CHARLIE KIRK IS DEAD, AND I DONT GIVE A FIG!

I'm sorry rupublicans lost one of their influencers. Even worse, he was killed by the very weapon on which he and his Republican toadies have refused to place any sensible restrictions. Maybe this will change your behavior, but I doubt it. It's  too bad Charlie Kirk was killed while proselytizing in front of young collegians. It's too bad they had to witness the violence of that act. I will send them an email extending my thoughts and prayers. 

You might think that is harsh, being so flippant in the face of one family's tragedy. I think this behavior-thoughts and prayers-has been, through the years, normalized by prominent rightwingers. It was the approved republican response for too many children killed at school by some unstable idiot with a gun and an attitude. Some of those children were as young as 1st or 2nd grade. It was the approved Republican response for people carrying groceries to their cars, while an unstable idiot with a gun and an attitude shot up the parking lot. It is the attitude displayed when Kyle Rittenhouse was accused of killing a George Floyd protster. It was the same response after people were shot up while attending church. It is the only response Republicans can use. The same people could not think of an appropriate response to people killed by gun violence whose skin is darker than Republicans are comfortable with. Nor could they find a more appropriate response when Paul Pelosi was beat over the head with a hammer for being married to the Speaker of the House. Or when the Speaker of the Minnesota State Assembly, her husband and their dog, were shot in their home, along with two other people in another home. What is this thing Republicans have about shooting dogs? Are dogs too liberal? Are liberals the Labradoodle of the political spectrum?

If Charlie Kirk had had a smidgen of the qualities Republicans call Christian, people who are not close to him would be extolling the couple of virtues he might have possessed. He may have had that supposed couple of virtues, I can't say for sure because all I know is his news profile. And that is enough! What I know is that he is a  social media influencer of young people. He brought young people to the Trump second term. That's bad enough, but not a capitol offense. Young people are easily influenced, especially when the influence comes from someone close to their age. His faults are far worse than that. He is fine with fascism. His statements defending this goal are not hard to find. He qualified his statements by accusing us of not meeting maga in the middle. We're talking fascism here, people! There is no middle-ground to fascism. How could there be. Tolerance is not tolerated by fascists the moment they get enough power to impose their will on the electorate. We don't need to go back to Adolf Hitler, we only need to go back to Jan 20, 2025. The sheer volume of rapid change has been overwhelming. It is true that not all of the things Trump has tried have been accepted in the courts. But the Supreme Court, a notoriously corrupt Supreme Court in recent years, has largely extended protections and liberties to the president, this particular president, that no previous Chief Executive has ever possessed. All under the rightwing rubric of Constitutional Originalism, the connection which many of us fail to see. Charley Kirk is one of those whom we can blame. 

He is an avowed racist. There is no middle-ground there. Misogyny, too, does not offer much middle-ground. Okay, we'll let you women keep the vote, but we reserve the right to impose our will on your sexual autonomy. That won't fly far. Christian nationalism, fascism with the face of Jesus, is a threat to the separation between church and state. The churches attended by the Jimmy Carter Christians are sensitive to that wall. Christian nationalism would blow right through that like a suspected drug-carrying boat off the coast of Venezuela. Even guns, the thing that started this essay, can not be alloted some middleground by them.  We seek legislation establishing sensible gun laws. They tell us that all gun laws are not sensible, by virtue of some kind of slippery slope. And that's final!

So, one of theirs has been assassinated by one of theirs. We have pleaded with them  to meet us on middle-ground since Republicans allowed the assault weapon ban to sunset, but to no avail. The maga cult expects us to send flowers to the funeral and say nice things. And that is too far of a stretch. I am sorry for anybody killed by firearm fire, by accident or by intent. That is the only concession I will grant to the mourners of Charley Kirk. If some of them have reached their limit with this corrupt regime, they will be welcome to return to the fold. Otherwise, I don't really care.

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