Young people in the US have had little experience of successful political assassination – till now
They’ve only read about it. We who were old enough to remember the 1960s and 1970s recall the searing and terrible assassinations of huge American figures: JFK, RFK, Martin Luther King. To us, these things are extremely real. But to young people they’re not. They’re ancient history – if they even know the history.
Yes, there have been plenty of assassination attempts since then – including of course the Butler PA shot that hit Trump’s ear. But that experience probably only served to underline what I’m referring to, because Trump’s amazing survival with only a bloody ear probably seemed almost cartoonish: See, he bounces back! And – except for relatively minor political figures that probably escaped most people’s attention, such as the murders of Minnesota Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband – all other American political assassinations in recent years in the US have been failed attempts.
The young people I’m talking about are even too young to have experienced the shock of 9/11. To them, that’s another semi-distant historical event, long ago and far away in the background.
So young people may not even have quite believed that a successful assassination was possible till now, although obviously it was. This one was different, because they saw the gore of murder with a rifle in full public view up close. And they saw it happen to a young man, speaking to a large crowd of mostly young people on a college campus. They saw right before their eyes the difference between stupid phrases such as “words are violence” and real violence.
In a sense, they entered history, at least a little bit.
Tyler Robinson, who has not been convicted but who is almost certainly the culprit, was an avid gamer who wrote video game phrases on the casings. And many young leftists online acted like this murder was a video game, and whooped it up about the murder. But I bet a not insignificant number were stunned and are now wondering about some of the things they’ve been blithely mouthing before this happened. What percentage? I don’t know; perhaps it’s quite small. But I believe this groups exists. And as for those already in the middle, I doubt that leftism holds much appeal at all for most of them at this point.
Yes, Neo, I am like you. I am 78 and I remember the assassinations very well.
As much as I hate so many on the left, I do not want more murders. Antifa is gearing up for major confrontations with Feds. Trump is not playing around. There will be blood in the streets.
Instapundit says “Broadcasting the kill order.” in response to Governor Newsom Press Office Xposting “STEPHEN MILLER IS A FASCIST!”.
Want more political assassinations? That’s how you’ll get more political assassinations, Governor.
https://x.com/instapundit/status/1971990022984552811
I find young people are typically very cognizant of school shootings and that a young life, possibly their own, can be terminated without notice at the hands of a school shooter.
Just as we had tornado and/or nuclear bomb “duck and cover” drills during the school day, all American youth have participated in regular, first person shooter drills as a part of their school day. I’ve seen this as a normal part of introduction to other events youths attend; camps, scouting events, church service… I imagine coaches may even cover what to do if there is an active shooter at a sporting event with their athletes.
For their entire lives they have gone through metal (gun, bomb and knife) detectors to travel on a plane, attend sporting events and other public activities. Many walk through metal detectors daily to enter their schools.
Yes, Americans born after 1980, or so, may think less about the possibility of a political assassination than those of us who are older, however I’m sure they are very cognizant of the possibility of a gunman shooting innocents in a public place.
I remember thinking it odd that there were so many bollards in front of buildings in Europe when first traveling there in the ’90s. “How can they be so nonchalant about terrorism?” I wondered. “Why don’t they eliminate the terrorists, rather than impeding law abiding citizens?”
Pretty soon the fenced lawn in front of the White House will extend to the Potomac.
https://www.whitehousehistory.org/press-room/press-timelines/history-of-the-white-house-fence
I don’t know. I was born in 1969 so obviously not around for the 1960s but I was in the 6th grade when Reagan was shot and then I believe the pope was shot a very short time later and they brought a TV in to our class room for the Reagan one which happened in the morning on the west coast and we discussed it and past assassinations all day that day in a very serious and educational way. One of the most memorable days of my childhood.
But Reagan and the pope both survived and continued on in their respective jobs for many years so I don’t think it’s just today’s young I think it’s everybody under about 60 that hasn’t seen a successful assassination attempt at least in the US.
Further I would argue that pretty much everything in American society was better in the 1980s and 1990s which allowed for these things to not become the norm.
And of course social media is the through line with virtually every major issue in the world now making these so, so much worse.
Though they were involved in political processes, I don’t think of Martin Luther King or Charlie Kirk as political leaders. They were Civil Rights leaders.
America needs a Civil Rights movement for Christians.
There are reports, maybe unsubstantiated, that the Charlie Kirk Show with Megyn Kelly and Erika has reached a billion, with a b, views. The scales may be slipping from the eyes of Gen Z, and some of the Millenials.
Young people have no real idea of Hitler either. They did not have old relatives or neighbors who fought or died in WW2. They did not see the books with stacked up Jewish corpses. They did not see dozens of Hollywood war movies.
Young people do know old relatives and neighbors who fought or died in VietNam
Even younger people know relatives, classmates, or neighbors who fought and died in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Boomers have seen and heard and known each throughout their lifetime, including Korea, with many having Grandfathers or Great Uncles who fought or died in WW1 as well.
@ Rufus > “I find young people are typically very cognizant of school shootings and that a young life, possibly their own, can be terminated without notice at the hands of a school shooter.”
I think this is much more frightening than living through the assassinations Neo listed, because those did not touch me personally: I was not going to be a political (or probably civil rights leader) myself, so I was not in any danger.
However, I would suggest that the school shootings , such as by the trans-kids, are increasingly becoming political assassinations, because they are being done for ideological reasons more than strictly personal ones.
It’s been 46 years since our son died. He would be 66 if he was alive. We learned to live without him, but it was hard. Every time some young person dies, I know what the family is going through, and it brings a flashback of the heartbreak that such an event brings.
Charlie Kir k’s death has brought that old feeling back in many ways. I’m so sorry his wife, kids, and parents have to endure that pain.
Faith and trust that God has a plan is a help for grieving families. That so many young people are returning to faith from Chalie’s example is a hint at what the plan might be. But what a price to pay!
We have, as Erika Kirk said, so many lost young men who are learning wicked things on social media. I pray that Turning Point USA grows and becomes a beacon of hope and goodness for those lost young men.
Assassination and murder are never an answer in a society that is based on reasoned debate, and fair elections. Every political leader should be saying that instead of dehumanizing their opponents. It was the center of Charlie Kirk’s whole life.
The transgender community needs help. They are not being helped by giving children hormones and sex change surgeries. They’re not being helped by telling them that
Christians hate them.
I’m not a psychotherapist, but it seems to me that there are ways that counseling and therapy can help transgender children learn to accept their feelings and find their way in society to become productive adults when they could explore whether surgery would help them. Is it a bridge too far? I hope not. But the way our mentally ill homeless are being neglected doesn’t give me hope.
Agreed Neo – and I do agree with Rufus about Active Shooters. That we even have a term for it “Active Shooter” is appalling. but, the young people today grew up with the term and the idea.
They had drills in schools about what to do in such a situation. I remember the first time they had a drill at work; it was a first time I had ever had an active shooter drill while all the younger people had active shooter drills in school almost as often as fire drills.
I am tempted to say that yes, maybe, just maybe, that younger people don’t have a collective memory of a political assassination are whooping it up gleefully claiming “he got what he deserved” like it is a video game because they see it as a video game. But, that I cannot quite agree with because so many who are gleeful about Kirk’s murder are, or at least should be, old enough to know better as some are old enough to remember the earlier assassinations.
So, it makes me wonder if in the past there were some who were gleeful about those murders but we didn’t have social media for them to show the world what idiots they truly were.
@ J. J. > “it seems to me that there are ways that counseling and therapy can help transgender children learn to accept their feelings and find their way in society to become productive adults when they could explore whether surgery would help them.”
There is such therapy, it does help, and it used to be the norm.
There is a special evil in the people who passed laws to make that therapy itself illegal.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/2878119/biased-washington-law-is-a-gross-violation-of-therapists-freedom-of-speech/
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/266645/clinician-says-minnesota-law-harms-kids-struggling-with-sexual-orientation-gender-identiy
Typical of the Democrats’ abuse of language, they call the banned procedure “conversion therapy,” as if the attempt to retain the patient’s identification with his or her actual biological sex is converting, rather than the interventions to separate the two things, including changing their physical appearance with drugs and surgery.
The bans started as a way to prevent psychiatrists from helping people with same-sex attraction that didn’t want to live that way; sometimes it was successful, but the “pro choice” people didn’t want THOSE people to have a choice.
@ charles > “it makes me wonder if in the past there were some who were gleeful about those murders but we didn’t have social media for them to show the world what idiots they truly were.”
It had occurred to me that a lot of the people gloating over Kirk’s murder were old enough to remember the assassinations as far back as JFK, because we see so many geezers at political protests organized by the Left these days, and I think you may have hit the nail on the head here.
Of course, if it’s the same people, they were lamenting Kennedy’s death (and refusing to believe he was killed by a communist) and ditto RFK & MLK, but they were probably cheering the attempt on Reagan and sorry it didn’t succeed.
I hope there were not any conservatives happy about the murders of the three Democrats (I think King was Dem? he certainly was not a conservative for that era); if there were, they certainly kept it secret AFAICT.
In a sense it has become religious, if you kill a fascist,Nazi, whatever you’ll be a hero no matter what happens to your physical remains.
This is the real reason of separation of church and state. Personally I wonder about the age group 18-35. They were to the right in the last national election but that doesn’t mean they’ll stay there.
AesopFan,
Dr. Martin Luther King was a Republican.
I am old enought to have developed a certain perspective on current events, and I generally come down on the side of “plus ca change…” or perhaps, “Thus it ever was.” Only the details change, but the main story remains the same; humankind is fallen, reprobate and constantly and continually in need of redemption. Left to our own devices, we will always fall into barbarism, violence and ugliness. The same culture that produced Bach, Beethoven and Mozart also produced Nietzsche, Marx and Hitler. The utter fallacy of the secular sermon preached by those who peddle human perfectability should be obvious, but the fact that it is not speaks to the depravity of our natures. Of course, the disregard for historical precedents is also a feature; everybody thinks history began with their birth and the problem arises when no corrective measures are applied. Even efforts to educate the young about what happened in the past is often futile, since the reaction is typically something along the lines of, “True communism/socialism has never been established,” or “We can do it right this time.” Nope; never gonna happen in this fallen world. It’s funny, however, that the same people who preach the perfectability of humanity also spout the line about “the arc of history,” but fail to understand that, although there is an arc, it is the one set out in The Bible, not the one of which they think they are a part. Our one, true hope is The Glorious Hope of the second advent of The Redeemer and the establishment of His Kingdom. Meanwhile, our duty is to acknowledge our place in His universe and follow His commmandments. Come to think of it, doing so might just improve our lot immensely.
It seems to me that years of constant, inciting, violent rhetoric by the Democrats has raised the national temperature, and has, in essence, given a lot of unstable nutjobs—who were on the edge of committing violent acts—the permission to cross over that edge, and to Act out their violent fantasies and impulses.
See, for instance, what’s happened in just the last couple of days.
“……..sometimes it was successful, but the “pro choice” people didn’t want THOSE people to have a choice.” – AesopFan
I didn’t realize that laws had been passed to prevent such counseling and therapy. Common sense is being out lawed. It’s my hope that more and more voters will get that, and vote t for common sense.
MLK was neither Republican nor Democrat. He was suspected of being a Communist, though he denied it. FBI files on him were sealed for decades, and stated that he had extramarital affairs and took part in sexual orgies,
at one of which a woman was raped.
https://www.britannica.com/story/was-martin-luther-king-jr-a-republican-or-a-democrat
https://www.history.com/articles/martin-luther-king-jr-fbi-j-edgar-hoover-communism
after kings assasination, the far left elements like the panthers (see fred hampton, who was actually a marxist) and the black liberation army, thats where the late joanne chesimard comes into the picture, were given license, it is from the latter stream that so called BLM comes from, certainly there were far left figures like o’neil and levinson, that had influence in his circle, william pepper, a lawyer who has been pushing some of the crazier conspiracy was another one of these,
the events after the rfk assasination and the chicago convention seems to have inspired the white left, which became the weather underground see william ayers and
the May 19th movement of Susan Rosenberg
No government can be established that is based on faith.
I doubt counseling and therapy does much good on balance.
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Suggest that ‘trans’ phenomenon is an example of supply generating its own demand conjoined to lunacy which comes from people having traveled far from basic subsistence. The left is attempting to sustain it by doing more violence to freedom of speech, freedom to publish, freedom of contract, and freedom of association.
America needs a Civil Rights movement for Christians.
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Disagree. We benefit from strict impartiality in the operation of public institutions and freedom of contract and association elsewhere.
@ Art Deco – agreed on the strict impartiality in the public sphere and full freedom in the private.
Without my having actually read the law’s text, it seems to me that the CRA should have made those boundaries clearer, if it made a distinction at all; the applications of the law appear to have completely muddled public and private and everything in between, and we ended with the disasters of “affirmative action” leading to racial preferences and quotas everywhere, instead of government and other “public” institutions just giving a “boost” to the minority applicants in cases of otherwise equally qualified pools, and trying to jail bakers and florists for wanting to exercise their freedom of speech and association even though they are nothing like the hotels and restaurants and transportation sectors as originally intended (so they said).
That is the danger of leaving undefined phrases in a law, such as “public accommodation” and other terms (and not just in this particular law; see EPA over-reaches recently struck down by Trump’s administration).
At least we have some defenses against full-out tyranny, such as is practiced now in the UK.
https://babylonbee.com/news/9-most-surprising-things-that-can-get-you-arrested-in-the-uk
https://babylonbee.com/news/british-authorities-warn-there-is-a-man-loose-on-the-streets-threatening-to-share-an-opinion
Of course, the US, in addition to using the law to fine and jail people with the wrong opinions, is now host to large numbers of people willing to go straight to free-lance assassination.
https://babylonbee.com/news/democrats-say-theres-no-place-for-violence-against-evil-nazi-republicans-that-are-literally-killing-people-and-destroying-america
And the path to UK-style tyranny is opening up.
https://babylonbee.com/news/dearborn-mayor-launches-jihad-against-ohio
“I doubt counseling and therapy does much good on balance.” – Art D.
“Counseling and therapy for transgender children have shown positive outcomes, particularly in terms of mental health improvement.”
https://www.bing.com/search?q=Results+of+counseling+and+therapy+for+trahnsgender+children&form=ANNTH1&refig=68d9f1c0e3b34e43ae7be7abd73eb71f&pc=DCTS
Of course, therapy isn’t a 100% panacea. If it helps more than 50% of the time, it would be beneficial.
More:
“These findings underscore the importance of evidence-based interventions and the need for ongoing research to better understand the effects of counseling and therapy on transgender children.”
How much effort has the mental health community put into this? Since Transgenders are about .5% of the population, they are a small minority. Still, .5% of 342 million people is 1.7 million. A substantial number that needs to come to terms with their dysphoria.
I have no doubt you can find a study that will show counseling and / or therapy have ‘positive outcomes’. The question, among other things, is how the results compare with a control group and if the results are replicable in different cultural matrices. The number of ‘transgenders’ in the United States in 1950 was precisely zero. I don’t think counseling and therapy then available played much of a part in that.
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The mental health trade push all sorts of dubious propositions which align with their professional interests and social ideology. And, of course, professional associations seem peculiarly vulnerable to take over by rancid ideologues.