DCUM Weblog

One point that I have repeatedly attempted to stress is that with autocratic government comes incompetence. The reason for that is simple. An autocrat surrounds himself with those chosen for loyalty rather than ability. For all the talk of Benito Mussolini making the trains run on time, he did not, in fact, make the trains run on time. There is a belief in some quarters that dictatorships may have political disadvantages, but that they are able to "get things done." That is almost never the case. Instead, such governments tend to be replete with corruption and incompetence. We saw that yesterday when the President of the United States, a man with no medical training, took the advice of the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, another man with no medical training, and recommended an unproven treatment for autism in the form of a drug in which the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services holds a financial interest. This man at least has medical training, though it is as a heart specialist rather than a neurologist or other specialty related to autism. Moreover, he is best known as a television celebrity doctor. Another example of incompetence occurred this past Friday when cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump issued a proclamation.

"For my friends everything, for my enemies the law." This quote has been variously attributed to both Peruvian president Oscar Benavides and to Brazilian president Getúlio Vargas. Regardless of who said it originally, this has become a foundational principle of the administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. Immediately upon taking office for the second time, Trump either pardoned or commuted the sentences of nearly 1,600 individuals convicted of crimes related to the January 6, 2021 insurrection. This included people convicted of assaulting police officers and the leaders and organizers of the mob that attacked the U.S. Capitol Building. Nearly 20 of those have gone on to commit additional crimes since being pardoned. Over the weekend, there were more examples of the Trump administration protecting its friends and attempting to punish its enemies in a massive misuse of the justice system.

As soon as I finished yesterday’s blog post, my first thought was that today I should write about the civil war that has broken out in MAGA land regarding Charlie Kirk and Israel. My second thought, however, was that Will Sommer of the Bulwark would address the same topic, and nothing that I wrote would measure up. I hoped that I might beat him to press. But, sadly, no. He published a report yesterday, and as expected, it’s excellent. I strongly recommend Sommer’s article. However, that article is behind a paywall, so I assume there is still room for my poorman's version.

Just to set the table, I should emphasize that there is no evidence whatsoever that Israel had any role in Kirk's murder. Moreover, I am not aware of any prominent MAGA influencer who has explicitly accused Israel of killing Kirk. Rather, the allegations have been more of the "just asking questions" sort of thing. The crux of the controversy appears to be whether or not Kirk was changing his views on Israel and was suffering repercussions as a result. The leading voice suggesting that this is the case is Candace Owens, now primarily a podcaster but earlier in her career had been hired by Kirk at Turning Point USA. By all accounts, she and Kirk were reasonably close friends. Owens has support from Tucker Carlson, Roger Stone, Megyn Kelly, and Matt Gaetz. Lined up against them are a host of MAGA establishment figures such as Vice President JD Vance, Ben Shapiro, and most vocally of them all, Laura Loomer.

How many of us expected to wake up in an America in which it was legal for immigration authorities to stop and potentially detain individuals based on their ethnicity, the accent with which they speak English, or their place of work? Further, how many of us expected that in that America, the government would be building concentration camps for holding people who have not been charged with a crime and who have not been provided legal due process? And, how many of us expected that in this America, television personalities would be removed from the air because they had upset the President? Welcome to that America.

The administration of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has been using a combination of regulatory abuse and lawsuits to intimidate the media in the United States. The most recent example of regulatory pressure occurred yesterday when Jimmy Kimmel was suspended by ABC. Trump has repeatedly threatened to withdraw the broadcast licenses of major broadcasters with whom he has been unhappy. The problem with that threat is that the major broadcasters do not have broadcast licenses. Local affiliates do the actual broadcasting, and it is they that have licenses. While a few are owned by the corporate broadcasters, most are owned separately. Many of the local affiliates are owned by large corporations that have taken control of large numbers of local stations. For instance, the Nexstar Media Group owns 197 television stations across the country. The Sinclair Broadcast Group owns 193 stations, and TEGNA owns or operates 68 stations. Nexstar is currently trying to buy TEGNA. That acquisition will require approval by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC is currently chaired by Brendan Carr, a Trump appointee and one-time advocate of free speech. More recently, Carr has become a Trump henchman in a campaign to subjugate the media.

Yesterday, Tyler James Robinson was charged with six felonies and a misdemeanor in connection to the murder of Charlie Kirk. The charging document provided by the Utah County Attorney's Office is the most authoritative account of events available so far. As such, I am going to review new information provided and revisit my earlier post about the killer.

The politicized nature of this case creates a number of challenges to discussing it. Four hours after announcing Kirk's death, cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump blamed the "radical left" and promised to go after the "organizations that fund and support" political violence. However, Trump only listed incidences of political violence that targeted those on the right, completely ignoring attacks on the left. Moreover, at the time of Trump's statement, no suspect had been identified, and no information about the shooter's motives was available. The clear indication of Trump's remarks was that he would use Kirk's murder as an opportunity to wage a broad attack on the political left. In an administration full of hacks, the message was loudly received.

I'm going to touch on a few different topics today, including some related to the murder of Charlie Kirk as well as my thoughts about social media. To start with, I want to address what can be called "Woke MAGA." At one time, MAGA adherents were known for the expression "F your feelings," except the "F" was fully spelled out. T-shirts with this saying printed on them were frequently seen at rallies for then-candidate, now cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump. Another popular MAGA expression was "Facts don't care about your feelings," something that was actually tweeted at one point by Ben Shapiro. Now, MAGAs have turned into the largest collection of snowflakes to be found south of the Arctic. As I wrote yesterday, fans of Charlie Kirk are engaged nationwide in trying to get anyone who is not sufficiently mournful of Kirk fired from their jobs. Many are being punished simply for posting accurate quotes of things Kirk said. This effort was endorsed yesterday by Vice President JD Vance, who said, "When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out, and, hell, call their employer."

Several years ago, I established a rule on DCUM that prohibits negative comments about a person for the first 48 hours after their death. What we now call the “48-hour" rule was established in recognition that even the most detested person was likely to have friends, family, and others who would grieve the person's death. I thought then, and continue to think now, that those in mourning deserve a period of time in which they do not have to confront unfavorable opinions of the deceased. In the first 48 hours after the murder of Charlie Kirk, it was a full-time job to enforce that rule. I literally lost sleep in order to keep up with the task of removing negative posts. This is to say, and to demonstrate with evidence, that I am not a fan of those who immediately celebrated Kirk's assassination. However, the “48-hour" rule is a DCUM restriction. Every American is entitled to the right of free expression within the bounds of the law. Anyone unable to post negatively about Kirk on DCUM was certainly free to do so on their own website, on X, Bluesky, Mastodon, or even shout it on a street corner. The MAGA reaction to even the slightest criticism of Kirk has been the greatest suppression of free speech in the United States that I have ever witnessed. The campaign to punish those who simply haven't mourned sufficiently is less about the grief of those behind the effort and more an attempt to impose autocratic control of discourse. The goal is a broad effort to eliminate dissent.

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: