So fucking good!!

Im sorry hope it gets better

Im sorry. Hope u are all

The escalation of authoritarian rhetoric happening in the US is insane. Labelling your opponents as terrorists is literally big-time authoritarianism. The fact we escalated to this in under a year is insane.

... same permission structure that itself encourages political violence.
You are right. We must go further than just condemning political violence. It's necessary for democratic survival, but in doing so, we need to recognize all political violence and not legitimize the one that is easy to ignore.

On those most vulnerable. Those who unlike you and Kirk never had a megaphone to tell their stories, who too often weren't given the opportunity to be humanized in the first place. Words carry power, both yours and his; when you legitimize him further, you legitimize his permission structures the...

I will probably never agree with conservatives, but many conservatives, including some current Republicans, engage in politics that doesn't legitimize violence against people like me. Kirk was not one of those figures. And to say he was doing politics the right way ignores the effect his work had...

... the most vulnerable in our society from the few protections they had. All this has material consequences, this too is political violence. The connection between the actions of Kirk and the lives cut short is not as obvious as that of the shooter and Kirk's, but they are also deadly. ...

... increase trans suicide. This political change is attributed to the cultural shift brought by the political speech of Kirk and others like him. The internet is now filled with hate speech, against, Jews, Muslims, latines, black people, and every other minority. Anti DEI measures are stripping ...

... I feel this even outside the States. Here in Canada, the gender affirming care I take — the care that saved my life, bringing me back from the brink of suicide, into becoming a mostly happy and functional human — is under attack. Removing this care will, as has been shown to drastically ...

... this violence is committed sometimes by political administration (e.g. ICE), but it also occurs in subtle, more pernicious ways that are harder to detect. Ways which are allowed to happen as a direct consequence of the permission structures created by Kirk's speech. ...

... was it demonstrated a certain blindness to what political violence is. Sure, headline political assassination of prominent political figures are reprehensible, but they are also hard to ignore, unlike the vast and continuous violence that is committed to unnamed everyday minority people. ...

Ezra, I understand and applaud the sentiment that more than just opposing political violence is necessary here. The increase in political violence requires a deeper soul-searching of how we got here, and we will need to learn to communicate with each other to heal. The issue I had with the piece ...

If you are concerned with this normalization of violence. It's time we address the failures of our politics; not simply by pearl clutching or handwringing about unsavoury posts from anons.
We must intead face the insufficiency of modern liberalism and the violent instincts of modern conservatives.

This is all happening in the keg fire that is social media, where conspiracy theories, proliferate, irresponsible actors jump to conclusions, and their owners are either passive or actively inflaming violent political discourse.

Meanwhile liberals sorely failed to adapt to the moment, be it from lack of meaningful societal change or an insistence in legitimizing an increasingly authoritarian right; both with politicians who fail to raise to the occasion or commentators chastising those who are more forcibly push back.