DCUM Weblog

Today, authorities announced that 22-year-old Tyler Robinson was arrested for the murder of Charlie Kirk. As I said yesterday in my post about Kirk, within hours of his death, he was transformed into a political totem as groups across the political spectrum sought to define him as a symbol to benefit their own political goals. Immediately upon Robinson's arrest, a similar process began as parties attempted to define him as politically aligned in a way beneficial to their own interests. Conservatives were eager to portray him as a leftist, partly to justify a broad attack on the political left that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has promised and for which many of them are drooling. Those on the left, on the other hand, were eager to demonstrate that Robinson was anything but left-leaning, partly to ward off the feared attacks. Online, Robinson is being accused of being everything from a far-left adherent of Antifa to a far-right follower of Nick Fuentes, commonly known as Groypers. What is the truth? Presumably, Robinson will be able to speak for himself at some point. But now, all we have is speculation. So here is my speculation.

The one thing that the world does not need at this moment is another opinion about Charlie Kirk. Nevertheless, that is exactly what I am going to provide. But I am going to write less about Charlie Kirk the person, something about which I don't actually know very much, but instead about Charlie Kirk the symbol. Because, in the few short hours since he was killed, Kirk has been transformed into a variety of almost mythical incarnations created by political partisans from across the political spectrum. Kirk has become, essentially, a political totem.

One thing that I will not do is lionize Kirk as some sort of hero. Neither will I denigrate him as an unacceptable threat to our political system or society. Kirk may have been those things to others, but to me he was a mixture of them. What I do believe is that Kirk was a person of his time who understood which waves he could ride to success. Foremost in that regard, Kirk was an online personality. Though he was famous for his in-person events in which he challenged others to debate him or the type of event at which he was shot in which he encouraged dialogue with the audience, his fame was due to his online presence. Online celebrity has introduced a new form of interaction between online personalities and their fans or followers. The two-way communications that the Internet has enabled lead to strong feelings of connection. Feelings for a figure such as Kirk often border on the parasocial, with supporters having particularly robust feelings of loyalty. Kirk's online presence was such that almost anyone who is routinely online was, at a minimum, aware of him. Those who spend little time online likely have had no idea who he is. The fact that Kirk was chronically online was crucial to his success, as well as fundamental to explaining the intensity of the reaction to his death.

Yesterday, Israel launched a missile attack against the leadership of Hamas based in Qatar. The attack appears to have failed to take out its intended targets, instead killing a member of Qatar's internal security force, the son of Khalil al-Hayya, Hamas’s chief negotiator, al-Hayya's office manager, and three other people affiliated with Hamas. The attack came as cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump was making what he has described as his last attempt to achieve a ceasefire and an exchange of prisoners in Gaza. This was clearly an attempt by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to prevent negotiations of Trump's proposals from continuing.

The day after the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel, I wrote an analysis explaining that Netanyahu was beholden to extremist members of his cabinet and, as a result, had prioritized the deployment of Israel's military in a manner that addressed the interests of those extremists. This created a security vacuum that Hamas exploited. At the time, Netanyahu faced legal threats due to corruption charges and was hoping to neuter Israel's justice system as a way to protect himself. Achieving that goal required the cooperation of his extremist cabinet members, hence his willingness to accede to their interests. Once war in Gaza began, the fighting gave Netanyahu an excuse to avoid the legal reckoning that awaited him. The continued war also provided time for Netanyahu to work his machinations aimed at eliminating the threat from Israel's justice system. As I explained in my one-year follow-up post to the October 7 attack:

On September 6, hundreds of federal agents raided a plant in Georgia that is currently under construction. The facility, which is owned by a joint venture between Hyundai Motor Company and LG Energy Solution, is planned to manufacture batteries for electric vehicles. In a military-style operation, hundreds of federal law enforcement cars, including armored vehicles and Humvees, surrounded the plant and detained 475 workers, of whom more than 300 were South Koreans. This ignited a diplomatic firestorm in South Korea and puts billions of dollars of South Korean investment in the United States at risk. On one level, this controversy is indicative of the United States' decreased position in the world. No longer the world leader that it once was, the U.S. must now rely on foreign investment and foreign skilled workers. Accepting that reality while simultaneously attempting to pursue an "American First" agenda creates inherent conflicts of the type highlighted by this raid.

There will likely be several clearly serious issues about which I will write this week, but I am going to start with a topic that might, at least at first, seem somewhat frivolous. However, it is actually fairly important. In the government of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump, expertise is one of the least valued qualifications for a job in the administration. This point should be so obvious as to not be debatable. Does anyone believe that Pete Hegseth or Robert Kennedy, Jr. are qualified for their positions, let alone the most qualified people available? The most valued qualification appears to be loyalty to Trump, preferably displayed through unbridled obsequiousness. Secondary to an ability to demonstrate fealty through groveling is a talent for television appearances. This explains the proliferation of former Fox News personalities in the Trump administration. But just behind those two qualifications appear to be an ability to troll social media. This begins with Trump himself, the troll in chief.

Today, I will provide a compilation of recent news stories involving the federal intervention in D.C.

What are the National Guard personnel in D.C. missing while deployed here?

It is important to remember that most of the members of the various National Guard units deployed to D.C. have other jobs back home that they have had to leave. Last week, charges were filed against an individual who had been detained by National Guardsmen after being involved in a fight on a Metro train. Two National Guardsmen were named in the complaint, and Reuters took the opportunity to learn more about those being deployed to the District from elsewhere. One is a police officer in Jackson, Mississippi. According to reporter Brad Heath, last year, Jackson had a murder rate about three times higher than D.C.'s. Its police staffing per capita is less than half of D.C.'s. While D.C. residents are likely thankful that the Guardsman was available to break up a fight in D.C., his own city is likely much more in need of his services.

Just as I sat down to write this morning, I changed my mind about the topic I would address. I had planned to describe a number of legal developments surrounding the Trump administration, but I've decided that there is a more pressing matter. Or, at least one that I find more infuriating. That is the growing and increasingly vocal Islamophobia among many MAGA supporters.

I have written before about the public displays of Islamophobia that have resulted from the victory in New York City's Democratic mayoral primary by Zohran Mamdani. The first example of Islamophobia that I will describe today is another such instance. Jack Posobiec, the one-time Pizzagate conspiracy theorist and currently a senior editor of Human Events, a conservative online publication, was a featured speaker at this year's National Conservatism Conference or NatCon. NatCon is a conservative political affairs conference organized by the Edmund Burke Foundation. Speaking at the event, Posobiec is quoted as saying:

Once again, I am going to address the federal intervention in the District of Columbia. There has been so much happening that I am almost not sure where to begin. But since cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump always likes to have attention focused on him, let's start there, specifically with his statements to the press yesterday.

Yesterday, Trump met with the press to announce that he was relocating the U.S. Space Command from Colorado to Alabama. After that announcement, Trump took questions from reporters, which led to him speaking about the District of Columbia. It is no surprise to me that Trump is a liar, and a profligate one at that. But even I was shocked by the gulf between Trump's statements and the truth. Most of the reporters in the room probably live in the District. They had to have known that he was telling lie after lie. Yet, he was not challenged a single time. Trump declared that, as a result of his efforts, D.C. is now crime-free. This ignores that the day before three individuals in D.C. had been shot, one fatally. Trump claimed that, "The restaurants are open, they're booming. You can't get a restaurant. New restaurants are announcing that they're going to be open." In fact, I know of multiple restaurants that have been forced to close because they cannot find staff. Anyone who looks like they might not be a citizen it too afraid to go out in public, even to work. Business at restaurants is way down. Data from OpenTable shows that reservations have dropped significantly (graphic provided by Dan Friedman on X):

I am going to touch on a couple of different topics today, but first I am going to start with a basic civics lesson. This is necessary because even members of the so-called "elite" media don't appear to have a particularly solid grasp of the subject. Many Americans seem to have forgotten, or not learned in the first place, that the power to create law lies with Congress. When cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump sits behind the Resolute Desk with a binder and a Sharpie and makes a spectacle of signing documents that he frequently doesn't understand, he is rarely signing laws. Most of the time, he is signing executive actions that are little more than glorified interoffice memos. Trump, whose connection to reality is tenuous at best, often claims that he is taking actions that are not actually codified in the document being signed. At other times, he may be accurately describing the contents of what he is signing, but he lacks the authority for what is being declared. The trouble is that in both cases, the public often understands Trump's signature to be creating law. Even worse, the media often reports it as such. But let's be clear: laws are created by Congress through legislation, which is then enacted into law by the President. The President alone cannot make laws.

Democrats have an age problem. I don't like saying that because it goes against two principles in which I believe: we should respect our elders, and age should not be a basis for discrimination. But it cannot be denied that the age of many Democratic politicians has been harmful to the party. In the eight months of this Congressional session alone, three Democratic Members of Congress have passed away. That would have been enough votes to defeat Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill. In the District of Columbia, we have our own age problem with which to deal. That is our Delegate to Congress, Eleanor Holmes Norton. Currently 88 years old, Norton has repeatedly told reporters that she plans to run for her seat again, though her staff has later walked back those claims. Regardless of her future plans, at this moment when the District government is facing potentially existential threats from cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. At a time when D.C. is occupied by armed National Guard troops (many from conservative Southern states), has federal agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agencies running rampant, and has had its police force taken over by the federal government, our lone representative in Congress is nowhere to be seen.