Bloodlust and the Black Pilled USA

The first thing to say is that I’m sorry a human being has died. I’m sorry for his family. The second thing to say is that nothing can justify this violence. But these aren’t the only things that need to be said.

The far-right in America was spawned from and hugely amplified a culture of constant violence. Now that culture of violence has consumed one of their own, we are to shed crocodile tears and lower the flags to half-mast. From the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville to the January 6 riots, from Tommy Robinson’s lynchmobs to Brenton Tarrant, from Dylan Roof to Thomas Mair, from Timothy McVeigh to Anders Breivik, the far-right isn’t engaged in violence; it is violence.

It is their core principle, their organising method and their end goal. As the authors of Post-Internet Far Right say: “We might say that the ultimate aim of violence is violence itself. It is at this point when the ends of politics (what you are ultimately trying to achieve) are replaced by the means (what you do to get there) …The further right one goes, the more means are focused on at the expense of ends. Violence itself becomes the goal, the crowning achievement.”

If the liberal left can be accused of opening the gates to Trump and its adjacent movement of alt-right, white supremacists, white nationalists and neo-Nazis through repeated failure, it is only the far-right that can lay claim to the country’s grotesque gun culture.

The stats on US gun violence are truly shocking. As Mary Geddry writes:

“And now, in a cruel symmetry, the man who trafficked in cultural fear and suspicion has died in an act of political violence. Whether the shooter was driven by ideology, grievance, or some darker instability, Kirk’s end forces us to confront the reality that America is drowning in guns and grievance. Nearly 46,700 Americans died from gun-related injuries in 2023. Most were suicides, but over 17,000 were homicides. Mass shootings have become so routine that one in fifteen Americans has personally witnessed one. The U.S. Surgeon General last year declared gun violence a public health emergency, a designation usually reserved for pandemics and opioids. The numbers are staggering, but so too is the atmosphere of anxiety: every public gathering now carries the shadow of what might happen if someone with a rifle, a grudge, and an open line of sight decides to make their mark.”

Yes, there’s a brutal irony that the gun culture that the far-right promotes is the same culture that is slaying them. But not only that, they are now weaponising this gruesome event to foment greater violence. The Meidas Touch notes:

“Deeply disturbing rhetoric is spreading from influential MAGA figures (including the President of the United States and Elon Musk). They have no idea who the shooter is, and many of these same people mocked Democrats when they were victims of political violence in the past. In moments like this, we should be lowering the temperature and finding our shared humanity — not fueling more hatred and violence.”

Kirk is the martyr they’ve been longing for.

“We have to have steely resolve,” said Steve Bannon on his show War Room. “Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country. We are.”

“If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die,” wrote Elon Musk on X.

Donald Trump put out a video statement saying that rhetoric from “the radical left” was “directly responsible for the terrorism we are seeing in our country today”.

Just to be clear, despite the disinformation and propaganda from Trump & Co, this from Mehdi Hasan:

These people are longing for a blood-letting and eager to hunt down their opponents. The goal is a civil war and the opportunity to impose martial law and turn the state apparatus on their enemies. The troops are already in place. It takes little to imagine Trump’s masked goon squads rounding up anyone they like under the pretense of ‘restoring order’.

Charlie Kirk, Conservative Activist?

If you’ve not heard of Charlie Kirk, you might think from some of the coverage that he’s some kind of right-wing influencer or organiser. The BBC today was referring to him as a ‘Conservative activist’ which is a completely cowardly and dishonest description. He was the fair-skinned Christian frontman for White Nationalism and a repugnant part of the ecosystem of the far-right.

As Council Estate Media noted:

“First of all, Kirk saw empathy as a weakness and joked about the attack on Paul Pelosi. He frequently denied there was starvation in Gaza and excused Israel’s genocidal practices. He was a forced birther who said he would make his ten-year-old daughter carry a baby to term if she were raped. He was a horrendous racist who argued that black women were too stupid to be taken seriously. He called George Floyd a “scumbag” and said black people were better off in slavery. At one event, he kept referring to an Asian woman as “chink“. He blamed transgender people for gun violence and called for the stoning of gay people. I could go on and on, but needless to say, Kirk was a person who stoked division and incited violence.”

The person being lauded by Trump and remembered by Keir Starmer is a white supremacist who fostered violence at every turn. Starmer, mourning Kirk’s demise while destroying free speech and criminalising peaceful protest is a masterclass in selective outrage. “We must all be free to debate openly and freely without fear – there can be no justification for political violence” the Prime Minister said, while presiding over a government that does precisely the opposite.

As the forces around Kirk seek to elevate him to martyr status and use him in their cause, those who would want to avoid further bloodshed and the prospect of civil war will have to walk a tightrope between antifascism action and attempting to reduce the levels of agitation. I’m not quite sure how that works.