I took a little time yesterday to look at the battle for the political narrative. There is no escaping the fact that this is a heated war of words. While the specific motive and evidence for this heinous act still remain a mystery, there is clearly an attempt to spin this as Tyler Robinson being a victim of left-wing radicalisation. This message is being spun at the very highest levels of government at both the state and federal levels. The pretext is being created for a coordinated attack on funding sources for Democrats. That’s precisely what I believe they are going for: tying funding up in courts and choking off fundraising for the midterms.
I hadn’t intended to elaborate on the Charlie Kirk issue further, but I feel that two elements still require additional exploration to complete my observations. Faith and Trust. At this moment, there’s a significant trust deficit among those tasked with prosecuting the case. Time and time again, standard protocols appear to have been disregarded in relation to the announcement of the apprehension of the perpetrator, allowing Trump to deliver the news. There is no doubt that this is a carefully controlled media pipeline, which is being crafted to paint this clearly troubled young man as a victim of the left.
Domestic terrorism has been a scourge in America, which accelerated after Trump was elected and following the 2020 election, when he persistently used dog whistle tactics as a shield when he thought he was facing jail time. There were constant references to the fact that there would be violence on the streets if he were convicted. Trump constantly bangs a drum, insisting the problems with political violence stem from the ‘scum’ on the left. You should be mindful that any protest, no matter how peaceful, is regarded as violence towards him.
There is no empirical evidence to support this deliberate false claim. It’s time we shut down these permissive environments that create using lies to lay the blame for political violence on the left. Does left-wing political violence happen? Yes, it does occasionally, but it is a rounding error in comparison to political violence emanating from the right. Here are the facts as identified as part of a global study
Full citation of the study:
Jasko, Katarzyna, Gary LaFree, James Piazza and Michael Becker. 2022. "A Comparison of Political Violence by Left-wing, Right-wing and Islamist Extremists in the United States and the World." PNAS 119 (July).
The study is worth a detailed look, but I’ve picked out a few excerpts to highlight the general conclusions.
Much of this research suggests that compared to left-wing extremists, right-wing extremists may be more likely to engage in politically motivated violence. In comparison to left-wing supporters, right-wing individuals are more often characterised by closed-mindedness and dogmatism.
In contrast, in comparison to their right-wing counterparts, left-wing individuals score higher on openness to new experiences, cognitive complexity, and tolerance of uncertainty (5). They are also less likely to support social dominance (11), which could lead to their overall lower likelihood to use violence against adversaries.
Of course, political violence is a very complex subject. We can all be angry at what we feel is an injustice. However, time and time again, when it comes to gun violence, this tends to be primarily the preserve of the right.
I would also point you to research by the Department of Criminology and Justice at the University of Maryland. The research entitled First-of-its-kind Look at Left, Right, and Islamist Extremists Explores Similarities, Differences. Notes:
“There has been a strong presumption among many that while left-wing and right-wing ideologies vary a great deal in content, they resemble each other in terms of their willingness to use violence to further their political agenda. However, our analysis shows that right-wing actors are significantly more violent than left-wing actors,” said LaFree, a professor in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice (CCJS) and the founding director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).
Again, I highly recommend taking a read for yourself. The very fact that I have gone to lengths to validate what we already know to be true is in itself an indication of my liberal sense of responsibility when it comes to accurately presenting the facts. Unfortunately, the representation of the facts is not what we have become accustomed to from those on the right.
Unfortunately, we are living in a world where it is not beyond the realms of possibility for Trump to have someone speak to the family who are confirmed to be confessed avid Trump supporters to assist in laying the ‘real blame’ at the feet of his alleged transgender ‘boyfriend’ for poisoning his mind. Add this to the scrubbing of social media posts by the likes of Laura Loomer and other far-right provocateurs, and the case becomes more opaque by the hour, I’m afraid.
Trump is a man who was prepared to incite an insurrection and told tens of thousands of verified lies. He’s a known pathological liar who always gets what he wants. He instructed the DOJ to move Ghislaine Maxwell, a convicted paedophile serving 20 years for her complicity in the most heinous crimes against children, to a low-security prison. There can be no other reason to provide such leniency other than in a quid pro quo for her silence. It seems to me that the President of the United States rewarded her for perjuring herself.
I have absolutely no problem believing that he has both the loyalty of the key players and the motive to twist the truth, in this case, to create the required narrative. I have grave concerns about whether justice will be served, because if it were, it would be detrimental to the narrative the administration is trying to sell to its base as justification for a war on Democrats.
These are the same problems blacks in Apartheid South Africa faced from abuse by white law enforcement, who were able to kill them with impunity and simply lie about it, only to be supported by white judges. It also mirrors what is happening with the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied territories, where settlers and the IDF can kill people with impunity. White rule is nothing new.
Do not doubt the words of the late Charlie Kirk when he said in an exchange with a student:
"I believe in a small but strong government and, for the record, I believe that someone who took a life should have their life taken,"
He went on to say:
"We as conservatives try to strive for blind justice," Kirk said. "Those on the left will argue for social justice. … We, as conservatives, believe in the ideal that you shall not favor administrative justice just because of your skin color, background, wealth, so on and so forth."
In a separate debate on the Charlie Kirk Show in 2024, he stated:
"Death penalties should be public, should be quick. It should be televised,"
He was a man ever in search of profit from his victims; I’m sure he saw an angle in public executions, too, and I’m sure he would have been first in line to host them. The key to how the more savvy right-wing operatives operate, of which Kirk was one, is their ability to craft statements which vaguely incite violence, but with a lack of specificity that provides plausible deniability in the event someone acts upon their rhetoric. In addition, we should never forget that lies, conspiracy theories and left baiting pay well. It made Charlie Kirk a wealthy man.
In my opinion, anyone calling Charlie Kirk a civil rights activist is either seeking to deliberately mislead people or is in denial of the truth. I understand grief can distort the lens through which people reflect on someone, so I have no problem giving these people the benefit of the doubt, as I do his grieving widow. This is why I have not publicly sought to dismantle her incendiary public statement following her husband’s passing and the video of her weeping over his open casket.
As I’ve already clearly stated, I DO NOT believe Charlie Kirk deserved to die for his beliefs, no more than the countless innocent Palestinian women and children who have been murdered for being Muslims. No more than the numerous people of colour that have been killed at the hands of US law enforcement officers for being found guilty of driving while in possession of a black face.
Charlie Kirk was, in my opinion, a dangerous Christian Nationalist who sadly became a victim of his own unconscionable promotion of hatred and division. The tragic irony of that should not be overlooked. He was used to living in a world of ‘Do as I say, not as I do. ’ On this occasion, someone took his words literally. He lived in a democracy that allowed him the freedom to express his views, however abhorrent some people may have found them. What I fundamentally object to is that he bastardised the Christian teachings of the bible, and used these political distortions of scripture to tap into the vulnerability of those for whom faith is an integral part of their life.
He used the misrepresentation of Christian teachings to exploit vulnerable and uneducated Americans, along with impressionable young students, to make millions of dollars as they were recruited into a world where they became sufferers of Stockholm syndrome. He amassed wealth by sowing division and fear among people living in a fractured society that he had helped to break. For this, he deserves nothing less than my full-throated condemnation. I can not speak for others; that is a matter between them and their conscience.
I am more than aware that Trump has deployed an army of Witchfinder Generals as Washington becomes the 21st Century Salem in which those displaying any dissent or disapproval towards their newly beatified martyr will suffer summary trial and employment termination and even arrest in defiance of their so-called right to free speech.
The administration has long been searching for a banner under which to declare war. Stephen Miller, the mastermind orchestrating the administration’s response, seized the opportunity to encourage waging an alleged righteous crusade against Democrats, painting them as:
“… an entity devoted exclusively to the defence of hardened criminals, gangbangers and illegal alien killers and terrorists”
History will record this as a moment in which a sitting government declared war on those not willing to stand by and accept tyranny and subjugation from a malign entity that has taken American values, patriotism and the nation’s flag hostage in a coup.
Miller has chosen to lead the charge of a corrupt extortion gang cloaked in the word of God, to install a theocratic autocracy using the murder of a man who travelled the length and breadth of the country to promote racial hatred, misogyny and lies to students, while defending the murder of hundreds of children in classrooms as a small price to pay for facilitating his own death.
In any world, his words would be described as the words of a domestic terrorist, not a martyr. Charlie Kirk can only be called a man of faith in a society so fractured that the antithesis of Christian values has become the altar from which his beatification is declared.
I think it is safe to say that Miller and all the false prophets serving in this administration are the 21st-century Pharisees and scribes Jesus strongly opposed. He was contemptuous of them, as he would be of these MAGA charlatans, were he living amongst us today.
That’s if he were allowed to live amongst us and had not been abducted by masked men from the street to be deported and now rotting in a Venezuelan concentration camp. I’m sure Jesus would point the MAGA faithful to the seven woes of the Pharisees as outlined in Matthew 23:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to”
Jesus condemned the leaders for teaching their converts the same hypocrisy that they themselves practised. They led their converts into a religion of works, but not into true righteousness, making them “twice as much a child of hell.
Jesus referred to the religious elite as “blind guides” and “blind fools” They were blind to the true meaning of Scripture and to their own sin. They purported to guide the people into the truth, but they were incapable of doing so because they had no personal knowledge of the truth.
Jesus said of the scribes and Pharisees, They diligently counted their mint leaves to give every tenth one to the temple, but they “neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness”; “You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel”. They were careful to avoid offence in minor things of little importance (straining gnats), while tolerating or committing great sins.
Jesus likened them to dishes that were scrupulously cleaned on the outside but left dirty inside. Their religious observances made them appear clean and virtuous, but inwardly their hearts were full of “greed and self-indulgence” In the next three woes, he turned to hypocrisy—the well-known MAGA trademark.
Jesus compared them to “whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean”. In other words, they appeared righteous on the outside, but they were just beautified tombs; inwardly, they were spiritually dead.
Jesus addressed the seventh woe to those who erected monuments. Jesus says they were truly their fathers’ sons; they had inherited their ancestors’ wickedness and were following in their steps. Jesus knew their evil hearts, which would soon plot to murder Him.
We are living in a moment when Republicans are egregiously misrepresenting the teachings of Christ in the service of wealth, greed, and power. Never underestimate the power of religion, and be very afraid if that religion is taken hostage and twisted to preach to its followers that they are the chosen ones and everyone else is their enemy. Christian nationalism is a fundamental threat to any just, moral and inclusive society. It is a cancer that eats society from the inside out, as we are seeing played out in the US today.
The founders had good reason to separate church from state. Interpretation is the poison oil that this administration is dripping into the ear of a nation straining under the increasing weight of the yoke of exploitation, seeking to steal their wealth, their healthcare and nutritional assistance to feed the top 5%. Trump needs the distraction right now, and you can rest assured he will milk it for everything he can. He needs our focus away from the Epstein files and the economy because the wheels are coming off the bus, which will result in yet more questions and scrutiny as families begin to hurt.
Never has there been a more important time to engage in critical thinking. That’s why Truth Matters exists: to provide you with the facts to make it a little easier each day to ask questions and look for answers. I’m putting this to bed now. Tomorrow it’s time to get back to the economy, because never has the statement ‘It’s the economy, stupid’ been more relevant than it is today.
My thanks to gotquestions.org for the expansive breakdown of the Seven Woes of Matthew 23, which I was able to distil for this piece.
Fine. I don’t disagree with any of your points, but you’re missing the lede here.
Thiel funded and essentially created the personas of Kirk, Shapiro, etc.
Unclear whether Kirk selected Vance or whether Thiel just used Kirk as operative.
Either way, there’s some sort of smarmy three way involved in Vance’s selection as VP.
The GOP is going to circle back around to the Trans-Leftist arguments in a hard way either later today or early tomorrow.
Kirk was entirely a Thiel project and he’s determined to capitalize on Kirk’s persona, dead or alive.
Be ready for it.
Prophet not Profit. I love your stuff but spelling errors like that are inexcusable in the age of spell checkers. And anyway, you should have someone proof reading your output because that’s how good it is. I’ll volunteer to do it for free if you’d like.