Death and Comedy in Urban America

We begin by talking about the removal of Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House. Inez says she doesn’t think it matters and explains why. We get into the question of what Republican priorities should be, and what’s realistic to accomplish with a slim majority in one house of Congress.

Also this week, not one, but two left-wing activists were murdered in major American cities. Ryan Carson was stabbed in NYC by a psycho with a knife, in what is a sad and all too typical occurrence. Josh Kruger was shot seven times in his Philadelphia home, so there’s a chance that this one was a personal dispute. Regardless, all of this has set off a large debate on Twitter, with conservatives going “ha ha, you’re dead now” and liberals going “you ghouls, how dare you.”

I don’t think the gloating is helpful, but I tried to explain the online conservative position on X, and here’s Inez’s response. One of my reply guys asked if I felt the same way about conservatives who take positions that get people killed and end up dying in ironic ways, and I said that there’s something different about the ACAB crowd. People can have mistaken policy beliefs, but it’s another issue when they appear to be rooting for the criminals. Moreover, norms require a degree of reciprocity. In the case of Carson, his friends themselves are trying to politicize his death, which makes it hard for them to ask others not to. Moreover, the entire theory behind antifa is that violence is justified against people you disagree with, which means they can’t claim the high ground here. In the end, though, we are both anti-gloating but in favor of learning lessons from events when we can.

Finally, Inez and I circle back to what is happening in Congress, and talk about why the right has a particular loathing for Ukraine, given what a small part of the budget support for that country is. Inez argues that the divide between the parties on this comes down to trust in institutions, and I bring up the “own the libs” factor, which is always the most likely explanation when conservatives are acting weird.