The swelling tide of hatred
For anyone who follows the news it’s impossible to ignore the tide of hatred unleashed against the affable, smiling, “let us all reason together,” and now-deceased Charlie Kirk and his supporters.
However, it’s not new. From those who admire the cold-blooded killer of a heretofore obscure insurance executive to those who applaud the murder of a young Jewish couple, from those who use the occasion of a Kirk memorial ceremony to mockingly enact Kirk’s death to teachers who think nothing of telling their students after Kirk’s assassination that Kirk was “a piece of garbage,” examples are unfortunately legion. They not only think it, they feel no hesitation to publicly go on record with these sorts of abominable sentiments.
Although it’s impossible to say when this started, it’s been steadily growing. But on reflection, I’ve decided there was a turning point that I don’t see anyone else mentioning. It happened in 2019, and it was the widespread hatred unapologetically expressed towards a very young and very innocent person: 16-year-old Nicholas Sandmann.
Remember? He’d never been a public figure before, but he suddenly became one for the “crime” of smiling at some activists who were harassing him when he was on a school trip to Washington DC. The media lied about what was happening, with edited videos and a platform for the multiple falsehoods of the supposed victim. Sandmann ultimately got money awards for the defamation, but not before he was subjected to all sorts of abuse expressing the general idea the he had a “punchable face” that many adults would have loved to smack.
I wrote many posts at the time about the incident, but probably the most relevant one to the present discussion is this, entitled “The Covington chronicles: on hating the face of a teenage boy.” An excerpt:
One of the most chilling aspects of the hatred fanned by the duplicitous reporting on the videotaped incident regarding the Covington students and the 60-something Native American has been the venomous rage directed against the face of one of the students, as well as the conclusions drawn about the expression on the face and what it might signify about the person.
I’ve talked about Orwell before in connection with all of this, and I’m going to bring him up again, because the anger unleashed resembles Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate (although this hasn’t been limited to two minutes at a time). …
The image that provoked a truly hideous rage in an enormous number of people on the left and some on the right was of a teenaged boy named Nicholas Sandmann …
From [an article in Slate] by Ruth Graham, which shows us what the author is fantasizing based on the manipulated story and video:
“I think the real reason the clip has spread is simpler: It’s the kid’s face. The face of self-satisfaction and certitude, of edginess expressed as cruelty. The face remains almost completely still as his peers hoot in awed delight at his bravado. The face is both punchable and untouchable. Many observers recognized it right away.”
What is it they “recognized”? A face that is now permissible to hate, apparently; they’re not shy about writing about their hate and signing their names to it. That face is white, male, and supposedly “privileged” (whether they know a single thing about that person’s actual life circumstances or not). I have come to think of it in a kind of shorthand as hatred towards the “frat boy” in their minds. And it’s not new, although I’ve never before seen a national eruption of this hatred expressed towards someone who is not yet an adult.
The post I wrote is long, but I think it’s relevant to Kirk’s murder. To be sure, Sandmann was just a powerless boy being harassed by activists who later used him to stir up a certain kind of rage, whereas although Kirk was an adult and a political activist he didn’t hold a post in government and he was smiley, confident, white, and young.
More from the Slate piece by Graham, which was published in January of 2019:
The face is in this photo of a clutch of white young men crowding around a single black man at a lunch counter sit-in in Virginia in the 1960s, and in many other images of jeering white men from that era. The face is the rows of Wisconsin high school boys flashing Nazi salutes in a prom picture last year. The face is Brett Kavanaugh—then a student at an all-boys Catholic prep school—“drunkenly laughing” as he allegedly held down Christine Blasey Ford. Anyone who knew the popular white boys in high school recognized it: the confident gaze, the eyes twinkling with menace, the smirk. The face of a boy who is not as smart as he thinks he is, but is exactly as powerful. The face that sneers, “What? I’m just standing here,” if you flinch or cry or lash out. The face knows that no matter how you react, it wins.
I maintain that this sort of sentiment is at least part of what was behind the hatred of Kirk – augmented by his actual ability to argue with leftists and be so reasonable that he sometimes dislodged people from that mindset. Whether or not it was especially prominent in the killer’s motivations (which perhaps were more specific to trans issues?), it certainly seems to have motivated the haters who supported the killer and the killing and/or called it justified.
My post ends with this:
The people hating on Sandmann ought to be ashamed of themselves, but there is no indication of even a flicker of that feeling. Nor are they likely to damp down their hatred based on the evidence of Sandmann’s innocence.
They know that face, you see, and it’s the face of their enemy.
That Slate article is still online, and I decided to check out some of the comments there. There aren’t many, but here they are:
One reason that video is cutting so deep today: The smug, fixed, chilly smile. That’s not a teenager out of control. It’s the familiar gleam of a zealot. Never in the history of this country has that look portended anything but bad news.
I honestly haven’t stopped thinking about that MAGA kid all day – in part because I think so many of us have been on the receiving end of the face he was making: a smug, untouchable, entitled ‘fuck you’.
You saw that sort of thing constantly at the time. It’s been six and a half years since then, and such sentiments have only festered, intensified, and spread.
Sadly, I am seeing the same sort of hate directed toward Kirk’s (still alleged for legal reasons) killer, the same “reading” of his face and “interpreting” what he is thinking “without evidence,” the same sorts of wild pronouncements about his family, his roommate/lover, and his ideological trajectory.
Without in any way minimizing what he did, and not dismissing the very necessary justice that must be levied, how about recognizing that he too is a person, obviously (not guessing) misled by the evil voices of our day, who did a terrible thing and must live with the consequences.
Based on what I’ve read about Kirk (much more than I knew before!), it seems to me that his own inclination would be toward sympathy and mercy.
A particularly reprehensible lie.
To be sure, they ARE reprehensible…and they will lie—and will use every opportunity to lie—about everything.
(So what are the odds that they will change their ways…?)
** As was the entire lynch campaign waged against Kavanaugh.
AF, sorry, they made the rules.
Rod Dreher linked to an essay today “How the Left Programmed Young People to Hate” by David Betz and Michael Rainsborough:
https://dailysceptic.org/2025/09/16/how-the-left-programmed-young-people-to-hate/
that is very interesting. Excerpt:
“In Wild Swans, Jung Chang’s memoir of her family’s turmoil during the Cultural Revolution, she recounts that Mao ruled by getting people to despise one another. He understood the ugliest human instincts — envy and resentment — and knew how to weaponise them. “By nourishing the worst in people, Mao created a moral wasteland, a land of hatred.”
“What Jung Chang described was not an incidental consequence of revolutionary excess but the very heart of its method: hatred deliberately sown, division systematically engineered, cruelty unleashed as a political instrument.”
I should add, it’s not only young people who have learned to hate. What deeply shocks me is that even older people, among them members of my family, who were raised differently and were correcting *me* as a callow teenager in my crude or ugly thoughts, are now themselves proving just as ugly in their opinions now: “I hope Trump dies of his Covid” etc.
AesopFan:
It’s certainly different when people direct such rage against a cold-blooded killer (which Robinson almost undoubtedly is). I agree that we should all recognize his humanity, but rage at such a figure is justifiable. Lynching him isn’t, but bringing him to justice is and anger is.
Let me preface by saying that clearly the Jewish people and especially those who practice the Jewish faith are far more set upon by large chunks of the global societies than any of the Christians. But I do think that one of the big factors here is that we are talking about devout Christians or believers.
NancyB gets it. This is calculated by the leadership. Serious Marxists cannot tolerate people of faith. What we’re seeing is kind of the social media version of the Islamic leadership using their madrasas as schools of hatred. It is amazing and sad that in our USA case, it seems to work on middled aged, and older, adults who really should know better.
Anybody else surprised by reactions of friends either celebrating or saying CK deserved it?
Also there was no mention of CK in my Anglican (not Church of England but former Episcopal church which broke away due to the leftist trend of Episcopal church) church service last Sunday. I know mixing politics and religion as CK did makes it difficult for many priests to address. However I’m thinking not addressing at all, even if couched in a forgiveness angle would be better. Your thoughts?
I’ve seen two clips of Jimmy Kimmel commenting on Charlie Kirk’s murder. I’ve been underwhelmed by Kimmel’s monologues before, but this astounded me. It’s really an amazing thing.
Kimmel arguably has one of the most desired jobs in show business. Reading jokes written by a large staff of writers off of a teleprompter and then sitting at a desk asking actors and actresses questions off of a list prepared by staffers. And earning millions of dollars a year for this effort.
It’s a late show. The premise is; Mr. and Mrs. America want to sit down after a long day at the office and take a break and watch something light and mildly entertaining.
Kimmel’s statements on the Kirk murder were vile. And he lied in order to falsely impugn a political group. A writer posited the words. His or her peers in the writers’ room thought them valid for air and wrote them down. Then the script passed through multiple pairs of hands and eyes to assess the value of inclusion in that evening’s show. At least some of those eyes belong to people whose job it is to protect the network’s interests and ensure nothing will offend any sponsors, let alone half the audience. And, Jimmy Kimmel or someone he trusts implicitly also had to approve the words.
How can it be that no one in that chain could see how obviously wrong it was to air those statements, read by Kimmel on his show? Kimmel doesn’t care enough about his own reputation? The show runner? The head writer? The producer doesn’t care about offending sponsors? ABC/Disney Executives have no concern about tarnishing their company’s brand?
How can the rot be that deep?
Saul Alinsky, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals
“I agree that we should all recognize his humanity, but rage at such a figure is justifiable. Lynching him isn’t, but bringing him to justice is and anger is.”
Yes, Neo, fully agreed that justice and anger are profoundly called for. And as for the tide of celebration among leftists for what he did, it’s hard to hold down the righteous fury. Let every single one of them lose their jobs and be shamed.
They do deserve it.
But as for the assassin, I’m with AesopFan. This person, and who knows how many more like him, have been brainwashed and destroyed by forces much larger than any one young man. I think Charlie Kirk would have argued for some level of compassionate forgiveness for this individual — as much as our weak human selves can manage — even if not for the evil mass of leftist celebration. And yes, Shirehome, they did make the rules that led to this. But that doesn’t mean I have to follow them.
I am trying hard, though not always succeeding, not to hate anybody. I think that’s what happened to the left — their hatred ate them alive from within, and after so many years of corrosion left nothing but these demonic shells pretending to be teachers and doctors and student electricians. We won’t solve this by hating them, which will only destroy us in the end. Though I am certainly not immune from the temptation.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Your questions of Kimmel and his staff remind me of an infamous 2010 British ad for climate change:
_________________________________
—School Children ‘Blown Up’ for Not Fighting Climate Change in Controversial Ad
The short film, “No Pressure,” which promotes the U.K.’s 10:10 climate change campaign, debuted on the campaign’s website Friday. It depicts a school teacher, a corporate boss and a soccer coach asking their respective students, employees and players to participate in the 10:10 campaign to reduce carbon emissions. Despite being told there is “no pressure” to join the cause, those who say they don’t plan to participate are immediately blown up by their superiors with the push of a button; the others are left standing in awe and covered in bloody remains.
https://www.foxnews.com/science/school-children-blown-up-for-not-fighting-climate-change-in-controversial-ad
_________________________________
Schoolchildren being graphically blown up into blood and guts for not backing the climate change agenda?
This wasn’t a small-scale indie project. It was written by Richard Curtis of “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and starred Gillian Welch of “The X-Files.”
There were dozens of people involved in this project from top to bottom. Did no one question how offensive and stupid the film would appear to viewers?
The ad was quickly pulled from circulation, but its backers didn’t apologize, they merely said that it was “inappropriate.”
Mrs Whatsit:
There’s a difference between not wanting to hate anybody versus hating everybody on a certain side. Some rage at a cold-blooded killer who would shoot Kirk that way is justified, IMHO.
Why forgive Robinson, who has not shown remorse for his deed (merely for getting caught) or understanding of its wrongness? He is an adult, not a child. He’s not a paranoid schizophrenic under the sway of psychotic delusions. He seems to have had the advantage of a loving and upright family. He made choices, and the choices led to this act. He was not a kidnapped and raped and Patty Hearst. He was not in a prisoner of war camp. He succumbed to an internet culture that is pernicious, but no one held a gun to his head (if you’ll excuse the expression) and forced him to do that. He did it (as far as we know) of his own free will, as an adult.
If we were to know the lives of all killers, I bet a huge proportion of them would have much sadder stories. On that human level, one can easily have compassion for them. But why forgiveness, if they haven’t shown the elements that would justify forgiveness? They are responsible for their deeds, despite their sad lives; most people with sad lives don’t become killers. And we don’t even know anything sad about Robinson’s life.
Please see this previous post of mine on forgiveness.
Jimmy Kimmel has never been funny, but has always been a half wit.
Punishment for this shooter, and for the murderer of the UHC executive, MUST happen for the good of society. We cannot survive toleration for political murders, or for the vicious general non-political murders fueled by the failure to maintain public order.
I can, while calling for justice, also feel sorrow over the murderers and what they chose to do. They have time to repent; may they do so.
@mark: My Anglican priest, at the time for the sermon, opened with a few non-political remarks deploring all the recent murders, and then, in lieu of a sermon, led us in praying the Litany (p. 54, 1928 BCP; p. 91, 2109 ACNA BCP). Ancient prayers hit all the right notes in times of distress.
A statement from the Archbishop of the ACNA was finally issued on Sept. 16, yesterday. A few days late, in my opinion. https://mailchi.mp/anglicanchurch.net/the-provincial-may-2025-newsletter-from-the-anglican-church-in-north-america-17025470?e=a35f39389f
RTF,
Disney has just been put on notice by the FCC for Kimmel’s remarks. Just reported by Fox.
Disney has pulled Kimmel’s show indefintely.
https://www.foxnews.com/media/disney-says-jimmy-kimmels-show-will-be-preempted-indefinitely-following-charlie-kirk-assassin-comments
Neo
Congratulations on making the connection.
Not sure of your Sandmann point so instead of agreeing with what it might be, I’ll make my point and maybe we’ll be in agreement;
Sandmann didn’t spark hate. He didn’t start it. He cracked a high-pressure canister of hate which had been waiting for a perfect issue.
It has been roiling ever since, coalescing around one or another figure to some intensity until Trump showed up and then he and his followers were the target.
Then Charlie was murdered.
Note the hate after his murder. Prior, many people didn’t like him. Now, with his cause growing exponentially, including its world-wide connections which many or most people did not know….he must be HATED with incandescent intensity.
That he, like Sandmann, is innocent, required exponentially greater effort to hate and to sell the hate.
But the origin of the hate escapes me.
Richard Aubrey:
If you credit what the author of that Slate article writes, she describes some of the origins of the hatred. However, the left, “influencers,” the MSM, etc., take those seeds of hate and encourage them to spread and grow. There’s also a group effect if you’re surrounded by like-minded people or find them in an online community.
Orwell’s Two Minutes Hate describes how hatred can be drummed up in a group.
Lancing the boil: https://x.com/SpencerGuard/status/1968474938337280424
Pres Trump designates Antifa a terror organization. Trump statement at link.
Interpreting Sandmann’s uncomfortable, polite smile was, to me, a clear act of impugning the innocence of a child. I’m glad that Sandmann was well represented in his lawsuit, and probably won’t have to worry about money – he deserves it, at a minimum. They were willing to go after a kid that was in the wrong place on a school field trip, for crissakes, and they attempted to turn him into a national pariah.
Kimmel’s show was scheduled to expire sometime next year anyway.
Good riddance.
I suspect within a month Democrats may not feel like shutting up, but they will be more civil out of self-interest.
Addenum to my first comment:
I am in complete agreement that justice must be meted to Robinson (and Mangione) for his actions, and must repent as mandated by God, in accordance with the gospel, to be deserving of forgiveness, but Mrs. Whatsit understands what I mean by the right not reacting to him with the same KIND of hateful statements that the left directed against Sandmann.
Sympathy and mercy are NOT what is being displayed by the left wing media, as Geraghty outlines in his NR post; they are engaging in “yes, but..” to excuse Robinson’s actions.
https://www.nationalreview.com/the-morning-jolt/the-media-are-incapable-of-covering-left-wing-violence/
I think there have always been these currents of hate in any population, but they are usually directed toward wartime enemies (false atrocity stories come out of that, especially if there are true ones as well), political opponents (there are books and books about political invective as far back as the Founding and beyond), religious disputes (which pretty much disqualifies both/all sides from being truly Christian), and so forth.
Haters gonna hate; they just need an excuse.
OUTRAGED BY THE HATE!—that’s my summary of Winston Marshall’s report from the US, on GBnews in the UK.
In a few years after splitting from the musical act, Mumford and Sons, Marshall has become an influential voice in the podcasting world, but mostly through interviews with his guests on hot button issues.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCYczve81fE
Our dire times in the US by a Brit.
Late Wednesday night, Trump posted about this on Truth Social.
Any Ngo is “Reacting to President Trump Declaring Antifa a ‘Major Terrorist Organization’” here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5E0a7wU6pUg
Andy gives us precautionary advice and looks at real avenues for prosecution of far Left violence. Andy also shares news on far Left Antifa prosecutions that has escaped most of us here.
Rufus,
‘Kimmel arguably has one of the most desired jobs in show business.’
Not anymore!
Over 50% Now Support POLITICAL MURDER” – Political Violence Is Now Mainstream | Andy Ngo
Winston Marshall Clips, 10m
“The far Left’s political violence is mainstream….
The Left is a death cult” — Reporter, Andrew Ngo
Towards the end, Andy avers that we are in a “state of asymmetric warfare.”
The popularity of political violence by the Left provides effective cover for the further violence against the Right.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSq66n_M2C4
James Woods posted this brief 1 m montage of Democrats dehumanizing the Right as Fascists. He writes, “ Here is the roadmap to Charlie Kirk’s assassination…”
https://x.com/RealJamesWoods/status/1966578517724078404?
I think that much political activism is driven by the opportunity to act with cruelty toward others while feeling virtuous about it:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/70696.html
A thoughtful essay on our current situation here:
https://intrastellar.substack.com/p/awakening-the-sleepwalkers‘
Excerpt:
“People are convinced that they face an existential threat in Trump, that fascism is coming for them, that the Handmaid’s Tale is going to be realized in their time, that they have to shout all day on Facebook about how the right wing is Literally Nazis. They imagine themselves to be the good guys in a war movie in which the resistance fights the Nazis, but they don’t realize that in fact the role they are playing is closer to the Chinese communists during the Cultural Revolution. They are playing a script in their mind that doesn’t match the reality.”
I have been thinking about W.B. Yeats’ poem, “The Second Coming” almost from the moment I learned Charlie Kirk was dead. I sent it to my mother and the next day she had written it in calligraphy on parchment paper, she was so inspired. The line that hits the hardest is not the first one, but this one:
“The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
Does that not describe our situation to a tee?
But also, the first line may even be more trenchant:
“Turning and turning in a widening gyre,
The falcon cannot hear the falconer,”
It does seem like we are getting further and further away from a center, and things are getting more and more out of control.
I don’t think so. “the worst [Democrats]
Are full of passionate intensity.” Okay, but
“The best [Conservatives] lack all conviction” I’m not buying. It does apply to RINOs, Lite Republicans, and Uniparty members.
“…but they don’t realize that in fact the role they are playing is closer to the Chinese communists during the Cultural Revolution….”
Well, OK; though I would have thought something more along the lines of:
“…but they don’t realize that in fact the role they are playing is closer to the German communists in Weimar….”
…hoping, as I do, that the current round of absolutely reckless dishonesty, subversion of all aspects of society, crisis-mongering, quest for total power and accompanying “strategic” violence on the part of the DPUSA will not result in a similar catastrophe (or, in fact, won’t even “rhyme”).
Related:
Fetterman, though not always reliable, steps up courageously with some (more) INCONVENIENT TRUTH…
“Fetterman Blasts Democrat Colleagues For ‘Inciting Violence’”—
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/fetterman-blasts-democrat-colleagues-inciting-violence
Simply amazing that a statement—warning—so obvious is, for many, many Democrats, so heretical…
(Even more amazing that such a statement had to be made at all…though it should have been made long ago—at least following on the heels of Joe Biden’s pathetic “Nuremberg moment”.)
Hating the bad guys is fun, and even good.
But bad guys do bad things, hateful things.
Creating hate, by calling a good guy a bad guy, has long been the Dem Demonization Strategy.
Sandmann was a target, so is Israel and of course Trump, as was Bush43.
X Derangement Syndrome was a misnomer, it was Dems who are deranged, not X, and their derangement was the goal of the Demonization Strategy.
Getting such deranged celebrants of murder fired is an important step towards society healing.
When you have elite schools like Yale University inviting speakers, such as Dr. Aruna Khilalani, to speak at an event on campus, who then goes on to tell the audience, with apparent impunity, her fantasies of shooting a random white person in the street, wiping her bloody hands on her pants as she smiles and walks away.
Who are these people?
@Berry Meislin:Fetterman, though not always reliable, steps up courageously
Talk is very cheap. Caucusing with the Republicans would cost him. In the end, he’ll do what the Minority Leader needs him to do.
@Kate- Thank you. I’m hopeful we will get a similar message this week as I think just ignoring it is a poor choice.
if you thought there was something familar to all this,
https://x.com/DataRepublican/status/1968741041923637567
same with this,
https://ijr.com/man-who-attempted-to-assassinate-justice-kavanaugh-identifies-as-transgender/
yes its window dressing, but its better than what every other dem has done, honestly I didn’t expect that of him
https://nypost.com/2021/06/18/nyc-shrink-who-talked-about-shooting-white-people-now-says-they-are-psychopathic/
==
Yale has since managed to remove all cached copies of their promotional statement published before the talk and their statement of regret published after the talk. (The woman is a looney who should have her license to practice lifted, btw).