My heart goes out to all the innocent victims of, and those affected by, gun violence.
I wrote this for a group chat, but I’ll also share my thoughts here:
In terms of the morality of the shooting, I think it comes down to the options people feel they have. The greatest strength of a democracy is that it gives voters the feeling of control over their political outcomes. If your guy/gal doesn’t get into office, it may suck for a while but you have another chance in the next election. As long as people feel they have some say over how the current system works, they will be much more agreeable with that system.
Trump and MAGA have been breaking that system for nine years at this point. It was bearable for most people the first four years as another election was coming, but during and since the last election cycle, that faith in a future election has been significantly strained. Things like Trump making comments about Musk “knowing the voting machines,” people “not having to worry about voting again” and mentions of a potential third term in office have cast doubt in the minds of many about whether the last elections were fair and whether future elections will be fair.
On top of this, post pandemic many peoples’ standard of living has fallen due to increased costs of essential goods, high medical costs, stagnant wages, and a housing market that has only gotten harder and harder to break into. For the past four years there may have been hope that policies could be enacted to alleviate some of these at a federal level, but a MAGA administration means those will not happen for at least a full term.
Combine that with the above concerns about the integrity of future elections, and the options that many people perceive themselves to have have narrowed further and further, and as Trump continues to test boundaries to concentrate more power to himself, only two options will be available in the minds of more and more people: Capitulate and risk a low standard of living or even death (either due to being an “outsider” like a LGBT member or being squeezed into homelessness/medical death due to finances)Fight back I think many people will gravitate toward option two. As discussed earlier that should mean political organization and voting, but also for the reasons discussed earlier that isn’t (or at least doesn’t feel) viable to many at this point. So that leaves violence as the only method of fighting back. We can see that with Brian Thompson, and now we can see that with Charlie Kirk. Both represented and participated in the systems that are restricting many peoples’ medical/financial and political options by running profit-oriented insurance or recruiting a generation of youths into MAGA.
All this to say, I don’t think it’s good that either was killed, but I frankly don’t know what else they expect people to do when the systems they support give people fewer and fewer alternatives.
