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The quote cited in TFA claims that the murderer was "one of them". Now, why would someone take out a prominent spokesperson for their own party? They wouldn't,

The quote cited in TFA claims that the murderer was "one of them". Now, why would someone take out a prominent spokesperson for their own party? They wouldn't, because that's not something that people do to other people they agree with. But somehow, people interpret that remark to make sense? The remark only makes sense if "one of them" refers to the fact the shooter was a white male, and the reader believes all white males are on the same side, and the enemy, and that the incident serves as entertainment. So, yes, I find that remark extremely problematic, and representative of increasingly tribal and divisive "us vs. them" mentality that is gridlocking the country. Not to mention, the comment is itself using the event for political "told-you-so"-ism, while criticizing others for doing exactly that, so it's utterly hypocritical. We can and must set a higher standard for our talking heads. If you want to be a popular figure without burning bridges, maybe don't be so brazenly racist and sexist to the point of publicly celebrating murder because it was "one of them", thinking that proves anything other than that the speaker is a sociopath?

deleted 1y ago
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throwaway-11-1 1y ago
is this post sarcasm? I can't even tell anymore
fhdkweig 1y ago
The "one of them" was a reference to the speculation that the killer would turn out to be a blue hair "tranny". https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-loyalist-spreads-wild-theory-131515710.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-loyalist-spreads-w... There was also the theory that it was a black person, hence all the death threats to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) https://duckduckgo.com/?q=death+threats+hbcu https://duckduckgo.com/?q=death+threats+hbcu So, yes, there was quite a bit of "see, it wasn't one of ours, it was one of yours" after the guy was caught. Especially when the images of the shooter's mother started surfacing indicating he was raised that way. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tyler+robinson+mother+gun https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tyler+robinson+mother+gun . Charlie Kirk's mother at the memorial service specifically blamed college for radicalizing him, saying that good mother's wouldn't send their kids to college. (I don't have that clip.) In general, my philosophy is to not speculate publicly when the shooter was going to get caught and identified quickly anyway.
clw8 1y ago
The governor of Utah used similar language: “For 33 hours, I was praying that if this had to happen here that it wouldn't be one of us — that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country… Sadly, that prayer was not answered the way I hoped for… But it did happen here, and it was one of us.”
- hnuser123456 1y ago
  I took issue with that statement too. He's the governor. He must be aware that out of the millions of citizens of his own state, some commit crime. I think he went too far in trying to affirm people who believe their entire state is free of violence.
slg 1y ago
>Now, why would someone take out a prominent spokesperson for their own party? They wouldn't, because that's not something that people do to other people they agree with. This is why I think the American government is doomed in its current construction. First past the post voting has conditioned people like you to believe that everything is binary. You describe a world with only two parties that can have no dissention in those parties and no possible disagreements among their members. Isn't it obvious how flawed that mindset is? This country desperately needs more than two options to every issue, but our system is inadvertently designed to ensure that doesn't happen.
- hnuser123456 1y ago
  Oh trust me, I saw the CGPgrey video about the issues with first past the post pretty soon after it was uploaded 14 years ago, I know that it doesn't have to be two parties who have to convert all opinions into binary and pick a side. If there's ever an initiative to change that to ranked voting, I'll gladly vote for that proposal. People will have to do a lot more critical thinking if they can't just keep pointing to the same bogeyman over and over.
  - slg 1y ago
    It is funny that you skipped over my criticism of you to agree with my criticism of the US government as if I didn't make a clear connection between those two. If you "know that it doesn't have to be two parties who have to convert all opinions into binary and pick a side", why did your original comment reduce this issue down to a binary? Can you admit that it is possible for someone to disagree with Kirk from the right?
    - hnuser123456 1y ago
      Yes, but the casings were engraved with things like "catch, fascist", so it's pretty clear the shooter fell into leftist propaganda, which is a thing because currently, we are forced to pick from 1 of 2 parties. Perhaps he thought he would be seen like Luigi but instead he's just a weirdo.
deleted 1y ago
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centris7 1y ago
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justin66 1y ago
> Now, why would someone take out a prominent spokesperson for their own party? That's a question that actually has some easy examples if you'd care to study parties like Sinn Fein or Fatah or the CCCP or... you get the point. American politics has largely been free of this sort of in-fighting (and other kinds of political violence), but a political movement's leaders or followers can be targeted because they're deemed not sufficiently radical or too radical or what have you, or they've fallen out of favor, or they've done something the membership cannot accept, or whatever. Or, you know: maybe the person doing the "taking out" is just insane. > They wouldn't, because that's not something that people do to other people they agree with. Because that's just what a political party always is. A group of calm, rational people who are in total agreement on principles, goals and tactics and are entirely content with their place in the power structure. Ahem.
- muddi900 1y ago
  It's not even that recent. This is the plot to Julius Ceaser
  - fifilura 1y ago
    Mahatma Gandhi.
deleted 1y ago
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somenameforme 1y ago
There was a lot of fake news following the shooting trying to suggest that the shooter was MAGA and decided to kill Charlie Kirk because he 'wasn't MAGA enough.' In particular a photoshopped image of him wearing a MAGA shirt was shared millions of times on social media [1], along with suggestions he was a "groyper" which is apparently some fringe right wing group. You can see the substantial impact of this by looking at Google trends on the term. [2] This fake news was wide spread and even leaked into Hacker News through at least dozens of comments. [3] People are still implicitly trying to promote this misinformation by flagging any comment that mentions it, and spinning Kimmel stating, "with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them" to mean anything other than what it does. [1] - https://xcancel.com/CollinRugg/status/1966575444435890341 https://xcancel.com/CollinRugg/status/1966575444435890341 [2] - https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=groyper&hl=en-US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=groyper&... [3] - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=groyper&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- croon 1y ago
  I have never seen that photo, and the one supporting source for the claim that fake news was spread is someone who apparently runs this[1]? I was not familiar with the term before either, but afaict it was based on the the shell casing engravings, halloween costumes etc, which I don't believe have been refuted [2]? Not that this matters to the topic at hand as that isn't a claim Kimmel made either way, nor does it play into how tragic any murder is. [1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/trending-politics/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/trending-politics/ [2] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/09/17/how-charlie-kirks-killer-poisoned-everyone-with-meme-slop-00569200 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/09/17/how-charli...
  - somenameforme 1y ago
    The source that pushed the fake picture is this [1] account with some 5 million followers that regularly posts disinformation and agitprop. That is also the same account that claimed he was a 'groyper'. Go check its stream and you can find endless more absurd claims. People then simply unquestioningly repeated the claims, cited the same disinformation, and away we go - social media style. For instance here [2] it showed up in an Anandtech discussion, and I already linked to the claims making their way onto hacker news in dozens of posts as well. To say nothing of the cess pools that are Reddit, X, Facebook, etc. [1] - https://xcancel.com/YourAnonCentral https://xcancel.com/YourAnonCentral [2] - https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/charlie-kirk-shot-in-the-neck-during-utah-debate-and-has-now-passed.2631954/page-50#post-41506385 https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/charlie-kirk-shot-in-th...

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

throwaway-11-1 1y ago

is this post sarcasm? I can't even tell anymore

fhdkweig 1y ago

The "one of them" was a reference to the speculation that the killer would turn out to be a blue hair "tranny". https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-loyalist-spreads-wild-theory-131515710.html https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/trump-loyalist-spreads-w... There was also the theory that it was a black person, hence all the death threats to historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs) https://duckduckgo.com/?q=death+threats+hbcu https://duckduckgo.com/?q=death+threats+hbcu So, yes, there was quite a bit of "see, it wasn't one of ours, it was one of yours" after the guy was caught. Especially when the images of the shooter's mother started surfacing indicating he was raised that way. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tyler+robinson+mother+gun https://duckduckgo.com/?q=tyler+robinson+mother+gun . Charlie Kirk's mother at the memorial service specifically blamed college for radicalizing him, saying that good mother's wouldn't send their kids to college. (I don't have that clip.) In general, my philosophy is to not speculate publicly when the shooter was going to get caught and identified quickly anyway.

clw8 1y ago

The governor of Utah used similar language: “For 33 hours, I was praying that if this had to happen here that it wouldn't be one of us — that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country… Sadly, that prayer was not answered the way I hoped for… But it did happen here, and it was one of us.”

hnuser123456 1y ago
I took issue with that statement too. He's the governor. He must be aware that out of the millions of citizens of his own state, some commit crime. I think he went too far in trying to affirm people who believe their entire state is free of violence.

slg 1y ago

>Now, why would someone take out a prominent spokesperson for their own party? They wouldn't, because that's not something that people do to other people they agree with. This is why I think the American government is doomed in its current construction. First past the post voting has conditioned people like you to believe that everything is binary. You describe a world with only two parties that can have no dissention in those parties and no possible disagreements among their members. Isn't it obvious how flawed that mindset is? This country desperately needs more than two options to every issue, but our system is inadvertently designed to ensure that doesn't happen.

hnuser123456 1y ago
Oh trust me, I saw the CGPgrey video about the issues with first past the post pretty soon after it was uploaded 14 years ago, I know that it doesn't have to be two parties who have to convert all opinions into binary and pick a side. If there's ever an initiative to change that to ranked voting, I'll gladly vote for that proposal. People will have to do a lot more critical thinking if they can't just keep pointing to the same bogeyman over and over.
- slg 1y ago
  It is funny that you skipped over my criticism of you to agree with my criticism of the US government as if I didn't make a clear connection between those two. If you "know that it doesn't have to be two parties who have to convert all opinions into binary and pick a side", why did your original comment reduce this issue down to a binary? Can you admit that it is possible for someone to disagree with Kirk from the right?
  - hnuser123456 1y ago
    Yes, but the casings were engraved with things like "catch, fascist", so it's pretty clear the shooter fell into leftist propaganda, which is a thing because currently, we are forced to pick from 1 of 2 parties. Perhaps he thought he would be seen like Luigi but instead he's just a weirdo.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

centris7 1y ago

[dead]

justin66 1y ago

> Now, why would someone take out a prominent spokesperson for their own party? That's a question that actually has some easy examples if you'd care to study parties like Sinn Fein or Fatah or the CCCP or... you get the point. American politics has largely been free of this sort of in-fighting (and other kinds of political violence), but a political movement's leaders or followers can be targeted because they're deemed not sufficiently radical or too radical or what have you, or they've fallen out of favor, or they've done something the membership cannot accept, or whatever. Or, you know: maybe the person doing the "taking out" is just insane. > They wouldn't, because that's not something that people do to other people they agree with. Because that's just what a political party always is. A group of calm, rational people who are in total agreement on principles, goals and tactics and are entirely content with their place in the power structure. Ahem.

muddi900 1y ago
It's not even that recent. This is the plot to Julius Ceaser
- fifilura 1y ago
  Mahatma Gandhi.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

somenameforme 1y ago

There was a lot of fake news following the shooting trying to suggest that the shooter was MAGA and decided to kill Charlie Kirk because he 'wasn't MAGA enough.' In particular a photoshopped image of him wearing a MAGA shirt was shared millions of times on social media [1], along with suggestions he was a "groyper" which is apparently some fringe right wing group. You can see the substantial impact of this by looking at Google trends on the term. [2] This fake news was wide spread and even leaked into Hacker News through at least dozens of comments. [3] People are still implicitly trying to promote this misinformation by flagging any comment that mentions it, and spinning Kimmel stating, "with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them" to mean anything other than what it does. [1] - https://xcancel.com/CollinRugg/status/1966575444435890341 https://xcancel.com/CollinRugg/status/1966575444435890341 [2] - https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=groyper&hl=en-US https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=groyper&... [3] - https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=groyper&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

croon 1y ago
I have never seen that photo, and the one supporting source for the claim that fake news was spread is someone who apparently runs this[1]? I was not familiar with the term before either, but afaict it was based on the the shell casing engravings, halloween costumes etc, which I don't believe have been refuted [2]? Not that this matters to the topic at hand as that isn't a claim Kimmel made either way, nor does it play into how tragic any murder is. [1] https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/trending-politics/ https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/trending-politics/ [2] https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/09/17/how-charlie-kirks-killer-poisoned-everyone-with-meme-slop-00569200 https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/09/17/how-charli...
- somenameforme 1y ago
  The source that pushed the fake picture is this [1] account with some 5 million followers that regularly posts disinformation and agitprop. That is also the same account that claimed he was a 'groyper'. Go check its stream and you can find endless more absurd claims. People then simply unquestioningly repeated the claims, cited the same disinformation, and away we go - social media style. For instance here [2] it showed up in an Anandtech discussion, and I already linked to the claims making their way onto hacker news in dozens of posts as well. To say nothing of the cess pools that are Reddit, X, Facebook, etc. [1] - https://xcancel.com/YourAnonCentral https://xcancel.com/YourAnonCentral [2] - https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/charlie-kirk-shot-in-the-neck-during-utah-debate-and-has-now-passed.2631954/page-50#post-41506385 https://forums.anandtech.com/threads/charlie-kirk-shot-in-th...