Correct, that kind of thing has happened before. That would be a shockingly brazen coverup.
I don't think he is useful (in either sense of the word). The whole format of Reddit sort of lends itself to long-form discussion and people disagreeing with their masters about things, and I think they will want to get rid of that whatever he tries to do to make it "compliant."
Fair enough. I didn't misunderstand anything, I just wasn't real overt about responding to it directly I guess.
As I see it, there are two possibilities:
- They give the body back to the family and the legs are fine
- They give it but the legs are broken, or they cremate it first, or they refuse to give it back, or basically anything other than that first thing
In the second case, there's fuckery by the coroner. In the first case, there's not (which of course doesn't mean he wasn't lynched of course). I just don't get how trust for the coroner or police needs to enter into that equation in any capacity. Sure, if they fuck with the body or have some ridiculous excuse for why the legs were broken, then it also means that the coroner is dirty and trying a coverup for some horrendous reason. But it's not like the original question is going to stay as an unknowable thing.
People have this kind of knee-jerk "the system is going to lie about everything" reaction which sometimes makes them kind of throw up their hands on the concept of every getting to the bottom of anything, and I think that's insidious, especially when they start inserting all kinds of speculation and saying it's a possibility so who knows. We're going to be able to tell if his legs were broken or not with a pretty high degree of certainty at some point in the pretty near future. I feel like it's good to hold onto that ability to make sense of the world instead of retreating into nihilism and just assuming everyone's probably lying and giving up. Doesn't that make some sense?
your entire political universe seems to be based around Lemmy comments. and I think that's given you a staggeringly misleading view of the world.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmVkJvieaOA&t=139s
The whole thesis of what I am saying here is that it's weird that particular Lemmy commenters behaved in certain ways. I was only ever talking about Lemmy. You keep telling me that I believe (for example) that Kamala Harris lost because of Gaza protest voters, and I already explained how that's not what I believe and explained the difference between the two domains in my view.
I actually brought up a couple of examples applying to voters outside of Lemmy who operate on a much more normal wavelength (search for "immigration" to see them), contextualizing the tiny subset of voters on Lemmy within the broader context of the average voter who's very unlike them.
I live in Seattle. you’re saying I’ve been slacking off about making sure Mamdani wins? OK, tell me what I should do.
do you have an answer to this? you quoted and responded to the rest of my post, but this was a weird omission.
I don't think my original point was about you. It was about people posting constantly on Lemmy, about not voting for Democrats, and specifically self-reporting that they were doing it to influence the Democrats to be better about Gaza, and then being quiet about Mamdani. If that's not you, then nothing I was saying would apply to you. I actually agree with you that the overall impact of Lemmy is miniscule, like I said when I already contextualized it up above.
I have no interest in this conversation anymore, that's why I stopped quoting and responding to you in the middle of the reply. That paragraph up above is what I've been saying any number of times repeatedly, and it seems like you're not into absorbing it, so oh well. If you ask me a direct question which you aren't happy that I didn't answer, then sure, I'm happy to, but the overall discussion I do not think can be productive within this format.
What I said was there is entirely the possibility of "Oops! His body went to the furnace instead", or "oh no! The body was mishandled and fell", or a whole variety of other things.
I mean, there's a possibility that Mossad killed Charlie Kirk. And sure, if something happens that leads towards that conclusion then it'll be extremely revealing about whether or not that's a reasonable conclusion.
IDK what type of argument you're looking to have here which leads you to keep repeatedly emphasizing your side of this thing, but I am planning to stop now on my side. Have a blessed day.
Honestly, I do agree with you on that but I also feel like any "system" is just never going to be the answer. The big lesson of all those Nepalis electing their new government over Discord isn't that Discord is the way, it is that if huge numbers of people are engaged and willing to fight for what they need and then engage to set up something sensible, there's a pretty good chance they'll get it.
The American people -- almost all of them, not 100% but the great majority -- have just been checked out of the concept of being involved in making sure their country runs right for too many decades now for things to stay on the rails.
I would highly recommend to get a book of chess games that's annotated by someone who knows what they're doing, and play through the games from it on a separate chessboard, reading the notes and how the person is describing the strategies and values at play during the game. That's what I did and it taught me a whole lot that I never would have really absorbed or come to on my own.
What I'm saying is that you do not have to trust the police or the coroner in order to know whether the guy's legs were actually broken.
Armed Militias
Observers also look with concern at the growing number of heavily armed militias active in many parts of the country. Many of them had participated in Trump's instigated storming of the Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021, were subsequently sentenced to partly lengthy prison terms, and were pardoned by him after Trump's re-election. Although the White House does not directly control them, they could be used as a weapon to intimidate opponents. In the left spectrum, there is also a violence-ready minority. During protests against racism or increasingly harsh policies against immigrants, riots repeatedly occur, which, however, contrary to claims from the Republican camp, are not organized.
All Americans who allegedly celebrated Kirk's death could also become victims of violence, which has happened rather rarely in the otherwise so tasteless social media. Ultimately, this could mean anyone who has ever expressed criticism of Kirk or his views. Ultra-right influencer Laura Loomer has already posted the first names of suspects, and the website charliesmurderers.com calls for naming people who would support political violence in order to then publish their names. They would all be acutely endangered.
(Eric Frey, 13.9.2025)
Full translation according to Claude:
The USA Has Moved a Small Step Closer to Civil War
After the assassination of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk, Trump and his supporters are inciting hatred against their opponents. Many now fear a wave of violence and repression
Eric Frey
September 13, 2025, 06:00
1738 Comments
Whatever one might think of Charlie Kirk and his reactionary, often racist and homophobic views, one thing had to be granted to him: The charismatic ultra-right influencer never called for violence against political opponents. And unlike other demagogues of the MAGA movement, he was always ready for open debate with dissenters and critics, indeed making this his trademark.
An improvised memorial site for Charlie Kirk is decorated with the iconic image of the failed assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Butler. A new myth is emerging here for America's right.
REUTERS/Cheney Orr
Kirk's appearance at Utah Valley University, where an assassin's bullets cost him his life on Wednesday, was dedicated precisely to this purpose. He wanted to debate with students, many of whom hold liberal-left views, and convince them with great eloquence of their misguided ways. All the more tragic would it be if the murder of the 31-year-old now triggered a wave of violence, as numerous observers of American politics fear.
The first 48 hours after the bloodshed were marked by the frantic search for the assassin, led by the federal police FBI, which is going through severe turmoil under Donald Trump's presidency and whose director Kash Patel is being massively criticized for prematurely and falsely announcing the perpetrator's arrest via the messaging platform X. That the true murderer could apparently be captured on Friday was more a lucky coincidence than the result of careful police work.
The "Left" Is to Blame
Simultaneously, a wave of anger and verbal aggression broke out on X and other social media from Trump's MAGA camp, which blamed the "left" for Kirk's death and openly called for war against the president's political opponents. Even in Congress, some ultra-right representatives, such as Republican Anna Paulina Luna from Florida, made the Democrats and their allegedly radical rhetoric directly responsible for the assassination. "They caused it," she said.
This could, it is feared, motivate lone wolves to further acts of violence against elected Democratic representatives or progressive activists as a form of retaliation. The number of politically motivated crimes has increased significantly in the USA this year, including such prominent cases as the murder of a Democratic state representative from Minnesota and her husband, and an arson attack on the house of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro. The two failed assassination attempts on Trump during the 2024 campaign are also ever-present.
More than 7,000 tips and hints about Charlie Kirk's murderer came in, police offered a reward of $100,000.
REUTERS/Jim Urquhart
Reminiscent of the 1960s
"We are experiencing an era of violent populism," Robert Pope, an expert on political threats at the University of Chicago, is quoted in the Washington Post. The extent of political violence is higher than in the past 20 years and reminiscent of the 1960s, when the Kennedy brothers and Martin Luther King Jr. were murdered. According to a survey by a group of political scientists called Bright Line Watch, only very few Democrats and Republicans support political violence in general. But around one-tenth of the population considers it appropriate when representatives of the respective opposition are responsible for "harmful or exploitative measures."
The term "civil war" was used hundreds of thousands of times on the messaging platform X in recent days, mostly by right-wing publicists and podcasters. Some spoke of a cultural war, but others openly called for violence against their enemies. And these are not empty threats in today's America.
Weapons Freely Available
Besides the growing polarization and increasing aggressiveness in political discourse, it is the widespread availability of firearms that promotes violent acts. Virtually anyone in the USA can acquire powerful weapons, such as the high-performance repeating rifle with which Kirk was shot from a great distance; it is intended for military snipers. That Kirk himself was a radical advocate for the right to bear arms and described the many victims of gun violence as a necessary price for this right is a particular irony of this tragic story.
In the America of 2025, another factor is added that has the potential to fuel political violence: the president's rhetoric. In his initial reactions, Trump used the opportunity to threaten his political opponents. He described the "radical left" as accomplices, by which he always means everyone who is critical of his presidency, whether elected politicians, professors, or journalists. Their rhetoric is "directly responsible for the terrorism we see in our country today, and this must end," he said in a speech. "My administration will find everyone who contributed to this atrocity or other political acts of violence, including the organizations that finance and support it, and also those who attack our judges, executive officials, and all persons who bring order to our country."
While people mourn the murdered MAGA activist Kirk, US President Donald Trump said in an interview with Fox News that he hopes the perpetrator gets the death penalty.
REUTERS/Caitlin O'Hara
With the latter, Trump likely means the members of the immigration police ICE, which under his aegis is being expanded with a billion-dollar budget into a kind of shadow army that hunts masked people they suspect of not having legal residence permits. When protests broke out against ICE raids in Los Angeles, Trump deployed the National Guard to the city.
Call to Beat Up
While Trump called on his supporters on Thursday to renounce violence, he simultaneously announced that he would severely beat up the "crazy left-wing radicals" ("Beat the hell out of them"). The president left open what concrete measures he would take, but concern is growing that he will use the assassination as an occasion to accelerate the previously gradual repression against political opponents. After all, one is already in the "authoritarian consolidation phase of this presidency," wrote prominent commentator Ezra Klein a few days before the attack.
Some historical comparisons suggest themselves. Ultra-right publicist Matt Forney speaks of Kirk's murder as the "American Reichstag Fire" that will initiate the authoritarian transformation of the country. The Berlin Reichstag fire of February 1933 gave Adolf Hitler the pretext to completely eliminate democracy through the Enabling Act. In the Soviet Union, the murder of Stalin's follower Sergei Kirov in December 1934 was the prelude to the great terror with its show trials, which cost tens of thousands their lives in the following years. And in Turkey, the failed coup attempt of 2016 against Recep Tayyip Erdoğan's government began a wave of repression against political rivals that continues unabated to this day.
Economic Weakness
From the perspective of a wannabe dictator, the timing for a crackdown would be just right. The American economy is increasingly suffering from the consequences of Trump's erratic tariff policy; the job market is weakening while inflation is gradually rising. Trump promised his electorate a great upswing with low prices. While his approval ratings have been stable at a low level for months, they could soon collapse if the population begins to personally feel the economic problems.
Trump is also facing increasingly strong headwinds from federal courts; so far the Supreme Court has given him free rein in most cases, but this could become increasingly difficult for him in several important cases concerning tariffs and the independence of the Federal Reserve.
A message reading "Make America Great Again" – the MAGA slogan on a makeshift monument for Kirk.
REUTERS/Cheney Orr
Trump could now quite deliberately seek confrontation with democratically governed federal states by, for example, sending soldiers to major cities like Chicago, Baltimore, or Philadelphia to combat allegedly rampant crime. While he was authorized to do so in the federal capital Washington, it would be a clear interference with states' rights and military abuse elsewhere in the country. Especially in California and Illinois, massive resistance would be expected from the confident governors there, Gavin Newsom and J.B. Pritzker. In extreme cases, this could escalate into violent clashes between armed local and national units – a first step toward civil war.
Honestly, I think the most credible answer I can come up with is what Tim Snyder called "The Weak Strongman." Trump didn't invent it and he's not the only one, but he is one huge example of a very particular way of leadership: Basically, he's not strong or popular enough to succeed fairly, so he's made a whole strategy out of undermining anything effective or popular that he runs across. Once the whole field is polluted, and anyone who sticks out as an alternative to him gets destroyed, he can succeed within the wreckage and he looks like a winner.
I don't think he really would explain it that way, but that's my best guess for what's going on and why he wants to destroy cancer research. He just has an innate hatred for anything that people like that isn't him.