Left vs Right, the Psychotic vs the Sane
[QUOTE=EihTooms;3026802]Has somebody in this forum defended the cold-blooded "2nd Amendment Remedy" shooting and killing of Charlie Kirk?
If so, I must have missed it. Please quote the exact passages and statements supporting your accusation.
Thank you.[/QUOTE][URL]https://www.nationalreview.com/2025/09/the-aberrant-killed-the-normal/[/URL]
Ross Douthat.
Opinion.
Why the Kirk Assassination Is a Warning to the Left.
Sept. 16,2025, 5:00 pm ET.
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Ross Douthat.
By Ross Douthat.
Opinion Columnist.
You're reading the Ross Douthat newsletter, for Times subscribers only. The columnist reflects on culture and politics, but mostly culture. Get it in your inbox.
In an impassioned speech on Charlie Kirk's podcast on Monday, Vice President JD Vance argued that the American left has a much stronger propensity than the right to justify or celebrate political violence.
Like most people with an internet connection, I have seen many more people than I would like justifying assassination in the last few days. If you argue about politics for a living, and especially if you regularly stand up to make conservative arguments in public spaces, it is very hard not to take this extremely personally, to feel that a veil has been lifted and something generally threatening has been exposed.
At the same time, I would not exactly agree with the vice president's framing. The polling he cites, showing that liberals are more likely than conservatives to justify taking joy in the death of an opponent, may capture something real (more on that below), but polling is sensitive to question-framing and to political fluctuations, and you don't have to hunt far to find polls from the Biden era showing greater Republican sympathy for violence.
If I were going to generalize aggressively, I would suggest that the American left is more likely to support and make excuses for the kind of protest politics that can lead to rioting and a breakdown of civil order, and more likely to support deplatforming efforts that depend for their effectiveness on the fear that a speaker might end up assaulted. (This is, again, a generalization; I acknowledge that the right can riot and de-platform as well.).
But when it comes to politically motivated murder, extreme-right and neo-Nazi shooters are all too commonplace. And as I have argued many times before, a great many recent assassins and mass shooters don't fit neatly into normal partisan categories, and our age of anxiety is creating monsters that defy ideological description.
Based on what we know so far, however, it looks as though Kirk's assassin probably does have legible, left-wing motivations. And if those motivations aren't proof of where the left stands right now, they still might offer a warning about where its radical fringe could go.
Even if many assassins aren't normal political actors, there are periods in American life when a wave of violence is linked to a specific ideological disposition. We saw this happen on the left within living memory — in the 1970's, when acts of far-left terrorism became an everyday feature of American life. (If you doubt that description, the book to read is Bryan Burrough's 2015 history, "Days of Rage. "
Looking back on that era, left-wing radicalization seemed to follow from dashed utopian expectations — the peak of Great Society liberalism giving way to crisis and backlash, the belief that the New Left could renew and rule America yielding to the reality that Richard Nixon's voters really were the silent majority. From this realization came a surfeit of apocalyptic thinking, radicalism flavored by despair, all of it worsened by the era's social chaos and drug culture.
Our moment is different, but there are echoes of the 1960's and 1970's in the recent experience of American progressivism. A belief in a nearly inevitable leftward arc of history, a guaranteed multiracial Democratic majority, giving way to the repeated shocks of the populist era. A period of extraordinary cultural influence, of revolutionary zeal joined to institutional power, that peaked in 2020 and 2021 and has been dissolving ever since. An insistence that the election of 2024 had existential stakes, that democracy itself was on the ballot, followed by resounding defeat. A backdrop of apocalyptic fears, fear of climate change above all, amid a technological transformation that has left many young people unmoored from family and friendship.
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As a longtime of observer of progressivism from the near outside, I have never seen it quite so anxious and adrift — so fearful of the future, so uncertain about its own goals, so existentially anxious and bunkered down. To the extent that polls showing a greater left-wing willingness to take joy in an opponent's death ring true, it's as especially toxic manifestations of this bunker mentality; they fit with the surveys showing that progressives are more likely to cut off friends and family over political differences.
And they also dovetail with the data showing greater depression and anxiety among young liberals and falling progressive birthrates relative to conservatives. It's all part of the same darkening trajectory.
I have been writing about these trends lately because I think they are bad in and of themselves, and progressives (and not only progressives!) should be concerned about them independently of whether they lead to radicalism and violence.
But despair feeding further violence seems like a real possibility, a plausible escalation from where we are right now. And if so, progressives themselves need a pre-emptive response. Here I don't have in mind just the (welcome) statements from prominent Democrats condemning Kirk's assassination. I mean something more in the realm of moral and philosophical imagination, something that addresses the hard questions hanging over the left in 2025.
How do you love your country when it's governed by a man you hate? Can love and friendship coexist with profound political divisions? What makes life worth living if the course of history isn't what you thought? If everything feels like power relations, and power has slipped from your fingers, where can you find the good, the beautiful, the true? What makes humanity a blessing on the world rather than a blight?
Even if we aren't headed back to the 1970's, even if Kirk's assassination isn't a harbinger, in answering these questions progressivism will find something essential: a reason for hope, and a cure for its despair.
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Trump had a booming economy in 2016?
[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;3026828]It's not as bad as you make it out to be. Inflation is under 3%, not great, but no where near the levels under Biden. Stock market is up. Real Estate prices remain high, not much selling, but that is going to reverse overnight once interest rates drop. It is not the booming economy of Trump 2016, but its not like anyone lost any money. If you followed the news, they would have you believe next great depression is coming. Fake news.[/QUOTE]Not only did Trump have zero to do with the great economic trajectories in place under Obama-Biden in 2016, the year before Trump took office, almost as great as the Envy of the World Economy conditions handed to him in January by Biden-Harris, but he didn't even have anything to do with the economic conditions of 2017, his first year in office.
Moscow Mitch prevented Trump from signing any new economic legislation for the entirety of 2017, his first year in office, because lifelong Repub Moscow Mitch knew very well anything his Party put together and signed by Trump was bound to produce results somewhere between accomplishing nothing but adding Trillions to the deficit and crashing the economy into one of his Party's patented Great Repub Depressions or Great Repub Recessions.
He was right.
Trump was not given anything to sign that had anything whatsoever to do with the economy until the very last business day of 2017, December 23.
Until then he simply played golf, made up insulting names for his critics and coasted on the terrific jobs-creating economy handed to him by Obama-Biden.
That is a kind of Do Nothing luxury every incoming Repub has been able to enjoy thanks to the fine and stable economy handed to them by the outgoing Dem for at least 100 years while no incoming Dem following an outgoing Repub has been able to enjoy that for so much as 1 minute after taking the Oath of Office. Prime examples being Obama taking over from GW Bush in 2009 and Biden taking over from Trump in 2021. Incoming Dems have to hit the ground running on day one to pull the country and most of the rest of the world out of the colossal mess of everything handed to them by the outgoing Repub.
And, yes, that is often accompanied by higher rate of inflation during the Great Dem Recovery than when jobs are being wiped out by the millions thanks to Repub policies. A rate of inflation that was steadily declining after Biden-Harris had accomplished their historic recovery from the existential worldwide economic disaster Trump handed them to fix but is now increasing under Trump and his record high and utterly unnecessary American Consumer tax increases.
And, yep, Mitch was right in that the one and only economic "stimulus" legislation he ever handed Trump to sign on that last business day of 2017 did indeed add Trillions to the deficit while somehow managing to produce a Million Fewer jobs with it in Trump's 3 pre Trump's Pandemic years than in the previous 3 far superior years under Obama-Biden without it.
Was there a booming economy under Trump in 2018 when at least some of his deficit-exploding one and only economic legislation provisions began to take effect?
Only if you consider a Bear Market decline in the broad USA Stock Market a symptom of a booming economy. That happened under Trump in 2018, the first of his two Bear Market Declines in just four years. And his plunging the agriculture and manufacturing industries into Recession so deep he had to issue them emergency welfare checks just to keep them afloat thanks to his blitheringly disastrous failed trade and tariff war with China. Sound familiar? Was that the "boom" in the economy under Trump you were talking about?
Trump's one and only economic legislation during his 1st disastrous Worst President in USA History term where he left office with fewer jobs in the country than the day he took over not only never showed an increase in jobs creation to add anything of value to the terrific economy handed to him by Obama-Biden, it didn't even add a penny to increased American Working Men and Women's wages while he was busy making other decisions in 2018 and 2019 that would predictably wipe out millions of jobs; any increase in wages during Trump's presidency was due to 20+ Major Blue Cities and Great Blue States increasing the minimum wage contrary to the economic philosophy of Trump, Moscow Mitch and virtually every other Repub.
Please tell us more about that "booming" economy that supposedly happened under Trump and due to any economic decision he made or policy he passed.
For the country, that is, not for himself and his Crime Family.
Your Cognitive Dissonance in your initial 'WH lawn' post!
[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;3026417] In regards to political violence. I condemn it all sides and all acts of political violence should be reported and spoken out against.[/QUOTE]Funny, I thought that, was what I was doing, when I responded to your post! Huh, go figure!
[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;3026417]I also love how we keep having this discussion on my friends death from Biden's open border policy. [/QUOTE]Now you're getting it all twisted!
My response to your post, has allow been about debating [B]your cognitive dissonance.[/B]
Basically how a moral individual (assume you're a moral person, save our hobbying that is? Who has lost of someone close, killed by drugs, and yet can parrot such vile political statements of violence, that explicitly (or implicitly) [U]devalue human life[/U] in the gross context and reverence, to your MAGA leader and money.
It's not like we've haven't heard this type of dangerous stochastic terrorist speech before, being parroted, coming from the [B]right-wing QAnon/MAGA/Repub "rank-and-file"[/B], as it gets normalized and repeated, no doubt, as some sort of QAnon / MAGA "code", to elicit right-wing justified political violence.
Reluctantly, I will say your MAGA Fuhrer, is quite the master at stochastic terrorism. Note how eerily similar [B]your "exaggerated" speech[/B] is to your MAGA master's speech. However, instead of [I]"...the WH lawn",[/I] it is [I]"...5th Avenue, NY".[/I].
[QUOTE][b]'Fifth Avenue Comment':[/b] by the MAGA Fuhrer, at a Sioux Center, Iowa, rally (Jan 23rd, 2016): "I have the most loyal people -- did you ever see that? I could stand in middle of Fifth Avenue and [b]shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters,[/b] OK?" [url]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-i-could-shoot-somebody-and-i-wouldnt-lose-any-voters/[/url][/QUOTE]Perhaps you don't realize it, but that kind of speech, [B]"exaggerated"[/B] or [B]NOT,[/B] is just plane offensive and insensitive, to a whole community of people, that have also suffered and lost family members, friends and loved ones, to senseless killings and gun violence, from such hate / political rhetoric.
It's funny you should mention Alex Jones (is that where you got the idea? As he did the same thing with his callous inflammatory speech, calling Sandy Hook massacre, a "staged. Giant hoax" and relentlessly trivialized the massacre and those families mourning the death of their kids and loved ones.
[U]Anywho, it all boils down to this:[/U]
[I]([b]Remember:[/b] This is my reasoning and thinking with regards to reading your initial post, here: [url]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?p=3024421#post3024421[/url]) and my response to it. [/I]
[NOPARSE]Your cognitive dissonance, I spoke of, basically juxtaposes the two (2) conflicting ideas you hold in your mind. On the one hand you are in-touch with the misery, harm and death from fentanyl/drugs of a friend. But on the other hand, you appeared to be totally blind, oblivious and seemingly trivialized the misery, harm and death, caused to other peoples loved ones, resulting from stochastic terrorism and hateful, inflammatory political speech, regarding killing/gun violence. [/NOPARSE]
Whether it's your MAGA Fuhrer or YOUR casual, abstract endorsement of "hypothetical" violence (ie. [I][b]"...in the middle of Fifth Avenue"[/b][/I] -OR- [I][b]"...on the WH lawn"[/b][/I]), for political and / or monetary gain, I read them both as disturbing, offensive and insensitive. As IMO, they both suggested that, political loyalty or economic gain, are valued more than a human life. [B]Ergo your cognitive dissonance![/B].
[NOPARSE]Yeah, sorry to disappoint,...but there was no mocking (or attack),[/NOPARSE] as I know you would like to categorize my repose, to your post. There was ONLY EVER just [U]a debate (at least from me),[/U] about [B]your cognitive dissonance.[/B].
Again, making my cognitive dissonance point!
[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;3026645]Sometimes I feel like the [b]heartless posts I see on this forum[/b] and online are from people who have never experienced real love for something. Seems like some people never had a real friendship and don't understand how mocking the death of a good friend could really put a dagger in someone's heart. People spend too much time posting on forums and become disconnected from the real world and then post this heartless garbage online like its no big deal.[/QUOTE]There's that [I][b]cognitive dissonance,...[/b][/I]AGAIN!
Now juxtapose what you just posted, with what you said, in your initial "heartless" and "exaggerated" post about your Fuhrer's impunity when it comes to using violence, in pursuit of money over the value of human life, and why should people "give a fuck" about life or ethics:
[LIST][i]RamDavidson84: [b]"People don't give a fuck [u]about right and wrong[/u] anymore as long as there is a level of deniability and it gets results. Trump could kill a man on the White House lawn and no one would care as long it puts money in people's pocket...",[/b][/i] [url]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?p=3024421#post3024421[/url][/LIST]
And here is the very eerily similar and [B]equally insensitive[/B] MAGA political rhetoric and propaganda quote from your MAGA Fuhrer:
[LIST][i]"I have the most loyal people -- did you ever see that? ...I could stand in middle of Fifth Avenue and [b]shoot somebody, and I wouldn't lose any voters,[/b] OK?" [/i][url]https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-i-could-shoot-somebody-and-i-wouldnt-lose-any-voters/[/url][/LIST]
See what I mean [I][b]...cognitive dissonance![/b][/I].
Ergo, no accounting or taking responsibility for the suffering and loss of others, through senseless killings and violence from your own words, or your Fuhrer's MAGA political rhetoric and stochastic terrorism.
Every Republican President Over The Last 100 Years Has Had A Recession!
[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;3026843][b]Well[/b]
The market has cycles and it is extremely overpriced right now and way way overdue for a correction and Tokyo Rose et al will blame Our Lord and Savior of course. [/QUOTE][NOPARSE] Don't be so freakin' naive! Of course he's gonna get blamed!
That's just how things work when you're in power. When a market crashes, recession, depression and/or [/NOPARSE][B]"bad shit happens",[/B] on your watch, as any good president of these United States, would naturally take the blame. You take blame, you take accountability and if your a good "little orange" president, you [U]then make good policy changes,[/U] that hopefully remedies the "bad shit".
[NOPARSE]But Oh No!...you MAGA suckers, somehow think, the rules don't apply to your MAGA Fuhrer! Well I got news for ya...THEY DO! [/NOPARSE]
[I][b]Every Republican President Over The Last 100 Years Has Had A Recession,[/b][/I] Mar 16,2020.
[URL]https://medium.com/@davidkellyuph/every-republican-president-over-the-last-100-years-has-had-a-recession-baa20aa7b107[/URL]
So dude, you do realize, given the abysmal track record of Repub presidents (see article above) on the economy, it's not unreasonable and fair to say, that EihTooms' assessment is wholeheartedly correct and has every right and reason, to think or assume, [NOPARSE](based on 100+ years of history) that this QAnon/MAGA/Repub president isn't gonna be any different and would naturally "fuck-up" the economy again.[/NOPARSE].
[LIST][i]Just like the [b]13x times, Repub presidents before him (...dating back to 1920),[/b] where your ("know nothing", "do nothing", "no nothing") Repubs have crashed the markets, or gone into a recession or depression.[/i][/LIST]
Every Republican president over the past 100+ years! [I][b](...kkkk!)[/b][/I].
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The pattern of crap Repub economies vs great Dem economies is unbroken in 100 years
[QUOTE=MarquisdeSade1;3027016]I'm not an economist and don't pretend to be an economic expert on ISG like some here, it seems like a classical logical fallacy.
[B]But I'm just guessing Republicans get caught holding the bag when the shit hits the fan from shitty Democratic policies.[/b]
Just like Scumbag Biden tried to destroy us with Build Back Better.
And Scumbag Bubba destroyed the economy for Scumbag W.
[URL]https://www.demos.org/blog/owning-consequences-clinton-and-repeal-glass-steagall[/URL]
And Tokyo Rose still claims Scumbag didn't end Glass Steagall.[/QUOTE]That would be a very bad guess.
Every Great Depression, Great Recession or Massive Jobs Destruction of the past 100 years was produced and presided over by Repub Administrations, including the last three under Reagan with his Great Recession, GW Bush and Trump, and none of the Great Recoveries, Great Economic Expansions or Historic jobs Gains while in that same 100 years every Great Recovery, Great Economic Expansion or Historic Jobs Gains has been produced and presided over by Dem Administrations, including the last three under Clinton, Obama and Biden, and none of the Great Depressions, Great Recessions or Historic Jobs Losses.
It would defy all logic and reason in the real world for that astonishing, uninterrupted pattern to be the result of bad luck and timing for Repubs, good luck and timing for Dems, a bizarre, mystical, magical business and economic cycle that only favors Dems and punishes Repubs no matter how many years each Party serves in the WH or wild coincidence.
It happens because Repub economic policies and stewardship are crap. And by now it is unavoidable to conclude they are crap by design, intended to be crap, made sure to be crap and are not celebrated by Repub voters unless they are really, truly and inarguably crap. And the more historically colossal crap they are the more Repub voters love it and are excited to vote for it and enjoy it over and over and over again!
Because, you know, it turns out really, truly, inarguable, colossal economic crap results tends to "own the libs", the perennial overriding goal of every Repub con artist, grifter, fraud and charlatan because they know that is all they need to deliver in order to line their own pockets and spend 4-8 years goin' fishing, riding ponies, clearin' brush down at the ranch and playing golf.
Meanwhile, how did luck, timing, economic cycles and wild coincidence manage to allow Dems to propose, fight for and pass Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, the Equal Rights Amendment, Civil Rights Amendment, Voting Rights, the 1993 Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act, the American Recovery and Re-Investment Act, the Affordable Care Act, the American Rescue Plan Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, the Science and Chips Act, etc, etc, etc when they held the WH, controlled the House and Senate but prevented Repubs from proposing, fighting for and passing one goddam thing as beneficial to America as the least of those in the past 100 years when they have held the WH, control of the House and Senate but instead they always have time and energy to produce Great Depressions, Great Recessions or Massive Jobs Destruction?
Any guesses for how the fuck that has happened over the past 100 years right up to this very minute?
Oh and, BTW, the Repub Congress' 1999 veto-proof replacement of Glass-Steagall had virtually nothing to do with GW Bush's 2008 Great Repub Crash, Depression / Recession and Massive Jobs Destroying Financial / Housing Crisis, as much as I would like to blame the 1999 Repub-controlled House and Senate that made it their veto-proof mission to replace it on them.
To understand cognitive dissonance or NOT!
[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;3027010]What are you talking about fifth avenue for? What does that have to do with me? [/QUOTE]If you can't see the cognitive dissonance connection and similarities between you and your Fuhrer's inflammatory violent political hate speech, I can't help you. But don't worry I'm sure it'll sink in down the road.
[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;3027010]LOLOLOLOL. I am beyond happy we still get to do this and you are opening up to me and showing your lack of ability to argue any sensible politics LOL. First off, your over compensating brother. You are trying to use words and logic which you don't really understand. You are embarrassing yourself. Stick to words and arguments you can actually explain. Are you really still twisting words to make an argument here? [/QUOTE][NOPARSE]Dude, ...REALLY, it's okay to admit, you have no idea, what it means to be in a state of cognitive dissonance! [/NOPARSE]Not to worry, as you're NOT the first and you won't be the last, to NOT understand cognitive dissonance!
[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;3027010]As for my friend and things that Trump says. One is political and public and the other is personal. When you specifically attack my friend, it is personal to me. In my opinion, it is disgusting.[/QUOTE]Likewise when you talk about, [B]"People don't give a fuck about right and wrong..."[/B] and [B]...Trump could kill a man...[/B], it's disgusting, insensitive and personal to a community of people, that have also lost love ones from senseless killings, [NOPARSE]shootings and/or political [/NOPARSE]violence.
[LIST][i]RamDavidson84: [b]"People don't give a fuck about right and wrong anymore as long as there is a level of deniability and it gets results. Trump could kill a man on the White House lawn and no one would care as long it puts money in people's pocket one way or another."[/b][/i] [url]http://www.internationalsexguide.nl/forum/showthread.php?p=3024421#post3024421[/url]
That kind of speech is uncalled for, and has no place as "exaggerated" speech or otherwise![/LIST]
[QUOTE=RamDavidson84;3027010]You are taking a shot knocking me for sex tourism as if it is immoral. For the record aspects of it are and I am not perfect or a saint. But if you are so high and mighty to knock me for it, what are you even doing here! You are on a sex tourism forum![/QUOTE]Yeah, unfortunately, that was Admin doing, as they basically screwed up the "context" of that statement and its comedic delivery. Admin removed the [I][b]"(...kkkk!)",[/b][/I] meant to jokingly show, that WE BOTH participate in this "morale" activity.
[NOPARSE]Yeah, again sorry to disappoint,...but there was no mocking (or attack), ONLY [/NOPARSE][B]your cognitive dissonance[/B], which unfortunately for you, still remains.
