Thank you for this post and the salient points you make. Patriarchy is the root of most of the violence around the world, and the right often demonstrates the deep emotional wounding and lack of empathy that result from patriarchy. The left has moved slightly beyond patriarchy, at least enough to feel empathy and compassion for most others. We all need to heal at a deeper level in order to stop this violence; and we need to find a balance of the sacred feminine within all of ourselves in harmony with the sacred masculine within all of ourselves.
Trump and MAGA's rush to immediately place blame on the left is abhorent. These "peaceful" people are quick to incite violence. Where were they when they found out that Vance Boelter was a Trump supporter? Right - nowhere.
He was assassinated from a distance by a single, precise shot at a very small target (his throat.) They cannot find the shooter (obviously a pro) which suggests they had help getting away. This happened the day after the Epstein scandal was breaking all over the news.
Today the news and right wing social media is completely focused on this particular shooting; not much about Denver. Or Epstein. Or that drawing.
These are facts that raise serious questions.
Everyone seems to agree that this was “political violence.” Perhaps. But what kind of political violence? There’s more than one possibility, isn’t there?
Until more is discovered about the shooter perhaps we should avoid getting caught up in the media maelstrom.
I think their inability to find the shooter says a lot about why Kash Patel was a poor choice to head the FBI. He has no experience in law enforcement, legal work or any of the other areas of expertise you would think a head of the FBI should have.
I am a proud republican and I love my country. I fought for my country and all her people, regardless of political views. My voice doesn't hold much weight in the scheme of things, but I personally condemn all political violence no matter which side it comes from. This is not how we come together and strengthen ourselves. We have so many enemies outside our borders. We do not need the infighting. It weakens our resolve and makes us look weak to our real enemies abroad. We need to find a way to have civil discussion and find common ground so that we can work together to fix our broken society. Too many extremists on both sides make that outcome look bleak. I fear for the future of our nation. I pray that we find a way soon, or we risk losing everything we have fought so hard for.
I think it's essential that you speak with your fellow Republicans and ask them to stand with you. I am more than happy to support you and call you my fellow American. The thing I've experienced almost my entire life is non-stop vilification by conservatives simply because I am a black person and because I am a liberal. How can I make common cause with a group of people who hurl vile insults and consider me an enemy just because of my mere existence?
Until more GOPers take a stand to cool things down, I am wary and uncertain that I can trust that things will change. I am more than happy to dialogue further with you about this because I care more about our country that I do about being hateful, righteous, or judgmental. Feel free to contact me if you like.
To be honest, I do not know any republican who would dislike you just for your skin color or political views. Although racism does exist on both sides.We may not always agree, but we are all humans. We are all stuck on this rock we call earth together. We can either come together and live in harmony, or we can destroy eachother. I prefer harmony myself.
You and I are mostly in agreement. I completely believe your word when you say you personally and the Republicans I know would not judge me for the color of my skin.
However, I maintain that much of the animating cultural and ideological drive for the GOP *in general* has anti-black animus as well as hostility toward other minorities. I was born in the 1960's in the South so I am extremely familiar with this dynamic starting with Nixon's Southern Strategy, through Reagan's "welfare queen/big black buck" rhetoric, on through trump's birtherism canard against Obama to the clearly racist insistence that large cities with large black populations are cesspools of criminality as if everywhere else is completely crime-free.
I am clear that you personally are not racist, but I cannot take the Republican party as a whole as serious political players given the history I cited. That's why I said I am wary about believing anything different until a substantial portion of the party is willing to call out the ugliness. Your own statement "although racism does exist on both sides" makes me reluctant about making common cause with you, NOT because I think you are a bad person but rather you may be blind to the viciousness of what I have witnessed. If and until you are willing to simply acknowledge (not AGREE mind you) the veracity of what I am saying, I'm not going to put my neck out there by myself when I can't realistically expect mutual support from the your side of the partisan divide.
P.S. I am not trying to guilt trip you into agreeing with me. I just want to clarify my perspective as best I can.
P.P.S. I am not saying Democrats are morally or ethically pure. As you stated, we're all Americans and we'll only come through this mess by working together.
The left side has the entire msm hurling and highlighting those that call the right hitler, racist, fascist, homophobic. If the conservative side has one it’s Fox News and I don’t watch that one either. Not to mention how censored the right side has been by YouTube, fb, instagram snd the like. Shows like The View do the same. Asks let’s not forget foreign influence. It might be helpful if we policed our own “side”.
If you believe various media organs hurling insults back and forth constitute a form of censorship coming only from the left, that's simply not accurate. Concurrently, the right promotes vile narratives about people on the left, so again, to act as if people on the right are the only victims in all of this doesn't fly at all. Go to a right leaning website like the Daily Caller or the National Review where the moderators immediately remove comments that don't align the prevailing conservative and reactionary contents.
Saying that that the perspective that the mainstream media is controlled by the "Left" is again not accurate. If anything, CNN, WaPo, LA Times, and likely CBS soon are firing journalists and commentators who are considered too liberal and are redirecting their focus to appease conservatives.
There are plenty of conservative YouTube channels and plenty of right-wing content on Facebook and Instagram. Saying otherwise is simply not true.
Fox News has the largest cable news audience and has been consistently larger than MDNBC and CNN for many years. The right also has a large and diverse media ecosystem besides Fox News, including Newsmax and OANN on cable. AM radio where there are multiple conservative commentators versus essential zero on the left, and multiple reactionary social media feeds (hello Twitter!).
There are people on the right today using literally the same language of the Nazis. Calling this out isn't being mean to poor, put upon conservatives. It's simply stating the truth. To suggest that the left has this massive media resources that it monopolizes whereas the right is just being pummeled is being victimized is naive at best and being really disingenuous at worst.
Those on the left CELEBRATED the death of a Jesus loving father, husband, and son which renders your argument moot. If the left is so center why are those registered as dem leaving in droves? Why are left run cities crime infested poverty pits? The left celebrates the death of babies not born, genitalia mutilation, drag queens, war, no cash bail, defund the police, and the list goes on. If journalists are being laid off it’s because their readers have woken up to the fact that the rags lie. Many right leaning YouTube channels were simply canceled and have never gotten their content back nor their channels. Go watch some James O’Keeffe videos where senior employees are caught on camera revealing their censorship efforts. Every assassinated President save one was republicans and JFK wanted to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and get us off the central bank so he had to go too. The left is the party of the KKK, slavery, Jim Crow, and no dem Voted in affirmation of the civil rights nor any of the constitutional amendments giving rights to our brothers of a different hue. Be a dem if you choose but don’t tell me my comments are disingenuous or misinformed.
I agree I served as well for people to have their rights regardless of political affiliation. I truly believe united we stand divided we fall. When Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim yon Un had a meeting that was a serious warning to America.
Sounds great, but it sounds as if you think "both sides are equally wrong". I ask that people clarify, as this seems a prevarication from many (imho: mostly from the right).
I believe that there is one side that is strongly different than the other; one side cheats and lies multiple times more than the other, and votes to disassemble the strong country and allies that the US and others built since WW2.
Everyone seems to agree that there is much further to go, I personally believe that we must complete fixing the problems we were born with (in the small but significant flaws in the Constitution and in the way the Civil War and its after-effects were "won").
Trump makes this all about the GOP but little is said about Democrats Hortman’s death, her husband and dog by a Conservative…His hateful blame game has created this atmosphere..Little is done about Mental Illness too…
Thank you for saying this. Charlie didn’t deserve to die. Melissa didn’t deserve to die. This feels like a dangerous and precarious time in our country. We need to bridge our divide and stand up against this type of violence for all victims. I just don’t know how that will happen and feel at a loss for next steps.
Nothing good or healing will happen while Trump is in charge. He encourages the division. So he and his fellow MAGAts need to be voted out-and then we can see about healing.
Not only should they say Melissa’s name but also her husband Mark’s as well as Gilbert’s too. But when they do that it means that they are facing the truth the horror of what happened to her and her family, it humanizes her . But republicans have no interest in any of that. They are the party of grievances and haters in their minds and their veins are filled with it, and it’s vile and sad. Thank you for addressing this Mike.
In a NYT editorial opinion yesterday, the authors named multiple elected politicians who have been violently attacked in the past few years (Shapiro, Trump, Pelosi ) yet left unamed the murdered “member of the Minnesota State Legislature” .
The NYT has finally shed all remnants of being the "newspaper of record". If American democracy dies, you can safely look to hefty contributions in complicity made by the NYT.
U R one million percent correct, that’s just how they play their DIRTY GAMES, and they know the majority of these attacks and murders are done by RIGHT WING SUPPORTERS and let’s be real about this BS most or all of their supporters know this also, they are Masters at getting ahead of the game. You have one part of their base know that they are Lying and the other part that just tags along with them and their lies. Like I told some friends and people I know, there’s only two times that RepubliCons are lying and that’s when their Eyes are open and when they’re Closed in other words ALL THE DAMN TIME even when they try to tell the truth.
GUNS REFORM on a national level but GOP republicans wont legislate AT ALL because the love of money and greed and power over ALL LIVES MATTER PERIOD, starting from 34 Felon and let’s not speak on mental health and illnesses , that’s been gutted OUT of the fabric of United States of American, thanks to the UGLY GOP Republicans Bill!
Keep in mind that Kirk opposed gun control of any kind, stating that the killings of children was a price we had to pay for “freedom.” Will that make it into the eulogy??
Great point here. In fact as the NYT reported some of Kirk’s political proclivities, he did say that such violence is part of the fabric of our country, perhaps suggesting that he may even have considered himself a target. Nonetheless, any loss of life from such violence is needless and certainly regrettable and the only fights we need to have are in forums where people speak - or write - and are able to offer retorts and let the audiences decide where they land in the spectrum of ideas.
I am going to politely disagree about “political violence”. Change does not occur without it. Non-violence means remaining non-violent in the Face of political violence, so that those in the wrong are showcased to the world as unjust and violent. Every important change has been made “in the face of” political violence. The Salt Factory riots - Gandhi. The lunch counter sit-ins - MLK. the Freedom Riders MLK. Every protester that has ever been clocked in the head by a baton has experienced “political violence”. And the most radical changes, politically, in the world, have occurred through coups, overthrows, revolutions. No political violence means no Haitian Slave Revolt, No Haymarket Riots, No French Revolution, No American Revolution. Mexican Independence Day was Mexican indigenous people throwing Spain out of their country. I think, we erase good history and “good trouble” when we get loose with phrase “political violence”. Are individual assassinations the same thing? I do not think so. Do they sometimes spark greater change? Well we could use WWI as an example of an assassination that created greater change. However, it is usually the non-violent change makers that are at greater risk of assassination. (Ghandi, MLK, Malcolm X, Kennedy) Assasinations create LESS change, but political violence? And enduring it at the hands of the oppressors and showcasing it to the world? That has created GREAT change. As have Revolutions and Coups. My condolences to the family of Charlie Kirk.
Melissa Hortman spread her name.
Let it ring out.
She her husband and dog were shot and killed.
Medal of Honor. !
Did not think she
Received it.
She didn’t even get flags at half mast, as Charlie Kirk did immediately. I wish hypocrisy was painful.
What voices and congressional actions can stem this assault on good decent finders and Americans.
Should they shut the government down and stop
The fake emergencies draining the hard earned tax payer dollars.
The miller trump
Pretenders of emergency.
Thank you for this post and the salient points you make. Patriarchy is the root of most of the violence around the world, and the right often demonstrates the deep emotional wounding and lack of empathy that result from patriarchy. The left has moved slightly beyond patriarchy, at least enough to feel empathy and compassion for most others. We all need to heal at a deeper level in order to stop this violence; and we need to find a balance of the sacred feminine within all of ourselves in harmony with the sacred masculine within all of ourselves.
Trump and MAGA's rush to immediately place blame on the left is abhorent. These "peaceful" people are quick to incite violence. Where were they when they found out that Vance Boelter was a Trump supporter? Right - nowhere.
He was assassinated from a distance by a single, precise shot at a very small target (his throat.) They cannot find the shooter (obviously a pro) which suggests they had help getting away. This happened the day after the Epstein scandal was breaking all over the news.
Today the news and right wing social media is completely focused on this particular shooting; not much about Denver. Or Epstein. Or that drawing.
These are facts that raise serious questions.
Everyone seems to agree that this was “political violence.” Perhaps. But what kind of political violence? There’s more than one possibility, isn’t there?
Until more is discovered about the shooter perhaps we should avoid getting caught up in the media maelstrom.
I think their inability to find the shooter says a lot about why Kash Patel was a poor choice to head the FBI. He has no experience in law enforcement, legal work or any of the other areas of expertise you would think a head of the FBI should have.
I am a proud republican and I love my country. I fought for my country and all her people, regardless of political views. My voice doesn't hold much weight in the scheme of things, but I personally condemn all political violence no matter which side it comes from. This is not how we come together and strengthen ourselves. We have so many enemies outside our borders. We do not need the infighting. It weakens our resolve and makes us look weak to our real enemies abroad. We need to find a way to have civil discussion and find common ground so that we can work together to fix our broken society. Too many extremists on both sides make that outcome look bleak. I fear for the future of our nation. I pray that we find a way soon, or we risk losing everything we have fought so hard for.
I think it's essential that you speak with your fellow Republicans and ask them to stand with you. I am more than happy to support you and call you my fellow American. The thing I've experienced almost my entire life is non-stop vilification by conservatives simply because I am a black person and because I am a liberal. How can I make common cause with a group of people who hurl vile insults and consider me an enemy just because of my mere existence?
Until more GOPers take a stand to cool things down, I am wary and uncertain that I can trust that things will change. I am more than happy to dialogue further with you about this because I care more about our country that I do about being hateful, righteous, or judgmental. Feel free to contact me if you like.
To be honest, I do not know any republican who would dislike you just for your skin color or political views. Although racism does exist on both sides.We may not always agree, but we are all humans. We are all stuck on this rock we call earth together. We can either come together and live in harmony, or we can destroy eachother. I prefer harmony myself.
You and I are mostly in agreement. I completely believe your word when you say you personally and the Republicans I know would not judge me for the color of my skin.
However, I maintain that much of the animating cultural and ideological drive for the GOP *in general* has anti-black animus as well as hostility toward other minorities. I was born in the 1960's in the South so I am extremely familiar with this dynamic starting with Nixon's Southern Strategy, through Reagan's "welfare queen/big black buck" rhetoric, on through trump's birtherism canard against Obama to the clearly racist insistence that large cities with large black populations are cesspools of criminality as if everywhere else is completely crime-free.
I am clear that you personally are not racist, but I cannot take the Republican party as a whole as serious political players given the history I cited. That's why I said I am wary about believing anything different until a substantial portion of the party is willing to call out the ugliness. Your own statement "although racism does exist on both sides" makes me reluctant about making common cause with you, NOT because I think you are a bad person but rather you may be blind to the viciousness of what I have witnessed. If and until you are willing to simply acknowledge (not AGREE mind you) the veracity of what I am saying, I'm not going to put my neck out there by myself when I can't realistically expect mutual support from the your side of the partisan divide.
P.S. I am not trying to guilt trip you into agreeing with me. I just want to clarify my perspective as best I can.
P.P.S. I am not saying Democrats are morally or ethically pure. As you stated, we're all Americans and we'll only come through this mess by working together.
The left side has the entire msm hurling and highlighting those that call the right hitler, racist, fascist, homophobic. If the conservative side has one it’s Fox News and I don’t watch that one either. Not to mention how censored the right side has been by YouTube, fb, instagram snd the like. Shows like The View do the same. Asks let’s not forget foreign influence. It might be helpful if we policed our own “side”.
If you believe various media organs hurling insults back and forth constitute a form of censorship coming only from the left, that's simply not accurate. Concurrently, the right promotes vile narratives about people on the left, so again, to act as if people on the right are the only victims in all of this doesn't fly at all. Go to a right leaning website like the Daily Caller or the National Review where the moderators immediately remove comments that don't align the prevailing conservative and reactionary contents.
Saying that that the perspective that the mainstream media is controlled by the "Left" is again not accurate. If anything, CNN, WaPo, LA Times, and likely CBS soon are firing journalists and commentators who are considered too liberal and are redirecting their focus to appease conservatives.
There are plenty of conservative YouTube channels and plenty of right-wing content on Facebook and Instagram. Saying otherwise is simply not true.
Fox News has the largest cable news audience and has been consistently larger than MDNBC and CNN for many years. The right also has a large and diverse media ecosystem besides Fox News, including Newsmax and OANN on cable. AM radio where there are multiple conservative commentators versus essential zero on the left, and multiple reactionary social media feeds (hello Twitter!).
There are people on the right today using literally the same language of the Nazis. Calling this out isn't being mean to poor, put upon conservatives. It's simply stating the truth. To suggest that the left has this massive media resources that it monopolizes whereas the right is just being pummeled is being victimized is naive at best and being really disingenuous at worst.
Those on the left CELEBRATED the death of a Jesus loving father, husband, and son which renders your argument moot. If the left is so center why are those registered as dem leaving in droves? Why are left run cities crime infested poverty pits? The left celebrates the death of babies not born, genitalia mutilation, drag queens, war, no cash bail, defund the police, and the list goes on. If journalists are being laid off it’s because their readers have woken up to the fact that the rags lie. Many right leaning YouTube channels were simply canceled and have never gotten their content back nor their channels. Go watch some James O’Keeffe videos where senior employees are caught on camera revealing their censorship efforts. Every assassinated President save one was republicans and JFK wanted to splinter the CIA into a thousand pieces and get us off the central bank so he had to go too. The left is the party of the KKK, slavery, Jim Crow, and no dem Voted in affirmation of the civil rights nor any of the constitutional amendments giving rights to our brothers of a different hue. Be a dem if you choose but don’t tell me my comments are disingenuous or misinformed.
I agree I served as well for people to have their rights regardless of political affiliation. I truly believe united we stand divided we fall. When Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, and Kim yon Un had a meeting that was a serious warning to America.
Sounds great, but it sounds as if you think "both sides are equally wrong". I ask that people clarify, as this seems a prevarication from many (imho: mostly from the right).
I believe that there is one side that is strongly different than the other; one side cheats and lies multiple times more than the other, and votes to disassemble the strong country and allies that the US and others built since WW2.
Everyone seems to agree that there is much further to go, I personally believe that we must complete fixing the problems we were born with (in the small but significant flaws in the Constitution and in the way the Civil War and its after-effects were "won").
Bye Felicia.
Trump makes this all about the GOP but little is said about Democrats Hortman’s death, her husband and dog by a Conservative…His hateful blame game has created this atmosphere..Little is done about Mental Illness too…
Doing something about mental illness would require the GOP to do something about DJT. So that is a no go.
Thank you for saying this. Charlie didn’t deserve to die. Melissa didn’t deserve to die. This feels like a dangerous and precarious time in our country. We need to bridge our divide and stand up against this type of violence for all victims. I just don’t know how that will happen and feel at a loss for next steps.
Nothing good or healing will happen while Trump is in charge. He encourages the division. So he and his fellow MAGAts need to be voted out-and then we can see about healing.
Not only should they say Melissa’s name but also her husband Mark’s as well as Gilbert’s too. But when they do that it means that they are facing the truth the horror of what happened to her and her family, it humanizes her . But republicans have no interest in any of that. They are the party of grievances and haters in their minds and their veins are filled with it, and it’s vile and sad. Thank you for addressing this Mike.
In a NYT editorial opinion yesterday, the authors named multiple elected politicians who have been violently attacked in the past few years (Shapiro, Trump, Pelosi ) yet left unamed the murdered “member of the Minnesota State Legislature” .
Shame on the NYT editorial board.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/10/opinion/charlie-kirk-mourning-political-violence.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
The NYT has finally shed all remnants of being the "newspaper of record". If American democracy dies, you can safely look to hefty contributions in complicity made by the NYT.
U R one million percent correct, that’s just how they play their DIRTY GAMES, and they know the majority of these attacks and murders are done by RIGHT WING SUPPORTERS and let’s be real about this BS most or all of their supporters know this also, they are Masters at getting ahead of the game. You have one part of their base know that they are Lying and the other part that just tags along with them and their lies. Like I told some friends and people I know, there’s only two times that RepubliCons are lying and that’s when their Eyes are open and when they’re Closed in other words ALL THE DAMN TIME even when they try to tell the truth.
Trump wants a martyr. Anything to quiet Epstein and help him takeover the rest of our government.
If violence with AL'S is in the hands of Neo Nazis, what are democracy-lovers bringing to the fight to hold onto our Republic?
Sorry, what are AL’S?
AKs…autocorrect made a real mess of my comment and I was trying to read black-on-black on my screen for some reason. Apologies.
GUNS REFORM on a national level but GOP republicans wont legislate AT ALL because the love of money and greed and power over ALL LIVES MATTER PERIOD, starting from 34 Felon and let’s not speak on mental health and illnesses , that’s been gutted OUT of the fabric of United States of American, thanks to the UGLY GOP Republicans Bill!
Keep in mind that Kirk opposed gun control of any kind, stating that the killings of children was a price we had to pay for “freedom.” Will that make it into the eulogy??
Great point here. In fact as the NYT reported some of Kirk’s political proclivities, he did say that such violence is part of the fabric of our country, perhaps suggesting that he may even have considered himself a target. Nonetheless, any loss of life from such violence is needless and certainly regrettable and the only fights we need to have are in forums where people speak - or write - and are able to offer retorts and let the audiences decide where they land in the spectrum of ideas.
I am going to politely disagree about “political violence”. Change does not occur without it. Non-violence means remaining non-violent in the Face of political violence, so that those in the wrong are showcased to the world as unjust and violent. Every important change has been made “in the face of” political violence. The Salt Factory riots - Gandhi. The lunch counter sit-ins - MLK. the Freedom Riders MLK. Every protester that has ever been clocked in the head by a baton has experienced “political violence”. And the most radical changes, politically, in the world, have occurred through coups, overthrows, revolutions. No political violence means no Haitian Slave Revolt, No Haymarket Riots, No French Revolution, No American Revolution. Mexican Independence Day was Mexican indigenous people throwing Spain out of their country. I think, we erase good history and “good trouble” when we get loose with phrase “political violence”. Are individual assassinations the same thing? I do not think so. Do they sometimes spark greater change? Well we could use WWI as an example of an assassination that created greater change. However, it is usually the non-violent change makers that are at greater risk of assassination. (Ghandi, MLK, Malcolm X, Kennedy) Assasinations create LESS change, but political violence? And enduring it at the hands of the oppressors and showcasing it to the world? That has created GREAT change. As have Revolutions and Coups. My condolences to the family of Charlie Kirk.