Descending into Idiocracy
The internet, news organizations, and law enforcement flailed about this week in trying to make sense of Charlie Kirk’s killing. It simply added to the sense that the world is falling apart and you can’t trust anything you see, hear, or read.
In one sense, the algorithms were doing just what they are programmed to, Charlie Warzel complains in The Atlantic:
I saw the finger-pointing online even before I saw the news that Kirk had been shot. At that point, there was hardly any information about the incident—let alone details about the shooter or a motive. Yet there was plenty of blame to go around: Elon Musk posted on X that “the Left is the party of murder,” even before Kirk’s shocking death had been confirmed. Others blamed the shooting on the media, NGOs, and billionaire Democrat fundraisers.
This is the algorithmic internet at work. It abhors an information vacuum and, in the absence of facts or credible information, gaps are quickly filled with rage bait, conspiracy theorizing, doomerism, and vitriol.
FBI head Kash Patel seems already to have screwed his agency’s investigation. He caught heat not just for prematurely reporting that a suspect was in custody and later claiming that releasing photos of the susp[ect were his decision. There was also his mentioning that Kirk was a personal friend and hoping to see him again in Valhalla. Very professional.
In the controversy surrounding Patel’s firing of seasoned agents so he could install Trump loyalists, he opened his big mouth again (The New Republic):
“When Driscoll explained that firing employees based on case assignments would be in direct violation of internal FBI processes meant to adjudicate adverse actions and prevent retaliation based on case assignments, Patel said that he understood that and he knew the nature of the summary firings were likely illegal and that he could be sued and later deposed,” the complaint reads.
Beyond blatantly violating the law, the statement also stood in direct contrast to what Patel had promised Congress during his confirmation process weeks earlier, when he swore to Senator Richard Blumenthal that all FBI employees would “be protected against political retribution.”
But the phrasing of Patel’s rebuke also implicated Trump, explicitly pointing to the Justice Department and the White House as the origin of the command.
“Patel explained that there was nothing he or Driscoll could do to stop these or any other firings, because ‘the FBI tried to put the President in jail and he hasn’t forgotten it,’” according to the legal filing.
National security journalists were quick to note that Patel’s loose lips might have made it easier for the ex-FBI agents to achieve an incredible feat: getting a U.S. president to sit for a deposition.
The prematurely reported story about messages on the alleged shooter’s 30-06 cartridges “expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology” felt not unlike conservative dogwhistles. You heard them, went baroo, thought what’s that about, then watched commentators explain them for you in real time when they didn’t know what they meant either.
As Warzel notes, it was off to the races on the right. The unidentified sniper was clearly a member of the “radical left,” our over-confident, know-nothing president insisted. “Democrats own this a hundred per cent,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R) of South Carolina even before Kirk was declared dead.
It appears instead that rather than a lefty, suspect Tyler Robinson, 22, was something else entirely. The New York Times spoke with Adrian Rivera, 22, from Robinson’s woodworking class:
Mr. Rivera said that Mr. Robinson was a “massive Halo guy,” referring to the popular science fiction game, and that he also liked to play Call of Duty, and other shooter games.
Sam New, 23, remembered a different video game, Minecraft, which Mr. Robinson, an introvert from a conservative family, played obsessively.
Robinson’s grandmother told the Daily Mail, “My son, his dad, is a Republican for Trump. Most of my family members are Republican. I don’t know any single one who’s a Democrat.”
Online lemmings and leading Republican figures all leapt to conclusions about Robinson’s motives and what the cryptic messages meant. We find out later that they had more to do with Robinson being “yet another a fucked-up terminally online young man.” Marcy Wheeler has more about Robinson’s connection to gamer culture based on reporting in The Verge.
And the whole family is steeped in gun culture.
Investigators had already reported that they had recovered a Mauser model 98, in .30-06 caliber with a mounted scope associated with the shooting. Your basic deer rifle.
Yet I watched on Friday some mid-afternoon MSNBC host ask a mid-afternoon MSNBC “expert” whether advanced optics and laser sighting systems made possible the shot that killed Charlie Kirk. SMH.
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