I have been watching the news the last few days. I think the tide is turning. It's a lot of little things. But it seems to be adding up. I have seen the reports about the vile reactions to Kirk's death. But some of those are drawing responses. The employee at Office Depot who refused to print a poster for a Kirk vigil got fired. Most businesses are going to realize they cannot afford to make more than half the country mad at them! It may spread. I read about one patient contacting a hospital about a post by one of their staff--asking if they could guarantee her that person would not be assigned to her care. I think more and more organizations will feel pressure about this. Trump has already been after the universities, threatening their research funding for their failures on anti-semitism. That could easily be applied to other issues. (And the leftist judges can't stop him forever.) And in some places, the state governments could clamp down. Do you think Texas will tolerate this stuff from the academics for very long? Or Alabama or Florida? The higher education establishment is weaker than they realize.
This isn't going to be over quickly. I suspect it will be another five years or more to deal with all of it. And I suspect the Dems could be shut out of the White House for a long time--that's happened before (after Lincoln's election in 1860, no Democrat became president until Grover Cleveland in 1884). You had a link on Instapundit to the Battleswarm blog, a piece in which Person pointed out that groups get violent when they begin to realize they are losing. But the violence does not help them--it may hasten their fall.
Local businesses are acting, too. I live in Cincinnati, OH. One of the owners of a local BBQ chain mouthed off about Kirk's death. One of their meat suppliers cut them off. And then the guy got kicked out of the company! I saw this on the local news this evening.
Progressive activist judges are doing their best to make sure the money continues to flow. Those judges, who clearly believe themselves superior to the executive & legislative branches, need to be turned out. Upcoming elections in 2026 need to be massive political purges of progressives at all levels: US, state & city.
I said this in response to one of your previous posts.
Scorched. Earth.
This is a wildfire starting to spread out of control. We've had small brush fires that have popped up in the last few decades. Contract with America. The Tea Party. Trump 45. Democrats and their uniparty Republican consorts had enough water to keep most of them under control, but the embers still burned. And most of us stayed silent. We put the lotion on the skin because we didn't want to get the hose again. We saw the dry tinder lying on the ground all around the forest, but we didn't dare start a fire because they would turn the hose on us through social media and the "news" media, and bury us.
Charlie fought that in a way that nobody else did. He was uniquely gifted to be able to walk onto college campuses and spar with the best and worst of the leftists there, all while simultaneously encouraging the conservative students and the ones who didn't really know what they believed yet. In doing this, he was lighting small fires all over the forest, fires that were noticeable but hidden so deeply under the cover of liberal institutions that they couldn't imagine they would actually spread.
Butler, PA was the spark. Someone crazy enough to follow through with what the media and the left had left unsaid all those years. They attempted to assassinate a president, failing by millimeters. Cory Comperatore was unfortunately caught by that bullet. It was a wake-up call for millions of Americans. They went from passive "I'll vote Trump, if I bother to show up to the polls that day" to "I'd walk over broken glass to vote for Trump". It galvanized the electorate, but it also showed Charlie's main constituency that one side was willing to kill the other for their beliefs. The fact that Charlie was as good or better a listener than he was a speaker, and he was a phenomenal speaker, showed them that only one side was interested in talking about ideas.
Trump gets into office, but the hose remains. However, there are more victories being strung together. The deportations and closing of the border show that Trump isn't simply talking about doing something; he is actually accomplishing the things he said he would do. He's taking his second term seriously. The left is still fighting and still has a stranglehold on education and the institutions.
Then, the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
The fire that was slowly spreading is now a conflagration. The tinder that was on the ground in the political forest is caught up. Those leftists who had been protected by the media and felt that they would never be held accountable for their actions are suddenly thrust into the light. That protection burned away in a single moment. No more are they able to say horrible things without being called on it.
And, companies are listening. They see the power of the conservative movement, what it did to Bud Light and Target, and conversely, what it did FOR American Eagle. They know that if they defend the luxury beliefs of their employees, they will lose. Office Depot isn't firing those employees because they support conservative politics. They are doing it because so many people said they were done with Office Depot.
Schools know they are already on thin ice with this administration. They see how it has cost Harvard, and they don't want to push back.
This is a beautiful, terrible moment. It cost Charlie his life. His wife and children are paying for this in tears and heartache. His friends and colleagues and left with a hole in their hearts. It may truly be a Turning Point. However, it is up to all of us who were gifted with this birthright as Americans, and who value what the founding fathers gave to us to continue this work. After seeing Erika's message last night (heartbreaking and awe-inspiring), there is much to do not only to continue Charlie's work, but to restore the American experiment to what it was originally intended.
I pray that this wildfire that Charlie has created is a refiner's fire. It will burn off the inconsequential things, leaving us with what truly matters. There will be conservative voices and causes caught up in this fire as well. It will hopefully provide us with a more perfect Union.
That has been the shocking thing. I live among that 20%. I told myself that a lot of these people were mostly good, but blind, and that they wanted to be seen as good within the community where they found themselves, that they put on the set of values like a suit of clothes. To see this outpouring of hate from some people I mostly liked in person has been pretty painful. A piece of me wanted to say something, to plead that they would actually listen with an intent to understand rather than to smear, that they would think better of a knee jerk condemnation of any differing opinion as “hateful”, that they would see that people are grieving over this loss. But the astonishing tone-deafness of the reaction seems to demonstrate the pointlessness of any effort to reach them.
I also live among many leftists. The ones I know have been pretty quiet about the murder of the young woman in Charlotte and the assassination of Mr. Kirk in Utah. Perhaps they are processing it trying to figure out a plausible way out of the obvious conclusion that their side has a massive and serious problem (e.g., leftists podcasters getting death threats - so yeah that shows the right is just as bad). Or perhaps they are getting some vibes that they have to rethink their assumptions. Or maybe waiting for Obama to explain this to them in a way they can pretend to believe in their own virtue.
NO. The Right is not just as bad and I don't believe these liars when they start claiming victimhood. Play me a tape of an actual Conservative threatening a leftist. NOPE you don't have one. WE KNOW how this works and we are DONE with it. The Jug Eared Traitorous bastard was the catalyst for all of this. ALL the hate started with him and Big Mike.
What I have seen is posts on social media - actually reposts of things that other people said, and hopefully not representative. But in the context it shocked me, and it seemed to say something in and of itself that expressing such a sentiment should be normalized.
Whether they realize it or not, those who genuinely believe that holding ideas they don’t like should carry the death penalty are morally justifying the death penalty for themselves.
Also, when was the last time you heard the corporate media use the term “far left” to ever describe anything? Nothing looks “far” when you’re standing next to it.
The backlash against the 20% voicing glee at Charlie's death will bump into 1st amendment protections for speech, but just like any other area of HR law, most employee terminations will stick as long as HR and the boss are careful to make it about the overwhelming negative perception of the employee speech and its direct negative impact on the work environment. eg, nobody wants a Secret Service Agent who's ok with assassinations'
The First Amendment protects you from the government silencing you, not from the consequences of what you say. Yes, they can say anything they want, but a third-grade teacher espousing views that it's ok to murder someone as long as they have a different ideology than you do shows a dangerous lack of self-awareness. It also reflects poorly on the businesses, which have seen the power of the conservative buyer in the case of Bud Light.
This is the problem with the government controlling a huge fraction of the economy. A public school, a public university, or a government contractor will risk getting in trouble for firing someone for reasons that even smell like speech, even execrable speech, on the theory that they are part of the government.
And these are the places these roaches have scurried to.
I'm seeing this in local community FB pages where fomerly mild-mannered quiet normals are setting up prayer vigils. They get pounced upon by liberals with "why didn't you pray for (fill in the blank)" within short order, only for the normies to jump right back at them with "well, hold a prayer vigil if you want". But the truly fascinating is when the irreligious normies jump in to defend the good people who want to pray for the Kirk family...and even say they will attend!
The normies will no longer be cowed into silence by the 20% who hold progressive ideals.
All normies are Charlie...and they aren't staying quiet any more.
The best thing to do is not patronize them, and don't amplify them. They will bankrupt themselves. Don't subscribe to the NYTimes and other media outlets that promote leftism and refuse to be objective. Don't click their links. Don't follow them on social media. Don't watch TMZ. We had a realtor in Vegas who joined the LV Board of Realtors. I sent letters to both Democratic and Republican realtors who all agreed he should step down. Not only did he step down but his Real Estate agency fired him. That's how you make them pay.
It's Sunday, a time for reflection. In light of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, I want to thank God for clarity. For some reason, many things are clearer today.
Charlie’s death and the immediate aftermath brought evil into sharp focus. These were Pod People who believed that they had killed off their enemy, and they wanted to rub it in our faces. Living in an alternative reality, they actually believed that they represented the majority of ordinary people. The reaction of normal people shocked the small-fry haters, the ones who suddenly found they no longer had jobs at companies that didn’t want to be associated with hate. It shocked the prominent haters, the millionaire TV talkers who tried to deflect by blaming Trump, or Republicans, or by lying about the killer.
But there it was, out in the open. It made clear, like nothing else in my lifetime, that evil has taken over the minds and hearts of so many people. You never noticed it when talking with your children’s teacher, your doctor, the DMV clerk, or even the pastor in too many churches. You had no reason to see the worm in the apple or the rot in the soul. But the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk, his sudden murder broadcast to every living room, revealed reactions both good and evil. And suddenly, you could see who the Pod People are. If we want to ask God what we are grateful for in this momentous time, be thankful for clarity.
I have believed for several years that the left has wanted their political opponents re-educated, imprisoned or dead. I now believe that the primary option is: they want their political opponents dead. The left, and their paramilitary wings, antifa, blm, & others, have been organizing, training for war since the first Trump admin. What should we do? Prepare, train, organize, be ready to defend yourself & your family, verbally and, if necessary, physically. Remember: the left thinks they have future history on their side; they will not give up easily or quickly, but, rather, they will double down.
One thing that I was pondering this morning is how are we going to repopulate our professors with more conservatives or at minimum centrists? Or even left leaning professors who are open to trying to stay neutral in the classroom? The pipeline has been so closed or constricted for so long that there aren't a lot of Ph.d's sitting on the sidelines. It will take time to rebuild the pipeline and it will be difficult to do so given the current makeup of academia. But if we don't, then the rot will just manifest again.
I have been watching the news the last few days. I think the tide is turning. It's a lot of little things. But it seems to be adding up. I have seen the reports about the vile reactions to Kirk's death. But some of those are drawing responses. The employee at Office Depot who refused to print a poster for a Kirk vigil got fired. Most businesses are going to realize they cannot afford to make more than half the country mad at them! It may spread. I read about one patient contacting a hospital about a post by one of their staff--asking if they could guarantee her that person would not be assigned to her care. I think more and more organizations will feel pressure about this. Trump has already been after the universities, threatening their research funding for their failures on anti-semitism. That could easily be applied to other issues. (And the leftist judges can't stop him forever.) And in some places, the state governments could clamp down. Do you think Texas will tolerate this stuff from the academics for very long? Or Alabama or Florida? The higher education establishment is weaker than they realize.
This isn't going to be over quickly. I suspect it will be another five years or more to deal with all of it. And I suspect the Dems could be shut out of the White House for a long time--that's happened before (after Lincoln's election in 1860, no Democrat became president until Grover Cleveland in 1884). You had a link on Instapundit to the Battleswarm blog, a piece in which Person pointed out that groups get violent when they begin to realize they are losing. But the violence does not help them--it may hasten their fall.
Local businesses are acting, too. I live in Cincinnati, OH. One of the owners of a local BBQ chain mouthed off about Kirk's death. One of their meat suppliers cut them off. And then the guy got kicked out of the company! I saw this on the local news this evening.
Cascade may become avalanche since all the haters have hitched their wagon to the federal money machine that Trump now controls
Progressive activist judges are doing their best to make sure the money continues to flow. Those judges, who clearly believe themselves superior to the executive & legislative branches, need to be turned out. Upcoming elections in 2026 need to be massive political purges of progressives at all levels: US, state & city.
"This isn't going to be over quickly." There may be breaks here and there, now and then. Never over.
I said this in response to one of your previous posts.
Scorched. Earth.
This is a wildfire starting to spread out of control. We've had small brush fires that have popped up in the last few decades. Contract with America. The Tea Party. Trump 45. Democrats and their uniparty Republican consorts had enough water to keep most of them under control, but the embers still burned. And most of us stayed silent. We put the lotion on the skin because we didn't want to get the hose again. We saw the dry tinder lying on the ground all around the forest, but we didn't dare start a fire because they would turn the hose on us through social media and the "news" media, and bury us.
Charlie fought that in a way that nobody else did. He was uniquely gifted to be able to walk onto college campuses and spar with the best and worst of the leftists there, all while simultaneously encouraging the conservative students and the ones who didn't really know what they believed yet. In doing this, he was lighting small fires all over the forest, fires that were noticeable but hidden so deeply under the cover of liberal institutions that they couldn't imagine they would actually spread.
Butler, PA was the spark. Someone crazy enough to follow through with what the media and the left had left unsaid all those years. They attempted to assassinate a president, failing by millimeters. Cory Comperatore was unfortunately caught by that bullet. It was a wake-up call for millions of Americans. They went from passive "I'll vote Trump, if I bother to show up to the polls that day" to "I'd walk over broken glass to vote for Trump". It galvanized the electorate, but it also showed Charlie's main constituency that one side was willing to kill the other for their beliefs. The fact that Charlie was as good or better a listener than he was a speaker, and he was a phenomenal speaker, showed them that only one side was interested in talking about ideas.
Trump gets into office, but the hose remains. However, there are more victories being strung together. The deportations and closing of the border show that Trump isn't simply talking about doing something; he is actually accomplishing the things he said he would do. He's taking his second term seriously. The left is still fighting and still has a stranglehold on education and the institutions.
Then, the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
The fire that was slowly spreading is now a conflagration. The tinder that was on the ground in the political forest is caught up. Those leftists who had been protected by the media and felt that they would never be held accountable for their actions are suddenly thrust into the light. That protection burned away in a single moment. No more are they able to say horrible things without being called on it.
And, companies are listening. They see the power of the conservative movement, what it did to Bud Light and Target, and conversely, what it did FOR American Eagle. They know that if they defend the luxury beliefs of their employees, they will lose. Office Depot isn't firing those employees because they support conservative politics. They are doing it because so many people said they were done with Office Depot.
Schools know they are already on thin ice with this administration. They see how it has cost Harvard, and they don't want to push back.
This is a beautiful, terrible moment. It cost Charlie his life. His wife and children are paying for this in tears and heartache. His friends and colleagues and left with a hole in their hearts. It may truly be a Turning Point. However, it is up to all of us who were gifted with this birthright as Americans, and who value what the founding fathers gave to us to continue this work. After seeing Erika's message last night (heartbreaking and awe-inspiring), there is much to do not only to continue Charlie's work, but to restore the American experiment to what it was originally intended.
I pray that this wildfire that Charlie has created is a refiner's fire. It will burn off the inconsequential things, leaving us with what truly matters. There will be conservative voices and causes caught up in this fire as well. It will hopefully provide us with a more perfect Union.
That has been the shocking thing. I live among that 20%. I told myself that a lot of these people were mostly good, but blind, and that they wanted to be seen as good within the community where they found themselves, that they put on the set of values like a suit of clothes. To see this outpouring of hate from some people I mostly liked in person has been pretty painful. A piece of me wanted to say something, to plead that they would actually listen with an intent to understand rather than to smear, that they would think better of a knee jerk condemnation of any differing opinion as “hateful”, that they would see that people are grieving over this loss. But the astonishing tone-deafness of the reaction seems to demonstrate the pointlessness of any effort to reach them.
I also live among many leftists. The ones I know have been pretty quiet about the murder of the young woman in Charlotte and the assassination of Mr. Kirk in Utah. Perhaps they are processing it trying to figure out a plausible way out of the obvious conclusion that their side has a massive and serious problem (e.g., leftists podcasters getting death threats - so yeah that shows the right is just as bad). Or perhaps they are getting some vibes that they have to rethink their assumptions. Or maybe waiting for Obama to explain this to them in a way they can pretend to believe in their own virtue.
NO. The Right is not just as bad and I don't believe these liars when they start claiming victimhood. Play me a tape of an actual Conservative threatening a leftist. NOPE you don't have one. WE KNOW how this works and we are DONE with it. The Jug Eared Traitorous bastard was the catalyst for all of this. ALL the hate started with him and Big Mike.
What I have seen is posts on social media - actually reposts of things that other people said, and hopefully not representative. But in the context it shocked me, and it seemed to say something in and of itself that expressing such a sentiment should be normalized.
I live among leftists too. They either say nothing, or engage in "whataboutism". They refuse to believe their side is causing the violence
What I am doing is to be more visible, from calling out hateful speech to not letting black privilege overshadow our culture.
Whether they realize it or not, those who genuinely believe that holding ideas they don’t like should carry the death penalty are morally justifying the death penalty for themselves.
Its not Holding those beliefs. Its Acting (violently) on them.
Ron White Texas Death Penalty
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgQRgT15f9U
____________________________
Some people just need killing. I do think they should be public.
Put in an express lane. :) I love Ron White.
This needs plastering everywhere.
Speaking out is what I'm going to do. Especially around young people. Boomers (like myself) are beyond redemption at this point (the Leftist ones).
"Charlie’s views — uniformly disparaged by the press as “far right”"
Ever notice in corporate media, its always Far Right, never moderate right, center right?
Also, when was the last time you heard the corporate media use the term “far left” to ever describe anything? Nothing looks “far” when you’re standing next to it.
Gee i wonder Why That is? Its a mystery! /snark
The backlash against the 20% voicing glee at Charlie's death will bump into 1st amendment protections for speech, but just like any other area of HR law, most employee terminations will stick as long as HR and the boss are careful to make it about the overwhelming negative perception of the employee speech and its direct negative impact on the work environment. eg, nobody wants a Secret Service Agent who's ok with assassinations'
The First Amendment protects you from the government silencing you, not from the consequences of what you say. Yes, they can say anything they want, but a third-grade teacher espousing views that it's ok to murder someone as long as they have a different ideology than you do shows a dangerous lack of self-awareness. It also reflects poorly on the businesses, which have seen the power of the conservative buyer in the case of Bud Light.
That's why they are getting fired.
This is the problem with the government controlling a huge fraction of the economy. A public school, a public university, or a government contractor will risk getting in trouble for firing someone for reasons that even smell like speech, even execrable speech, on the theory that they are part of the government.
And these are the places these roaches have scurried to.
The safety issue is a valid one. I would certainly think it would hold up in any court not in DC.
I'm seeing this in local community FB pages where fomerly mild-mannered quiet normals are setting up prayer vigils. They get pounced upon by liberals with "why didn't you pray for (fill in the blank)" within short order, only for the normies to jump right back at them with "well, hold a prayer vigil if you want". But the truly fascinating is when the irreligious normies jump in to defend the good people who want to pray for the Kirk family...and even say they will attend!
The normies will no longer be cowed into silence by the 20% who hold progressive ideals.
All normies are Charlie...and they aren't staying quiet any more.
Slowly and then suddenly…or it’s as if the Zeitgeist went to bed as a Woke Transgender BIPOC and woke up as Jimmy Stewart…or Barry Goldwater.
I’m hoping for Andy Jackson
"They’re there, they hate you, and they’re not going anywhere. So what to do about it?"
There's only one thing we can do with the infestation in our institutions. Defund it all and start over.
And kill the ones we have to. :)
> And kill the ones we have to. :)
No. Even disregarding the moral issue, we’ve just seen how powerful martyrs can be.
Sorry, not sorry. I want the people who want me and mine dead ... dead. No moral equivalence at all. Simple live and let not live. That is the left.
Fortunately the law protects the rest of us from both them and you.
The best thing to do is not patronize them, and don't amplify them. They will bankrupt themselves. Don't subscribe to the NYTimes and other media outlets that promote leftism and refuse to be objective. Don't click their links. Don't follow them on social media. Don't watch TMZ. We had a realtor in Vegas who joined the LV Board of Realtors. I sent letters to both Democratic and Republican realtors who all agreed he should step down. Not only did he step down but his Real Estate agency fired him. That's how you make them pay.
I wrote this yesterday:
It's Sunday, a time for reflection. In light of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, I want to thank God for clarity. For some reason, many things are clearer today.
Charlie’s death and the immediate aftermath brought evil into sharp focus. These were Pod People who believed that they had killed off their enemy, and they wanted to rub it in our faces. Living in an alternative reality, they actually believed that they represented the majority of ordinary people. The reaction of normal people shocked the small-fry haters, the ones who suddenly found they no longer had jobs at companies that didn’t want to be associated with hate. It shocked the prominent haters, the millionaire TV talkers who tried to deflect by blaming Trump, or Republicans, or by lying about the killer.
But there it was, out in the open. It made clear, like nothing else in my lifetime, that evil has taken over the minds and hearts of so many people. You never noticed it when talking with your children’s teacher, your doctor, the DMV clerk, or even the pastor in too many churches. You had no reason to see the worm in the apple or the rot in the soul. But the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk, his sudden murder broadcast to every living room, revealed reactions both good and evil. And suddenly, you could see who the Pod People are. If we want to ask God what we are grateful for in this momentous time, be thankful for clarity.
I have believed for several years that the left has wanted their political opponents re-educated, imprisoned or dead. I now believe that the primary option is: they want their political opponents dead. The left, and their paramilitary wings, antifa, blm, & others, have been organizing, training for war since the first Trump admin. What should we do? Prepare, train, organize, be ready to defend yourself & your family, verbally and, if necessary, physically. Remember: the left thinks they have future history on their side; they will not give up easily or quickly, but, rather, they will double down.
One thing that I was pondering this morning is how are we going to repopulate our professors with more conservatives or at minimum centrists? Or even left leaning professors who are open to trying to stay neutral in the classroom? The pipeline has been so closed or constricted for so long that there aren't a lot of Ph.d's sitting on the sidelines. It will take time to rebuild the pipeline and it will be difficult to do so given the current makeup of academia. But if we don't, then the rot will just manifest again.
Glenn you are in that world. Any ideas?
Frank Zappa was so prescient (or just timeless) . . .
"Well I'm about to get upset from watchin' my TV
Checkin' out the news until my eyeballs fail to see
I mean to say that every day is just another rotten mess
And when it's gonna change, my friend, is anybody's guess"
"So I'm watchin' and I'm waitin', hopin' for the best
Even think I'll go to prayin' every time I hear 'em sayin'
That there's no way to delay that trouble comin' every day
No way to delay that trouble comin' every day"
I'm 66; my kids are 22, 18, and 14. This Boomer is disgusted with what we've wrought.