It’s going to sound absurd, but right now, USA’s global image is a very good counter-ad towards “complete” freedom of speech.
We are also an example when a people becomes completely divorced from their cultural and religious heritage. Without a moral anchor, we are a people cast adrift, lost in confusion, calling evil good and good evil, all trying to do our own thing and benefit ourselves, consumed by greed, by self-interest.
Freedom of speech, or lack there-of, plays no role in what is happening in the United States. This country and its founding charters were written for a moral people. That the country is byzantine, crumbling, has more to do with a people who have lost their way than it has to do with this-or-that law that the government no longer heeds.
what moral anchor do you think we need?
If it was just a matter of people internalizing that killing fascists is fine and thus that calling people fascists is dangerous, then we would not see the same sort of violence being perpetrated against other politicians not getting the same label.
Kirk himself suggested that a "real patriot who wanted to be a midterm hero" should bail out the man who nearly killed Pelosi's husband. The rhetoric around political violence in this country has been ratcheted up to an insane degree, with or without any accusations of fascism, and this will continue or get worse as long as that remains the case.
Circa 2017 during then “punching Nazis” era of social discourse, I started a new job. The first week in I went for lunch with a Junior teammate and was told “violence against ‘Nazis’” is fine, it’s justified. I asked how. I was told, my brain is a part of the body, so if someone says something so stupid that it ‘hurts the brain,’ the speech is now assault, so counter-violence is justified.
I, with hint of irony, told my new coworker that was the stupidest thing I’d ever heard and asked if I should now assault them for hurting my brain… and was met with hostility.
I don’t quite known I’m going with this exactly, but I feel folks are not giving the world around them an honest assessment, no matter their Ivy diploma. Politics isn’t a “gotcha game” and please stop tying to make it such.
There's just less tolerance for discussing or exhibiting "extreme" or highly unpopular opinions, nowadays, it seems. Although, I could definitely be wrong -- people like MLK were shot for doing same long ago.
I mean, you're almost there realizing the recency bias. The 1970s, when the Skokie Affair occurred, were arguably the high point for political violence in the post-WWII US.
It's that level of hysteria what causes moderates to shift to the right.
As far as i can tell, moderates turn right because they dont like women running for office, and they like that trump has been on TV. they maybe also dont like brown people running, but thats only the one case.
who cares what moderates think though? elections are won by motivated your diehards to vote, and discouraging your opponents from voting
Trump is an autocrat - he expects everyone to simply fall in line with his orders, as opposed to delegation, separation of powers, and respecting the supreme rule of law. He's an authoritarian, in that he sees government intervention as the main answer to problems (most mainstream politicians are authoritarians, but bureaucratic authoritarians).
Liberty examples from before the second round ("track record") are less clear cut, but a straightforward one is the way he shunned the second amendment when police retaliated against Kenneth Walker for exercising his natural right to night time home defense. But now into the second round, we have gangs of thugs roving around and attacking citizens, so the obvious prediction was indeed correct.
And institutions? His first term, he picked a fight with the CDC for being politically incorrect. This time around, how many government institutions has he outright destroyed? Furthermore, he's graduated to attacking private institutions like universities. His whole popular shtick is basically one big rambling of grievances about US institutions.
I'm sorry that words mean things, and that you apparently have a negative emotional reaction to words that correctly describe Trump. I would call your statement an attempt at gaslighting. "Make America great again" is plainly a revanchist or reactionary (Moldbug's term) slogan, and therefore not conservative.
2) Enforcement of the law requires force. Who would have thought?
3) If an institution is corrupt it should be reformed or destroyed. What's wrong with that? Nothing.
I can't tell what point (2) is supposed to apply to. In general authoritarians are eager to use force to enforce top-down prescriptive laws, yes.
(3) I didn't say it's wrong to destroy or gut institutions perceived as corrupt. What I said is that it's not conservative.
2) Law enforcement. It's in the name.
3) Are you under the impression that "conservative" just means to keep things as they are no matter what?
Do you disagree that he is basically running the government as an extension of himself? To me, it sure seems that way when he uses chaotic tariffs to pressure other countries into making "deals" that often include his own personal financial interests.
(2) As I said, I don't understand what specific point of mine you're referring to. There are laws and enforcement in both individual liberty respecting societies, and also in dictatorships. So clearly it matters what the laws are, and how they're being enforced.
(3) No, which is why I was talking about respect for societal institutions. For every American thinker's elucidation of conservative values that I have tried to apply, if I squint I can see maybe 20-40% of them being applicable, with the rest being openly rejected.
Perhaps you would like to reference what specific set of conservative values you see Trumpism actually following? I don't mean aiming to destroy our society such to the point that conservative values will become more important, but actually applying those values to the present situation. Because as a libertarian who has entertained ideas all around the left-right political spectrum, the only thing I can find that lines up is anarcho-capitalism.
Or to come at it from a different direction, read Moldbug's "A Gentle Introduction to Unqualified Reservations". He lays out a left-right framework that seems to be underpinning much of this movement, and explicitly rejects conservatism as ineffective.
2) They are being enforced just fine.
3) You talk about conservative values but you mention none specifically.
(3) seems to be the crux of the issue. I am giving you the opening to pick a thinker who has best articulated what you see as a good enumeration of timeless conservative values, which we can then use to judge Trumpism. Because believe it or not, I am open to changing my mind here and I really do want to understand.
If you'd like me to pick, I can certainly do that. But then I don't want to then hear that I haven't picked the "right" conservative for your taste.
I occasionally come across one but for some reason they always get pressured out of the party.
The problem isn't the claimed actions they want to take, its the dehumanization being resorted to.
And he’s not entirely wrong either, it’s not all rocket scientists and engineers crossing the border.
Sure.
But the overwhelming majority of people called "nazis" by their political opponents have objectively not chosen anything remotely of the sort.
News manipulating footage to cast aspersions to historical boogeymen is routine. All it takes is one pundit mentioning an imagined similarity to play the edited B-roll.
1. People who believe they could never become Nazis are often the most unknowingly susceptible to it.
2. People who believe they can confidently identify a Nazi are often wrong — a mindset akin to witch hunts, where everyone is seen as a witch.
Painfully ironic given how open he was to debate.
I ask because for a while it was a common "right wing faux intellectual" thing (think Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yulianopolis etc) to go around asking to debate. Then to not actually do much factual debating or any learning of other perspectives, and claiming that the left is simply uncapable of civilized debate because they eventually just refuse to go along with the act.
When I talk to people that watch a bunch of right-wing content I shut down political topics immediately. They never change their position and are convinced their point of view is the only point of view. If you concede there's more than one side to a topic they care about, they think they've "won" and it reinforces their belief they're right about everything.
I consider myself to be a centrist. There are definitely things I like and don't like on both sides of the political spectrum. If someone gives me a solid logical argument for or against something, I'll either change my point of view or, more likely, end up with a better understanding of both perspectives.
I'm only one person, but my experience is that people on the political left or center are willing to accept the fact there are often two sides to an issue and that everything needs to be a balance. Most people on the political right won't do that.
It's really hard to argue against someone that never concedes anything especially if you're acting in good faith and acknowledge when they make a convincing argument for their point of view.
> claiming that the left is simply uncapable of civilized debate because they eventually just refuse to go along with the act
1000%
If you say so. My experience has, broadly speaking, been the exact opposite.
Almost everyone I know would be center-left or center-right except the ones that have shifted far to the right from watching influencers. The center-right people will come towards the middle, so I should have been clear that I'm talking about the new normal of right wing politics that is way further to the right than it used to be.
Again, my experience is very nearly the opposite. I have to seek out rightist views if I want to hear them (I have them in carefully curated feeds so that I can make sure I understand their logic); I can scarcely avoid being exposed to leftist ones (before the Musk takeover, even opening Twitter logged out and in an incognito tab would do this; now I can still have that experience on Bluesky and on most Mastodon instances).
> Almost everyone I know would be center-left or center-right except the ones that have shifted far to the right from watching influencers.
I have been in communities full of people who were commonly accused of having "shifted far to the right from watching influencers", and consistently noticed that no such thing had actually happened if I listened to their actual views.
I don't watch anything political on platforms with recommendation algorithms. If I want to understand something like a proposed law I go skim the legislation. I might read opinion articles from leaders in a field.
I pretty much only talk about politics to people I've known for decades. We should probably talk about something else. Do you like technology?
I'm guessing you don't know dotnet00 personally, but you still felt justified in replying with some ideological warring. My goal was not to "talk about politics" with you, but only to show that you are presenting a biased worldview that doesn't reflect a universal experience.
i think theyre talking about people they actually know and have met
In many cases, yes. In at least one case I actually got to meet a "social media folk" in person. I've also in the past chatted with political livestreamers to discuss issues and solicit clarification.
I was mostly thinking about how the way they (that is, "debate me!" types) approach debate doesn't really lend itself to actual debate.
They love to throw around unnuanced statistics, relying on the ability to throw so much shit at the wall that the opponent doesn't have the time to dissect it on the spot. This one's poisonous because to viewers it lends legitimacy to numbers that may actually be deeply flawed.
Another popular tactic is to never clearly answer a question and constantly ask for more clarification than necessary. Eg when asked how many trans mass shooters there have been in some period of time, answer "too many", then when given the answer and asked how many mass shooters there have been in that period in general, deflect from the point by asking if that's counting gang violence (supposedly this is what Kirk was doing before he was shot, but I can't be sure).
With tactics like these, it's no wonder that people wisen up and begin refusing formal debate. Debating them lends legitimacy to people who are far less interested in being responsible about the truth.
A related aspect about this is age, Kirk was ~31, he's been at this since 2012. He didn't finish his college education, and his experience in politics "proper" was limited. If a 31 year old undergrad dropout with no experience in astrophysics went around claiming to debate astrophysicists on the nature of black holes, he'd be laughed off as a quack.
Many others are very similar, they are/were young and lacking in education and/or experience with what a meaningful debate looks like, instead assuming that debates work the way the idiot box likes to portray them.
I have personally not seen this at all. I've seen a lot of talk about it being a thing, but I've still never seen it. I know and talk with many conservatives and they are all extremely anti-nazi and definitely do not promote fascist ideals.
I'd call that something fascism because it's the word that comes to mind when I see secret policing.
However, they are obviously keeping their identities a secret because they know if they don't, they will become targets of violence. I don't see how that can be attributed to fascism beyond the surace-level aesthetic of masked law enforcement. The mask itself says nothing about their ideology.
Secret police wear masks to instill fear into the population because they never know who's watching. ICE is wearing masks so they don't end up like Charlie Kirk.
This seems to be what ICE/The current administration are using as the justification for the masks, but I'm not sure it matches reality.
Federal law enforcement are effectively immune from accountability at this point (qualified immunity, and destruction of Bivens [1] leave effectively zero recourse if you are a citizen who's constitutional rights have been violated by a federal agent).
So now that they are masking up they are also immune from being called out socially or in the media. There is no excuse for the police to hide their identities, they have the full power of the state behind them and to protect.
> they will become targets of violence.
What about the targets of violence coming from ICE? There seems to be real and substantial video evidence of ICE using excessive and unnecessary force all over the country. I have not, however, seen concrete evidence that suggestions federal agents are being regularly harmed by the public (Yes I saw the sandwich throwing video, no federal agents were harmed other than maybe their ego). I have seen claims from the administration that this is occurring [2], but the claims are about percent increases and I've seen some reporting that seems to indicate the publicized increase is quite misleading [3][4] "...79 assaults against immigration enforcement agents between January 21 and June 30, up from 10 that took place in the same time last year." The increase is certainly concerning but it does not seem like there is tremendous violence occurring against ICE agents on a daily basis.
[1] https://www.scotusblog.com/2022/06/court-again-rejects-exten... [2] https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07/15/dhs-announces-ice-law-en... [3] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/28/doj-la-prote... [4] https://x.com/BillMelugin_/status/1940047247229792320
This thread is literally about an assassination of a political figure. It's a very believable justification.
> What about the targets of violence coming from ICE?
As I've already stated, I am firmly opposed to what ICE is currently doing and what they've been ordered to do. I'm not justifying what they are doing. It's abhorrent. But I don't see what this question has to do with my point.
I think you have the concepts of fascist and authoritarian confused.
You can accuse the agency of authoritarianism but not racism. They are going after everyone illegally in the US.
The same way it did for the last 250 years as the world's oldest Democracy. By respecting and upholding our Constitution, especially the 1st and 2nd Amendments.
There are unstable people of all political persuasions and the marked lack of widespread political violence is hard won by years of obeying political norms that include not resorting to violence within political systems.
In the United States there was first a fraying of norms and now there seem to be fewer and fewer norms people are willing to uphold each day.
To focus on calling people “Nazis” and “Fascists” is to miss the wood for the trees.
What happened can't be condoned, but the violent rhetoric isn't just from people being called nazis.
Just like "neoliberal" this is a kind of buzzword that generates a particular emotional reaction for those on the left. Meaning people being labeled with them are not just bad but really bad.
I think George Orwell was right when he said it has lost most of its meaning
https://www.orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/e...
>It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless
>By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.
But I hate so much attacks on freedom from governments that will always choose freedom of speech.
The main downside of abusing the words nazi and fascist is that it gives an out to the actual fascists out there. When it comes to gun violence, there are a lot more (self proclaimed) neo-nazis killing innocent people than people killing them.