberal violence that is a threat to the right is a waste of time, meaningless, a diversion. Their claims are not serious, not factual, but merely an excuse for attacking the left with impunity.
Somerby tries to bothersider the violence and hate speech. That is factually incorrect and an attack itself against the left, which does not engage in hate speech or violence to the same extent as the right. There is no equivalence between the two when it comes to hate. Every time Somerby tells us to tone it down or come together with the right, he is implicitly saying that WE are responsible for what the right is doing -- we are not. We have not brought this on ourselves.
Robert Reich (among others) has traced our current situation back through the political events of his own life, as a participant in liberal politics from youth. He connects the dots in an entertaining way by making politics personal to his own experiences. I highly recommend his book, "Coming Up Short," because it is about Trump and how we all got here, going back to Nixon and the Republican acts along the way.
If they are enlisting soldiers in their with 8th decade, I am not worried. Some advice: get your testosterone checked before they send you to the front lines. When you buy a gun, maybe you will be less fearful that Mexican landscapers will rape you.
Delete“In their 8th decade”
DeleteTaking your marching orders from Elon Musk is a good move. I hear that the cybertruck is bulletproof-proof.
Delete"Millions of the people around me are publicly cheering a Republican’s murder by a liberal. Even more people are justifying it or saying it was OK."
DeleteSomebody slap this guy in the face.
Millions of people? You are way too deep in the groypers universe.
DeleteDavid, could it be that you and others who are similarly upset are not factoring technological progress into your feelings?
DeleteIn other words, 'millions' is half of one percent of our population.
Why would it be surprising to you that half of one percent of the country would act ugly, publicly cheering, when something horrible happens to someone they perceive as a political opponent?
How do you know that half of one percent of the people have not always acted ugly when unfortunate events happen to their political opposites? Like when Gerald Ford or Reagan were shot, how do you know that half of one percent of the people didn't react in the same ugly ways to those events?
You don't know for sure because there was no technological means for them to publicly cheer in ugly ways. Only in the last ten years has every single person in the country had a camera in their pocket and a medium to project their ugly feelings. That's a new phenomenon.
So maybe people in positions like Waters, intellectual flyweights, from whom you absorb information make this mistake and drum up some kind of righteous indignation based on all of the hateful comments they see that people have made on their phones and distributed through a new medium, something no one could have done 20 years ago.
And with all of these hateful comments brought directly into our living rooms, they think it's unusual or abnormal, forgetting that it is probably just the fruit of a new technological phenomenon and that people have always acted like that.
Thinking that it is somehow new or different from any other time in history that a small, tiny percentage of the country would act this way without considering the role technology has played in the issue, and thinking that you are somehow special and living in a special time of hateful public cheering, so much so that you need to enlist and fight a war against them, is vanity.
In other words, you're upset because human beings are acting as they have always acted. Percentage-wise.
DeleteKennedy was shot when I was in high school. They brought us into the quad area and announced what had happened. The girl standing beside me, a friend, immediately said loudly "good". I knew she was conservative but I had no idea someone would react that way to anyone's death, so it shocked me. She later apologized and we forgave and forgot it. David and other Republicans seem disinclined to allow any tolerance to those on the left who might have reacted inappropriately. I've seen no rejoicing among my liberal friends but anything is possible, Somerby says. Most of us are beyond shock at these incidents because of their frequency, almost inevitability.
DeleteWhen the president wants to use such a death for his own political purposes, to persecute his enemies, those on the right might consider whether that is disrespectful to Kirk or a pretext to engage in otherwise unthinkable behavior.
David seems to be helping Trump along with his implication that liberals deserve whatever Trump wants to do to us because of what a kid did to Kirk. Some are trying to preserve the idea that the shooter was liberal (and not just a confused kid) or that there is a plot involved, or that transgender people had some involvement (the shooter is not transgender and has shown nothing indicating that was a motive). It seems to me that the right is responding inappropriately to Kirk's death by using it to attack the left. Somerby cannot say that isn't happening. And when it is happening, are we supposed to let it happen without resistance?
I keep wondering what exactly Somerby expects us to do.
I was in 3rd grade when my teacher walked into the classroom with tears in her eyes to tell us that President Kennedy had been assassinated. The school dismissed us and sent us home shortly thereafter. This was in NJ. In Dallas some classrooms erupted in cheers when the assassination of President Kennedy was announced. David and his fellow John Birchers celebrated.
DeleteRobinson will not be found to be mentally ill. Defining any such shooting as mental illness distorts the meaning of the word, under the law, as medical professionals use it, and as everyday people use that term. We already have terms to describe what the shooter did. The right does not want to acknowledge his act as what it clearly was, ideologically motivated political violence aimed at a target toward which he was directed by online propaganda (assuming he is a groyper, as evidence suggests). Fuentes is deservedly quaking in his boots in fear of being charged with inciting violence against Kirk through his "groyper war" against him.
ReplyDeleteThe right never wants to talk about easy access to guns. Robinson might not have committed this act without his lifelong training in gun use and membership in gun culture. Somerby never talks about that either. I have wondered why not.
Somerby has also never discussed the vulnerability of white young men to the recruitment efforts of white supremacist groups on campuses and on the internet. The "something" that may have happened during that one semester may have been joining a cell of white supremacists and dropping out in order to dedicate himself to their causes. He was clearly radicalized, but not by liberals because the left has no equivalent campus organizations that shoot others. We on the left are more likely to demonstrate and march, peacefully, write op-eds and give speeches, raise money and donate to organizations helping our causes, work on campaigns. None of that is embedded in a gun-focused gamer culture.
“Fuentes” is a foreign name. That guy should be deported.
DeleteHe's a white supremacist, so instead he gets to have lunch with Trump.
DeleteFuentes was involved in the 1/6 insurrection, inciting the crowd using a bullhorn. Members of his group were among those inside the capitol building.
DeleteIf he were White, he’d have an English name. Or at least a Germanic name. “Fuentes” is Spanish. It means “sources”. Fuentes and the Groypers are sources of bad ideas.
DeleteOddly, there are a lot of different ethnic groups involved in the white supremacist movement, just as there were Jews in Hitler's regime.
DeleteGoddam 12:17 (and a whole host of others), do you even read the subtitle of TDH?
Delete"musings on the mainstream "press corps" and the american discourse"
See? Musings. He's not trying to write a manifesto that you'll agree with.
Leroy
Thank you Leroy.
DeleteAs has been shown here repeatedly, Somerby is not solely engaging in musings on the press. Often he doesn't muse about the press at all. And if he muses in one paragraph but goes off on a tangent in another, is that still press musing? I don't think so.
DeleteLeroy, please explain what sacred Homer and poor doomed Troy have to do with the modern press. Personally, I don't find it sufficient when Somerby says merely "Troy is like the Democrats" without saying how, or "I feel like Ernest Hemingway when he was depressed in Paris." None of that has anything to do with the mainstream press or American discourse.
Anything Somerby says is fair game, not just the occasional mention of mainstream press (which he usually calls Blue Media) or American discourse. And no one appointed you as the blog police. You can go away now, since you have nothing to contribute to American discourse.
You can tell who is used to reading right wing blogs. Their comments consist of one liners, usually agreeing with right wing platitudes. I think it has something to do with the decreased literacy and lack of education on the right.
DeleteComments here got longer when trolls kept saying "where does Somerby say that?" and demanding clarification of the obvious, as Leroy does above.
DeleteSometimes the obvious needs most clarification.
DeleteIf it does, then it is not obvious.
DeleteThere! You understand.
DeletePeggy Noonan wrote in the WSJ, “I asked Father Gerald Murray what advice might be hopeful. Charlie Kirk, he said, wanted to share “the eternal truths that make life meaningful and joyous. He did so by reasoned argument and dialogue. His example should inspire us to pick up the baton that fell from his hand.””
ReplyDeleteAre you familiar at all with what Kirk believed?
Delete"Charlie Kirk, he said, wanted to share 'the eternal truths that make life meaningful and joyous.'"
DeleteEternal truths? No, he was a political activist. Look, I know people are sad that he's gone, but this is just making stuff up.
How long before someone claims a miracle attributed to Kirk?
DeleteI stubbed my toe. I’m now praying to Charlie. As soon as my toe gets better, I’ll notify Father Murray.
DeleteNoonan, a drunk who made her bones as Reagan's footstool journalist once wrote that dolphins led Elian Gonzales to Florida and freedom.
DeleteQIB,
DeleteI think it is, to some extent, accurate to say Kirk wanted to share what he thought were eternal truths. The excerpts I've seen of him speaking/debating show him bringing God and Christ into political discussions fairly regularly.
@Anon 1:19. I'm skeptical but willing to look at examples. He wasn't exactly known for evangelizing the Gospel.
DeleteHe used the gospel to say that gays should be stoned to death.
DeleteNo, he used Leviticus.
DeleteLeviticus is the 3rd book of the Old Testament of the Bible. Do Christians pick and choose which books of the Bible they consider true? I thought the whole thing was considered God's word.
DeleteWell, you thought wrong. It’s a mish-mash, compiled over many centuries. We pick the parts that support what we’re saying, and we ignore the rest.
DeleteWhen you say "we" are you referring to Kirk or to yourself?
DeleteI’m referring to us.
DeleteSo, both of you.
DeleteAll of us.
DeleteI expressed no opinions about the Bible, but you did. So, I am not included in your "us".
DeleteShooting someone is not a symptom of schizophrenia. It does a disservice to those who actually have such disorders to pretend that every time a vicious hate crime is committed, they must be schizophrenics.
ReplyDeleteWhen schizophrenic people are violent, it is usually the caregivers who are attacked, not political figures like Kirk. Rates of violence are less than 5% among the mentally ill.
Bob decries the term “they.” Wasn’t “they” an appropriate word when blacks felt that “they” were keeping them down?When a racist murdered a black person, wasn’t it appropriate to also blame racism in general?
ReplyDeleteYou’re right, Dave. They, the groypers, are responsible for this murder.
DeleteHoly hell, David. Even in this you can't stop yourself from finding an excuse to complain about "the blacks"?
DeleteI'm sorry you feel hurt when people say you're a racist.
"Wasn’t “they” an appropriate word when blacks felt that “they” were keeping them down?"
DeleteJesus. The reason 'they' was used correctly in the context of civil rights was because there were many, many people who thought blacks should not have full civil rights, and acted on those thoughts.
The reason it is wrong to use in current discussions of political assassinations is because the assassins are acting alone, and their actions are not approved of by Democrats or the left or however you want to phrase it.
Is it really so hard to see something so blindingly obvious?
As I recall from my years in the civil rights movement, black people have never been shy about saying who was hurting them. It has only been during the academic critical race theory movement and studies of institutional racism that the responsibility for mistreatment of black has been widened to include the entire economic system of slavery and white privilege that benefitted broad categories of people. Those discussions are based on history and economics, not the personal grievances of black individuals. The recognition that we have all benefitted and are all responsible for the inequalities over time in our country, is more recent. In our case, the pronoun should be "we" not "they" but the right has refused to accept any of that analysis, and the right is steadfastly clinging to its right to discriminate against blacks, women, immigrants, whoever they want, because they are the ones in power.
DeleteTo my knowledge, society has been blamed by blacks and whites alike for teaching hate that results in racial violence. Going forward, the teaching that might eliminate such racism has been forbidden in our schools and workplaces. How would you justify that, if not as a pro-racist act?
Blacks refer to the people oppressing them as "Whitey" or "The Man" not "they" because "they" is confusing about who exactly you are talking about. When someone hurts you because of racism, it is clear who is doing it and you can mention them by name. Just as in this case, it is you, David, who is saying ugly stuff, not "they".
@1:15. Glad to hear that you spent years in a civil rights movement. Good for you! As I've already mentioned, I once bussed to DC to hear MLK speak.
DeleteI am not clear on the difference between "they" and "Whitey." When blacks refer to their oppressor as "Whitey," that sounds something like a way of blaming all whites.
WASHINGTON — Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter Tyler Robinson was living with a transgender partner who was in the process of transitioning from a male to a female, a law enforcement source confirmed to The Post Saturday.
ReplyDeleteThat individual, who has yet to be identified by the authorities, is now fully cooperating with the FBI on its investigation into the fatal shooting of the conservative activist, the source added. The relationship was first reported by Fox News’ Brooke Singman.
Text messages and other communications that the transgender individual traded with Robinson, 22, helped the feds nab the accused assassin.
This conflicts with more mainstream sources who are reporting that Robinson's family turned him in, helping him surrender to police. The FBI has reported that he had a roomate who may have been an accomplice, with whom he discussed his plans by phone. Only right wing sources are calling that person transgender.
DeleteThe above paragraph is sourced to Washington, but has no other identification of who reported it.
This may wind up being true but so far it stinks as disinformation.
Actually, she was de-transitioning.
DeleteEven if Robinson lived with a person who was planning to become female, that doesn't change that he himself is a white, male, cisgender, hetero himself. I haven't seen anything saying he was romantically involved with his roommate.
DeleteActually, he had complimented the smell of his vagina a number of times according to the FBI..
DeleteSo, this is disinformation and you trolls think it is a big joke?
DeleteThese are the people Somerby says we should embrace, from Tiedrich:
ReplyDelete"fast-forward to this week. in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death, Katie Britt’s was one of the few voices on the right who actually called for peace and unity.
[Britt] "Charlie Kirk's death was a political assassination -- full stop. The time for unity and peace in our nation is now."
and now, here’s MAGA-bro-with-a-podcast Brenden Dilly to give a reasoned and not-at-all-unhinged response to Katie’s tweet.
“you want to talk about unity? shut the fuck up. this is why you should have been in the kitchen. I have no idea what these people are thinking. no thanks. no thanks, fuckin’ Katie Britt of Alabama. you can literally, you can fuck off with that bullshit. no thanks. shut the fuck up, woman.”
Brenden seems nice.
women of MAGA, I hope you’re paying attention. MAGA will pretend to tolerate your attempts to have a seat at the table, but never forget that their misogyny goes up to eleven — and the moment you step out of line, it’s shut the fuck up, girlie.
now get back into that fake-looking kitchen, Katie. Brenden wants a sandwich."
To all the idiots: this post is about avoiding the temptation to blame tens of millions of voters for one person's actions. And while this simplistic scapegoating is natural, it is dangerous for members of the media to engage in it.
ReplyDeleteIt says nothing about uniting with or embracing our political opposites.
Here is where Somerby says we should unite:
Delete"Meanwhile and overall, this:
"They" is a dangerous word! ...Many people have said many dumb things over the past many years. Some have been Red and some have been Blue, but we're all in this nation together.
We're all in this flailing nation together—but, as Franklin is said to have said, only if we can keep it!"
The left had nothing to do with Kirk's death. We are not "in this nation together" when the right is doing everything it can to destroy our democracy while we resist.
Since Blogger doesn't have Likes or Upvotes, I can only reply and say I agree with you and applaud your comment.
DeleteAbove @2:23
DeleteThe message of @2:23 is better than Somerby's but that doesn't mean Somerby said it.
DeleteThanks, Quaker.
DeleteWho shall we blame for this one person's actions?
Delete"“The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. They don’t want to see crime. Worried about the border. They’re saying, We don’t want these people coming in. We don’t want you burning our shopping centers. We don’t want you shooting our people in the middle of the street. The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy, although they want men and women sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders.”
Donald J. Trump
This is why our nation is not unified. Politicians on the right demogogue violence. The left, not so much. Pretending, as Somerby does, that this happens equally on both sides, is just another lie.
I will not take seriously Somerby's effort to unite us, nor @2:23's well-intentioned misinterpretation of Somerby's words today which says we may not blame the right for doing what it is obviously doing. Look at Trump's words, which he has repeated now on several occasions. We on the left are being threatened by a man with supreme power. Failure to resist and fight back against that would be as foolish as Somerby, who thinks calling for kumbaya is all this nation needs.
Somerby's only obvious suggestion these days is to join the borg. No thank you. The left represents my values and the right is abhorrent to me. It doesn't matter whether right and left (red and blue) have said stupid things before. What matters is that the left is saying more smart things than the right, and it isn't torturing innocents and persecuting citizens it should be protecting.
The Best and the Brightest
ReplyDelete"Stepping to the microphone at a news conference Friday morning in Utah, FBI Director Kash Patel wasted no time explaining what led to the capture of a suspect in the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
“This is what happens when you let good cops be cops,” Patel said."
Should somebody tell Kash the killer turned himself in? Naw. Let's let him enjoy this moment.
Trump apparently called Gov. Cox and reminded him how often the president is shot or killed in our country (according to an Atlantic article). The author suggested that Trump was perhaps thinking about his own assassination attempt. One would think that if Trump had any empathy for someone in a visible political position who was vulnerable to such attacks, he would not be encouraging his MAGA followers to engage in death threats against the people Trump identifies as worthy targets. He might also refrain from making threats against opponents himself, painting targets on the backs of left-wing politicians, administrators, teachers and librarians, judges, lawyers, Fauci and similar doctors and public health officials, and especially immigrants, transpeople, LGBTQ+ and even celebrities who declined to endorse him. Trump has made all of these people potential victims of potential shooters and attackers.
ReplyDeleteOf course, narcissists have no capacity for empathy, as part of the definition of the disorder. That is certainly true for Trump, who is preoccupied only with his own feelings, goals, wants and needs. He obviously cares nothing about Kirk except how to best use his death to achieve his own aims.
Those on the right who are now targeting liberals are the same. For them, this is war and nothing else. Hence the talk on the right about civil war. Somerby has hinted at it himself, especially with his Lincoln quotes and Homer obsession. Normal people see politics as a means to making decisions and governing our country. It is not normal to think of politics in terms of war, but that language appeared here on Somerby's webpage a long time ago. I have been resisting that metaphor since it first appeared, because it is not how the left thinks and because it is more destructive to think in such terms than anything Somerby accuses Blue America of doing, including use of the word "they."
Some fucking right-wing lunatic sprayed hundreds of rounds of bullets into the Atlanta GA, Center for Disease Control killing a 31-year-old police officer.
DeleteWhy you ask did this fucking lunatic do that?
A Georgia man who blamed the COVID-19 vaccine for his mental health problems opened fire on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC) Atlanta headquarters on August 8, killing a police officer before he died from gunshot wounds, according to media reports.
This killing of course didn't register on King Orange Chickenshit's dial. Luckily, the police officer was black.
Trump was given the opportunity to eulegize Kirk by a reporter, who asked him how he was holding up after the death of his friend, and responded with a self congratulatory litany about the great progress being done on his ballroom. Good to know.
Delete6:34, yes, and the idiot reporter who asked that question should be fired immediately and try to find a job more suited to her skills, possibly a masseuse?
DeleteThe insane asylum gave Corby her laptop back.
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha ha, you are so funny and clever. Corby is insane. What a burn! Almost as good as a 12 year old might write.
DeleteNothing to say about Cox now spouting the Republican line after his "conversation" with Trump.
DeleteCorby is insane. Read what she writes here. It's unhinged from reality. "Somerby seems to think that making America more homogeneous by excluding immigrants will make us all get along better."
DeleteThat is coo coo. It's detached from reality.
Corby, get your ass to a mental asylum tout de.suite. You treat any slight variance to your political ideology as some kind of existential threat. It's literally crazy.
DeleteI am not Corby.
DeleteRawstory says:
ReplyDelete"Much has been said in recent days over heated political rhetoric coming from both Democratic and Republican lawmakers in the wake of Kirk’s assassination on Wednesday. After being apprehended by law enforcement Friday, the suspected shooter was found to have engraved anti-fascist messages on bullet casings, messages that many Republicans have used to pin Kirk’s killing on Democrats’ rhetoric."
The problem with this statement is that both Laura Loomer and Nick Fuentes frequently called Kirk a fascist, so the shooter could have heard that message from either the right or the left. Given his involvement with gamer culture and Groypers (as confirmed by the other markings and memes on his weapon and in his daily life) it seems more likely he heard Kirk called a fascist from the right, not the left. This ambiguity makes it seem less likely he is any kind of liberal.
But remarks like this one support the right wing talking point that liberals are responsible Kirk's killing.
When someone on their side commits an atrocity, some liberal claim that "all of society" is to blame. This is baloney. Here's how one can tell: If these people were consistent, they would say that all of society is responsible for the murder of Melissa Hortman. Have you ever seen a liberal apologize for his or her role in Hortman's assassination?
ReplyDeleteThis comment paints all liberals as if they think and act the same way, which isn’t true. It gives one example, the murder of Melissa Hortman, as if that single case proves all liberals are inconsistent, without showing that anyone ever made the kind of sweeping claim he is is attacking.
DeleteIt's too stupid to be taken seriously.
David, as the kids say, get the fuck out of here with your bullshit.
This comment paints all liberals as if they think and act the same way, which isn’t true. It gives one example, the murder of Melissa Hortman, as if that single case proves all liberals are inconsistent, without showing that anyone ever made the kind of sweeping claim he is is attacking.
DeleteIt's too stupid to be taken seriously.
David, as the kids say, get the fuck out of here with your bullshit.
Prof Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) explains who "they" are, in his opinion
ReplyDeleteThese aren’t just a few wackos. These are large numbers of people in professional and managerial jobs — mostly government employees of some sort, it seems — who genuinely believe that holding ideas they don’t like should carry the death penalty.
These people are everywhere. They might be teaching your kids. They might be the face looking down at you as you’re wheeled into the E.R. They might be the guy who approves your building permit, or not. It’s an Army Of Haters.
Trump is the Great Clarifier, and here’s another thing that’s become clear in his second term.
They’re there, they hate you, and they’re not going anywhere. So what to do about it?