Progressive Politics

There is no requirement to take part in this whitewashing campaign, and refusing to join in doesn’t make anyone a bad person. It’s a choice to write an obituary that begins “Joseph Goebbels was a gifted marketer and loving father to six children.”

I also enjoyed this perspective, a bit long form as its a substack post, but well written. Authored by Fear and Loathing: Closer to the Edge.

A couple of months ago, Laura Loomer was shrieking into her phone that Charlie Kirk had stabbed Donald Trump in the back. MAGA’s attack dog had him marked as a traitor, an apostate, another soft-boy conservative who wasn’t vicious enough for the blood cult. Then Kirk gets shot, and suddenly Laura is draped in black, clutching pearls, wailing like a widow at a mob funeral. That’s how fast the MAGA spin cycle runs: enemies are canonized, heretics become martyrs, and yesterday’s punching bag is today’s sacred cow. Loyalty isn’t about consistency. It’s about whatever Trump’s mood demands.

PETE HEGSETH, HALL MONITOR OF THE REPUBLIC

Now comes Pete Hegseth, a man who wears the title Secretary of Defense but operates more like the comment-section sheriff. Instead of worrying about actual defense — China, Russia, Iran, cyberwarfare — Pete’s priority is disciplining soldiers for making snide jokes about Charlie Kirk.

Yes, the Pentagon is now a glorified Facebook moderation team. Hegseth isn’t projecting strength; he’s enforcing pity. Soldiers aren’t preparing for war — they’re purging their timelines, terrified Laura Loomer will screech their names into his ear. This isn’t civilian control of the military. It’s civilian coercion, where MAGA influencers call the shots and the brass salutes like nervous interns.

THE BLACKLIST WITH A SEARCH BAR

Enter the grotesque centerpiece: CharliesMurderers(dot)com. A site so dystopian it makes J. Edgar Hoover look subtle. A searchable database of Americans whose “crime” is failing to sufficiently mourn Kirk.

They claim it’s not doxxing, it’s “education.” Bullshit. This is McCarthyism with HTML. It’s a digital scarlet letter, a witch hunt in the cloud. Post the wrong meme, roll your eyes at the wrong martyr, and congratulations: you’re on the list. Employers can search you, neighbors can shame you, trolls can harass you. Your livelihood isn’t safe because Laura Loomer needs another dopamine hit.

CANCEL CULTURE WITH A MAGA LOGO

Remember when these people howled about “cancel culture”? When they cried that a comedian losing a Netflix special was tyranny? Now they’ve built the most efficient cancellation machine in modern America. Only this time it’s not corporations doing it — it’s the government, the Pentagon, and a mob of red-hat lunatics demanding loyalty tests. You don’t just lose a sponsor. You lose your job, your security clearance, maybe your entire career. And it’s not because you committed violence. It’s because you laughed at violence. Thoughtcrime, MAGA edition.

GRIEF AS A WEAPON

This isn’t mourning. It’s weaponized grief. Kirk spent his career spitting on empathy, mocking victims of shootings, and treating compassion like weakness. Now the same movement that rejected empathy is demanding you show it on their terms — mandatory, performative, unquestioning. Don’t mourn? You’re purged. Don’t post a sad-face emoji? You’re dangerous. Cruelty has always been the point, and now grief is just another tool of cruelty. Charlie Kirk didn’t believe in empathy, and his allies are proving they don’t either. What they believe in is obedience.

THE BLUNT EDGE OF FASCISM

Let’s stop pretending this is theater. It’s not play-acting, it’s raw authoritarianism. Trump is the wannabe strongman. Loomer is the megaphone of madness. Hegseth is the hall monitor with a badge he didn’t earn. Together they’ve taken the death of a professional troll and spun it into a loyalty purge. They’ve turned the Pentagon into an instrument of political grievance and a martyr into a weapon. And they want the rest of us to treat this clown show like sacred history.

The only thing sacred here is the grift. The only thing holy is the purge. And the only thing growing is the list of Americans marked as enemies because they refused to cry on command. This isn’t about honor. This isn’t about respect. This is about power — stupid, brutal, authoritarian power clawing for control under the guise of grief.

I do not believe anyone should be murdered because of their views, but that is because I don’t believe people should be murdered generally, regardless of who they are or what they’ve done. I am against the death penalty, pro–gun control, and believe war is a failure of humanity, not a necessary byproduct of it. Kirk was fine with murder as long the right people were dying.

Well said, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy a bit of schadenfreude at his passing.

Honestly great article that summarizes my thoughts on this exactly. I live in the south and I am seeing a lot of people I really respect lose their fucking minds about this and start frothing at the mouth mourning this guy that they didn't know existed two weeks ago because all they know was that he was a "Christian activist" shot for his beliefs, either not realizing or not caring that the dude was racist as fuck and spent his whole life being a right wing internet troll but in real life.

"It is rude of me to say all of this, because we live in a culture where manners are often valued more than truth." This is a really good quote actually

Joseph Goebbels was a gifted marketer and loving father to six children.

lol

that nazi trash got what he deserved

Every civilized country on earth has figured out that there needs to be acceptable limits to free speech and that freedom of speech does not equal freedom from the consequences of saying something.

more articles like this should include the bit about how "[Biden should get the death penalty]"

the dude openly stated that a political figure he disagreed with should be killed. the right must acknowledge this statement while they whitewash his legacy of hate.

The best thing about events like this is it helps me identify more or less trustworthy news sources by how they react to it. The Luigi case culled many

Promoting hate just to get rich. Conservatives are ugly on the inside & the outside.

Just one of thousands of hate preachers indoctrinating the local population (and children) with the exact same extremist religious propaganda. Only religious extremists do this, and there are only religious extremists of religions that exist. Stop supporting religions. ALL of them.

The nation seems to be the only big paper with any rationality.

This is the only sane reaction to the situation by any media outlet I have seen so far

Killing Kirk sure did put that Epstein shit way over to the side. Hmm...

Archive link

Well-written and surprisingly thoughtful commentary given the heat so far

The Newspaper the Country Needs.