Murder and the Media Pipeline
Conflict, Blood, and Death on the Balance Sheet
I have mixed emotions about the Charlie Kirk shooting because while I abhor violence I also despise the hate and toxic garbage he spewed each time he was behind a microphone.
On Gun Violence:
“I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” — Charlie Kirk at a Turning Point USA event
He was an Election Denier:
“The 2020 election was stolen. Donald Trump won.” — Charlie Kirk, the Charlie Kirk Show
On COVID-19/Public Health
“If it’s between the economy getting back on track and a couple hundred thousand people dying, well, the economy matters.”
— Charlie Kirk on The Charlie Kirk Show
On Diversity:
“The LGBTQ agenda is destroying Western civilization.”
— Charlie Kirk at a Turning Point USA event
Kirk gained wealth, power, and fame by fostering hate and spewing lies, propaganda, and disinformation.
In a nation where the 1st Amendment right to the freedom of speech is first, and the 2nd Amendment right to own guns is, well, second, no one should be killed for their perspectives and speech, regardless of how ill-formed they might be, and/or whether they are seeking to accumulate power and wealth from their public spewing of toxic ideas.
There are hordes of angry, misinformed people in the United States. When in private, with family, or a circle of friends, they might tell hateful racist jokes, think of women as birth vessels and chattel, and reject vaccinations because the government is not going to tell them what to do.
These angry people are not being murdered. Crowds aren’t angrily booing them if they accidentally wander into a college or university campus. They are living their life in a homogenized world, insulated from the reality that all of us, regardless of race, gender, who we love, and what we believe (or don’t believe), want a few basic things, such as to be able to pursue life, liberty, and happiness.
The “Archie Bunker” I describe is not shot and killed on a platform in front of a microphone. “Archie” who believes what he hears on Fox “News”, that every immigrant is here illegally to sell drugs, take his job, and steal his woman (or his cousin), public schools are hotbeds of gender reassignment, libraries and books are dangerous, however, guns are not, and the “Big Solar and Wind” lobby is trying to destroy the U.S. Economy is not assassinated. Much of Archie’s anger and frustration with “Marxist Socialist Democrats” like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Gavin Newsom, Elizabeth Warren, or Kamala Harris is real anger and frustration for multiple generations of economic despair. Regardless of how hard Archie has worked, he’s not “gotten ahead”. Archie has not been able to provide a better life for his family or more opportunities for his children.
Archie is “informed” every night as he settles into his chair, drinks his beer, and fixates on the lies and propaganda masquerading as “news” that he would be so much better off if America were free. He’s told that government is bloated and only efficient at taking a part of Archie’s paycheck and giving much of it away to “illegals” or paying for diversity training.
The difference between Charlie Kirk and Archie is that Archie did not decide to profit from his homogenized, insulated, and ill-formed perspectives on American life. In fact, many of the perspectives and ideas about American life, the lack of upward mobility, and who to blame for generational economic despair derives from pundits like Charlie Kirk, Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, Alex Jones, Laura Ingraham, Joe Rogan, Ann Coulter, Steve Bannon, or Ben Shapiro.
Some pundits are intelligent, eloquent, well-educated, and persuasive. Some pundits may actually believe some of their own toxic speech that divides Americans in exchange for their own respective paydays. They understand that there isn’t much money to be made singing “Kumbaya” together. The pundits espousing blame and hatred are merely entertaining and provocative shadows cast by the billionaire owners of media corporations who gleefully provide the platforms to polarize the world.
While the individual contributions of pundits to foster anger and hatred are notable, vast fortunes are accumulated by the handful of billionaires who provide media platforms for division, hate, conflict, lies, and propaganda. People like Rupert Murdoch, Mark Zuckerberg, and Elon Musk have massive media platforms intended to keep all of us divided while our quality of life is eroded, our opportunities narrow, and our futures are stolen by tax cuts for the wealthy.
So while the nation remains rabidly and intentionally divided on how to “Make America Great Again” or even how to “Make America Great (in the first place) it will not be through more gun violence, extremist domestic hate groups acting with impunity told to “Stand back and stand by”, it will not be in objectifying and othering people, or thinking of people as “Non-Player Characters” as Elon Musk might suggest. The pathway to great will not be paved in more weapons, violence, hatred, extremists, propaganda, and billionaires telling you who to hate and blame for our rapidly eroding quality of life.
It will not be in the horrific murder of elected officials such as Melissa Hortman or her husband Mark. Mass shootings at schools such as Evergreen High School, concerts in Las Vegas, or nightclubs in Florida will not “Make America Great”.
The pathway to a better future, opportunity, and fully realizing a “pursuit of happiness” is for the center-right, center, and center-left to coalesce on fundamental values predicated on justice, fairness, and opportunity, and to work on a multi-generational plan to finally realize “A more perfect Union”.
We will always have differences. We will argue over long-term capital gains tax rates. We will argue about how to fund climate action and resilience. We will differ on many things. However, despite those differences, we must unite on non-negotiables: democracy, justice, and equality.
If we do not work together then we must admit that we have all failed every one of our ancestors who fought, sacrificed, and suffered to pass the baton of the American experiment to everyone of us.
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