We have seen protesters on the left around the country mocking the assassination of Charlie Kirk, even reenacting his murder. Hate traffickers like Jennifer Welch have even justified his assassination. It is all shocking and depressing, but none reached the level of Hasan Piker leading a huge crowd in mocking Kirk and his faith. Before he was murdered, Kirk debated Piker and called him a “socialist hypocrite.” What is shocking is not the utter depravity and cruelty of Piker, but the ecstasy of the crowd in relishing the death of someone with opposing views. It is part of the conditioning in an “age of rage.”
In the video, Piker leads the crowd in the meme song “We Are Charlie Kirk” at a stop of his “Fear& LIVE” tour, including such lines as “We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame. We’ll fight for the Gospel, we’ll honor his name.” His co-hosts and the crowd seem to be laughing with joy.
Joining him at this hatefest at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco on August 21 were reportedly Will Neff, QTCinderella, and AustinShow.
Hasan is wearing his now-signature Mao jacket as the young crowd and his co-hosts laugh hysterically. It is the very essence of this movement to desensitize people, particularly young people, to violence and hate.
In Rage and the Republic, I wrote about this national ragefest. It allows people to hate completely and without thought to the humanity of those being hurt. What people will not admit is that they like it. Rage is addictive, and it is contagious. Just look at the crowd in San Francisco, and you will see the addictive quality of uncut, undiluted hate:
Piker, Will Neff, QTCinderella, AustinShow, and these fans have every right to spread hate. It is protected speech just as KKK and neo-Nazi groups are allowed to promulgate their own hateful values.
What is exasperating is how hatemongers on the left want to enjoy hate speech while accusing others of hate and intolerance. They do so by excusing their actions or views by demonizing those who disagree. Democratic leaders continue the false claim that democracy is dying in America and that this may be our last free election. While made over multiple elections, this repeated claim of the imminent death of democracy (unless they are elected) does not appear to register with their supporters.
Recently the rhetoric has reached hysterical levels. Florida Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon has compared Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to “modern-day slave catchers” and the government is “literally trying to kill us.”
It is a narrative that allows you to speak like a Nazi while claiming to be fighting Nazis.
Piker thrilled the crowd by mocking a murdered man over his faith and his death. It is more than being simply classless. It is commodifying rage. Piker is reportedly raking in a fortune as are other hatemongers like Jennifer Welch. They traffic in rage to a nation of rage addicts.
It is a scene that only reaffirms the work of Kirk who sought to expose the hate and intolerance of the left, particularly on our campuses. Kirk infuriated many by challenging them to debate. There is no room for reason in an age of rage. Those who try to introduce opposing views on campuses are cancelled or attacked.
Recently, a group of pro-life teenagers were kicked out of the Wydaho Roasters coffee shop in Idaho by an owner who found their presence intolerable. At universities, faculty members have attacked displays and even students in righteous rage. One professor who pleaded guilty to assaulting pro-life students was not only retained on the faculty but even honored by another school.
Civility, and even humanity, become signs of weakness in these times. They gravitate to figures like Abdul El-Sayed who has campaigned with Piker and promises to “choke out” Republicans and refers to moderates like Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman (D) as ogres to have their heads cut off and put on pikes.
The American left has found their berserkers, the old Norse warriors who were known to fight in a virtual violent trance. The new berserkers offer the chance to hate completely and without remorse or reflection. Over time, supporters are conditioned to disregard even the murder of those with opposing views. As shown in San Francisco, assassination becomes nothing more than a sing-a-long in an age of rage.
Jonathan Turley is a law professor and the best-selling author of “Rage and the Republic: The Unfinished Story of the American Revolution.”
One of your very best commentaries.
With each generation the percentage of the young unfamiliar with consequences increases, produced by a culture that has lost sight of the key role consequences play in the production of maturity, civility, and personal happiness. Generations of misguided parents, indifferent teachers, and a weak-willed criminal justice system has blinded the young in ways once known only to silver spooners (whose first and sometimes fatal introduction to consequences is typically personal despair).
Without consequences the search for happiness and fulfillment becomes an endless scrolling of arbitrary impulses, leaving the searchers as vulnerable to the Hasan Pikers of the world as they have shown themselves to be to the Mark Zuckerbergs.
The question is how do we confront the irrational, hate filled violence that seems to be coming our way? We can stand on principle and defend their right to stoke rage that turns into violence and widespread civil disorder. I don’t see that approach winning many converts to peaceful coexistence. The 1st amendment is not a suicide pact. I blame the Democrat Party for bringing this madness to our country.
“Until you are willing to harm the left more than they are willing to harm you, they will win.
It’s really that simple.”
-Aimee Terese on X
Trump’s Hatred Of Canada Could Inflate Housing Costs
Some clear patterns emerge from the text. Canada’s forest industry, which has been enmeshed in a seemingly endless battle with the United States for decades, has been particularly targeted. On the lists, the many wood products include 36 different kinds of plywood alone. Homebuilders in the United States have already said there is not enough American product to replace Canadian plywood, so the tariffs could increase housing construction costs.
From Today’s New York Times
…………………………………….
Trump claims ‘affordability’ is just a hoax of an issue. And to proves it’s a hoax, Trump plans to jack up housing costs with mindless tariffs on Canadian plywood. This is where mindless hatred leads. Though it’s never been that clear ‘why’ Trump hates Canada so much. But this stupid hatred certainly benefits Putin.
Your twisted narrative leaves a lot out from that NYT article.
Canada feels entitled to maintain a trade relationship with the US as if they are a state in our union.
Just like the abusive mentality in any toxic relationship, Canada refuses any reciprocity.
Canada maintains protectionist tariffs, non- tariff barriers, quotas against US goods, and one-way restriction on banning, financing, intellectual property and media.
Mr. Greer offered many concessions to Canada but they refused all.
It makes more sense to withdraw completely from the USMCA.
When Canada crawls back to the negotiating table for their bilateral discussion in 6 months they will end up with the exact terms they just rejected.
Eventually reality will begin to set in as the collapse of the Canadian dollar as predicted by the Bank of Canada.
As for lumber, the tariffs will now allow domestic lumber production to develop and no longer be undercut by Canada’s imports.
Watch domestic lumber production skyrocket and all the jobs it will create.
“Mindless hatred”?
You project.
Estovir, I got as far as, “When Canada comes crawling back..
It’s just mindless hatred of Canada lacking any logic. Putin applauds!
Hey CCP puppet, let’s circle back in 6 months and see who’s right.
My name is ANNA, not Estovir.
PSYCHO MORON THINKS EVERYONE IS ESTOVIR
Psycho Moron Anon– corrected
Lumber prices will skyrocket, propelling a collapse of the US home construction industry, costing far more jobs than could possibly be created.
All in all a truly great plan to make everything in America worse by pump-and-dump Trump.
If ICE officers are “modern day slave-catchers”, it’s because the Democrats, the party of slavery, continues to favor and support the unfettered migration of undocumented persons that then will be managed, paid, and trafficked as functional slaves to fellow Democrats. It was Nancy Pelosi who said that Florida farmers needed immigrants “to pick the crops”, and Jerry Nadler who said that “the U.S. needed many illegal immigrants” to pick vegetables to prevent them from rotting.
They cherry picked the low level tasks for fear of public excoriation. It was Kelly Osbourne, in 2015. who mused that if every Latino were kicked out of the country there would be no one left to clean Trump’s toilets. A clear reference to Trump’s business ventures in the hospitality industry and the services required to run it. A reference that the politically astute would take care to avoid.
ICE is successful because they are picking up the documented immigrants who pay taxes. ICE and Trump would be crowing about the killers and so forth, but they rarely encounter them.
If Alex Jones can be sued for millions then this Islamic POS can be sued for causing undue pain and suffering to a widow of a murdered man.
I don’t get into nasty arguments about politics with liberals for two reasons: one, where do a lot of conservatives come from? Ex-liberals, and I don’t want to make it so personal that they’re reluctant to change their minds (admittedly, I do make an exception for online trolls, but they’re often so cruel and dishonest that I can’t resist.)
Two, in my experience, the best way to convert a liberal to conservatism is to let other liberals do it for you. It’s usually violent, illiberal insanity that drives liberals to get red-pilled. We’ve seen a lot of recent examples.
If Piker was a false-flag operation, he couldn’t do a better job of making conservatives. Keep it up, fella.
One agrees, Diogenes. If Trump ‘was’ a Russian asset, he wouldn’t be doing anything different. And this mindless fight with Canada is excellent illustration. Only a stooge for Putin would be so intent on destroying our relationship with Canada, one of the world’s most most peaceful nations.
Canada and Europe don’t matter because they chose to be broke and woke. Your pity is wasted.
Diogenes, you’re part of the rage problem. You’re saying we must hate Canada and Europe because they’re woke. So Donald Trump is right to alienate our allies. But where does that leave the U.S. with regards to allies? Should we form an alliance with Russia and North Korea? That seems to be where Trump is going. Hard to imagine much influence for the U.S. with such odious ‘friends’.
Nobody hates Canada and Western Europe (including me), and sadly that’s because they’re irrelevant. Trump criticizes them harshly because they did it to themselves, and he doesn’t want that rot coming here and neither do I. Somebody needs to say it. Sorry, not sorry.
Japan, Australia, Poland, Ukraine, Sweden, the Baltic States, and maybe Finland are promising allies. France, Britain, Germany, Spain, and Canada are past the point of no return. I wish it were otherwise. Stop worrying about how they feel. They’re only useful now as object lessons in national suicide.
Diogenes, why should Japan and Australia trust us as allies when Trump turns on South Korea?? And why would Sweden and Finland trust us as allies when Trump is so friendly to Putin???
Stop listening to MSNOW, please.
Diogenes get a clue! Trump’s image as a mean-spirited buffoon has nothing to do with with media coverage. That’s Donald Trump!!
Call me, again, in 20 years when you’re ready.
Do you just settle for lousy friends so you can any friends at all? or do you have criteria?
Canada doesn’t share our values of individual rights so they just see us as $$$. We need to do to Canada (cuba north) the same as we’re doing to cuba.
The best way to convert a liberal to conservatism is for the liberal to be victimized by the very policies they advocate and support.
This ‘Pied Piker’ is playing a tune that the opposition is not sharing widely enough. The ‘lettuce’ that he is selling and the source from which it was farmed is far more infectious and deleterious to this nation’s condition that that which has been afflicting parts of the nation currently. Time to wake up and smell the burnt coffee.
I want to see the policies of the other side fail so miserably that they look foolish for spearheading their passage, I want to see them exposed in debate formats on tv, radio, or podcasts, and I cheer on their utter destruction at the polls. I also want to see their supporters in tears after the election. This is the extent of harm I want to see come to anyone on the other side of the political aisle. I understand when the opposing side cheers on the electoral defeat of my side. I understand when they mock, deride and laugh at candidates from my side, because that’s all part of this game we call politics. To cheer on violence, or in this case murder, of a leading figure from the other side is incomprehensible to me. This isn’t sports. You’re not cheering on the injury of the other team’s best player (though most of us stop this weird cheering when we hear he isn’t just hurt, he’s injured.) As Turley points out, this article isn’t about the type of unreasonable fanaticism we see in NFL stadiums around the country, it’s about a bloodthirsty level of rage that most of us will never be able to understand.
Rilaly is Estovir reminding us how stupid Trumpers sound. This comment provides much-needed context. No wonder the Bernie Bros are going over the top. They want to match the Estovirs!
This is the epitome of a despicable internet troll.
BAN FOR LIFE!
You need to review use of Kirk on the opening blurb.
The devil himself could appear with piker and he would fit right in and his disciples would cheer him on.
The Bernie Bros are matching the stupidity of Trumpers; which shouldn’t surprise anyone. That’s how the dynamics play. Call it ‘Newton’s law of politics’.
The cruelty of Piker, not Kirk
In faith, I choose to believe that piker Is righteously traveling his own road to Damascus.
There will come a time, when the dollar collapses and America is economically sent into severe recession/depression. That’s always been their plan, Cloward-Piven.
in faith, I choose to believe that Piker is righteously traveling his own road to Damascus.
Too bad the Leftists have so much power they can ‘tank’ any circulation of Cloward-Piven. Keep America ignorant,.
Too bad the Leftists have so much power they can ‘tank’ any circulation of Cloward-Piven. Keep America ignorant,.
Originally, it was tanking us through the welfare system. Now that they have run national debt up to $40T and $2T interest annually it’s just a matter of time.
Decitenize with a one way ticket to the country their parents came from. Allegedly this guy was born here and his parents returned with him back to Turkey and raised as a Muslim. Thanks SC, what a decision.
and he returned to the US to avoid military duty in Turkey as duel citizenship required.
Like all bullies, he is also a coward.
I don’t quite under stand the phrase “What is shocking is not the utter depravity and cruelty of Kirk, but the ecstasy of the crowd in relishing the death of someone with opposing views.” in the intro to the piece. Methinks there are some words that got lost somehow or the wrong name was inserted.
The intro blurb in my email used the name “Kirk”, but reading the entire article, via the provided link, you will see the name “Piker” used instead in that same sentence. A mistake? Frankly, I doubt that, as we don’t ordinarily edit text when simply transferring an article from one platform to another. So, the question is, who changed the name for the email intro? AI saboteurs? A hacker? A Turley staffer?
Thought provoking article. It has a couple of things that need editing, however. I guess it just proves that you don’t use AI to write your pieces.
Ummm thanks???
When Charlie Kirk was murdered there were many people saying he deserved it because he was so hateful.
I watched some Charlie Kirk videos and I did not see hate. What I saw was a decent young man who was willing to talk, in a civil manner, to anybody.
I am not a Christian, I am not even particularly religious. What I can say is that this is fundamentally a Christian nation and my concepts of right and wrong, good and evil, align pretty closely with Christian values.
I would have been very happy to have Charlie Kirk as a neighbor.
I think that there is an amalgam of western (pre-Christian ideology) culture and the very Judeo/Christian moral values that make the western culture in general. Too many people align western culture strictly with Christian values but they miss the very cultural/political essence of the pre-Christian world that has given us so much that is not essentially Judeo/Christian dependent such as democracy and literature, art, individual rights under the law etc.
I was waiting for someone to paste the “Judeo” onto the nation. All cultures borrow from each other. The time for acknowledging the Judeo part has passed. Move on, drop the ball and chain.
@ Old Fish
“The time for acknowledging the Judeo part has passed.”
Why? Do we have an answer to your problem: Supersessionism (Replacement Theology)?
There is no New Testament without the Old Testament and no Old Testament without Judaism. They are inseparable.
Kirk’s ability to remain civil is what any psychopath is like, plus he had muscle on site to shove anyone who would rile him out of the way before Kirk would lose his cool. He had the easy confidence of a well protected bully. His goal was to get a rise out of those who tried to have a discussion with him and put that on his social media to show how unfairly Kirk was treated.
Kirk had a well rehearsed approach to deflect the conversation to a small number of dead-end topics where he would claim a win by based on his interpretation of the infallibility of the Bible.
There are 2 types of citizens now, those who are offended and disgusted by the likes of hasan piker and those to ill-educated or indoctrinated to see the danger inherent in this pathway. My only question is which side has the power to prevail as that will determine our nation’s future.
The crazies are so far out in the tall grass that I am not sure what to make of their thought processes. Maybe they all need to have their brains scanned for toxoplasmosis, tapeworms, or some other brain parasites. They are dangerous.
Lacking that, they should have their right to live revoked
This is exactly what “Hit & Run Trolling” looks like.
Trolls like this are morons.
@whimsicalmama
You took the words right out of likely many of our mouths. We will ever reach the point of wanting to address the question of why so many of our younger people are so susceptible to this in the first place? Well adjusted people do not hate other people, at any age, and these people are rapidly making the Manson Family appear tame.
Piker on the other hand is simply a sociopath, from a sociopathic ideology and obscene levels of privilege. He is pathetic, as is anyone that defends him in any capacity. Dem voters that can’t bring themselves to denounce him out of fear of being ostracized/siding with ‘MAGA’ need to find their damn spines.
Re: ” why so many of our younger people are so susceptible to this in the first place?” They are socio-politically and economically naive. They do not have the currency of life experience necessary to enable them to be able weigh the value of a trade using what has been described as residual agency. That is to say, the extent to which they are willing to surrender self-determination, and free will in exchange for their unrealistic ideals. Bad trade!!
True. Mark Twain was right about youth being wasted on the young. I would have done a lot of things differently back then, had I known what I know now.
full quote:
“Wisdom is wasted on the old and youth is wasted on the young”. – George Bernard Shaw
Yes, a spine and a strong inner core of individual self-reliance and moral concepts.
whimsicalmama,
I would add, character.
James,
Well said.
Piker and his kind thrive on the hate and rage. They play into it to get ‘likes’ to increase their base.
Will the Democrat party be able to reign them in? Will the DSA take over the Democrat party? Or will they go their separate ways and form their own party?
You are correct concerning establishment Democrats who cannot or will not denounce Piker or other DSA types. Schumer comes to mind. Establishment Democrats think or thought they could ride and tame this DSA tiger but they are finding out differently. They are not going to be able to dismiss the DSA after the mid-terms. The DSA is doing to the Democrat party what MAGA did to the Republican party. The difference being MAGA loves America, law and order, sanity and common sense.
The DSA, not so much. And they are saying it out loud for all to hear and see.
whimsicalmama,
From what I am seeing, we have traditional, sane and normal Democrats like the good professor, Bill Maher, RFK etc.
They would like to see their own party return to their traditional roots.
Unfortunately, there are some who believe what they see on MSNOW, CNN, etc. and have embraced the TDS narrative. Those would be those senior citizens who wheel out of retirement homes at No Kings rallies.
Then we have the radical far leftists and the DSA. They pander to the Gen Z, failure to launch to make them feel like they are victims of . . . something. And generally blame everyone older than them for their perceived victimhood. Those are the ones I find mildly concerning as they seem much more likely to take the road to violence.
Just read some of the annony’s comments.
Time for the rest of us to stockpile ammo, this is not going to get any better… its going to get uglier and uglier and one side will need to be eliminated
I have been saying this for more than a decade at least; we are 2 distinct and oppositional cultures inhabiting the same piece of real estate and only one can succeed. It is now a matter of logistics, demographics and will.
the Soft Secession is happening:
normals leaving blue states go live in red states, commies leaving red states to go live in blue states
“Illinois projected to be biggest population loser by 2040” ( 2nd is NY)
evidence:
https://wirepoints.org/illinois-projected-as-biggest-population-loser-by-2040-visual-capitalist/