Shit. Charlie Kirk is dead

I know I haven't posted in a few days. Late last week I got my updated Covid shot and my annual flu shot, and I felt under the weather over the weekend (it was odd, usually I just have arm sorness, but this time I felt like I was wrapped in cotton wool).

I have been working on a longer post about how it wasn't the 1990's when the hard right turn happened, but instead the rise of the (then) "New Right" began in 1976.

Alas, I then heard that while speaking at a university in Utah, Right Wing influencer and pundit Charlie Kirk was shot, and now has died from his injuries.

We don't yet know who fired the shot, or why, but regardless, this will be a very bad thing. We as a nation are on a knife's edge and this is not going to help de-escalate. Trump is already poised to pull in the military in activities against civilians, and this is just the catalyst that will let a large swath of the population find that acceptable, nay essential.

On many levels, I would argue against Mr. Kirk's politics, his rhetoric, and the following he built. Just yesterday, he was all in on the denial that Trump wrote/drew/signed that disturbing letter that was bound in Epstein's 50th birthday book.

He has been an all-in MAGA acolyte feeding the mob, and building the TPUSA organization into a fascist curious at best organization.

But someone pulling a trigger and shooting him is not the way to handle this. It is going to lead to some very bad consequences.

Already, you are hearing the chorii of "Thoughts and Prayers", but one has to believe that this is going to unleash some christian nationalist nutters to reciprocate. I hope not, but I no longer believe that restraint is an American attribute.

Trump 2.0 is already straining the thread of civilization, but this is going to turn it into a gaping rent in the fabric of society.

I got nothing else on this.