Trump keeps trying to convince people that radical flag burning leftists are the danger to the country. He's beating a horse that doesn't exist. By Hal M. Brown

 

Yesterday Trump told the White House pool reporters the following: 

“If you look at the problem, the problem is on the left. It's not on the right, like some people like to share the right, the problem we have is on the left. And when you look at the agitator, you look at the scum that speaks so badly of our country, the American flag burning all over the place, that's the left. That's not the right.”

I was struck by his bringing up flag burning. “Who the holy hell is burning the flag?” I asked myself.

When I read his remark I thought of the aphorism about the futility of beating a dead horse. This means to continue discussing or trying to pursue a topic or issue that has already been decided or is pointless to revisit. It implies wasting time and effort on something that cannot be changed or resolved (From AI). 

I thought I could use this in my title, but then I realized that the particular horse he’s beating, blaming the left for behavior like flag burning just isn’t happening. In fact, flag burning hasn’t been a common form of protest recently, at least not to the extent it was years ago.

Trump has tried to make this an issue before. In August he signed an excutive order mandating prosecution of those who burn the American flag (here). 

I found the following about whether this order had any validity:

David Cole, a professor at Georgetown Law who has represented flag burners in several high-profile cases, said people can legally use the American flag as they see fit….

Cole also said the provision of the executive order threatening to deny or revoke visas and other immigration benefits to non-citizens who burn flags fails to recognize that the First Amendment protects everyone in the U.S.

“Just as you cannot throw someone in jail for burning an American flag, you can’t deport someone for burning an American flag,” he said. “So, at the end of the day, this executive order is symbolism and theater. It is not a realistic attempt to respond to any real world problem.” Reference: “Flag burning has a long history in the U.S. — and legal protections from the Supreme Court.”

I haven’t seen any photos of people burning flags in protest of Trump. What I do see is photos of people flying flags upside-down as a sign of a nation in distress. Below is one of my protest signs:

I have a flag (below) which I fly upside-down at protests above a Pride flag:

You can bet that if there was one photo or video of someone burning an American flag at an anti-Trump protest Trump would be showing it and it would be all over the right-wing media.

I doubt Trump will address using the flag upside-down. It just isn’t dramatic enough and doing so would open a discussion about why people are saying that because of Trump the nation, democracy itself, is in distress.

Still, Trump being Trump, or Stephen Miller being Stephen Miller, we may see an executive order banning flying the upside-down flag.

Trump won’t let this radical left lunatic narrative go whether referring to the murder of Charlie Kirk or anyone who dares to protest against what he is doing. 

He has to be salivating over the prospect of revelations coming out about Tyler Robinson being the bloodthirsty radical left lunatic he wants him to be. So far the only good news coming out about him is that his motivations are nuanced and complex and don’t fit neatly into the MAGA narrative. 

Kash Patel is saying (above) that there is an email Robinson sent to a friend saying he was going to target Kirk because he hated what he stood for. 

So far there’s no explanation as to just what it is he hated about what Kirk stood for. Considering that Robinson’s partner was a male transitioning to female (see article) this could be what he hated. 

For all we know he admired everything about Trump with the exception of his demonization of trans people. On the other hand he could be like any young person who defies their parents politics and/or religion, as a way to rebel. 

We don’t know anything about how Robinson grew up except that he had Mormon parents who were conservative. We don’t know how strict they were. Adolsecents and young people often rebel against overly strict parents. 

At present there is a great deal we don’t know about why Robinson did what he did. I can offer very tentative speculation which is hopefully well-grounded in my being a mental health professional, but I am not the president. Trump should keep his mouth shut. If Trump had a better angel this is what they’d be telling him. But Trump doesn’t even have an angel trying to compete with the Devil when he considers what to do.

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What if Tyler Robinson turns out to be a far-right radical lunatic? There's evidence suggesting he's a Groyper. By Hal M. Brown

I didn’t know what a Groyper was although I’d heard the term. The cartoon below (click to enlarge), which someone posted in a Facebook comment, explains what it is and why there is good evidence to suggest that the reason Tyler Robinson shot Charlie Kirk was because he wasn’t extreme enough.

For a fulsome explanation of the Groyper movement here’s the Wikipedia entry.

Excerpt:

The Groypers, sometimes called the Groyper Army, are a group of alt-right, white nationalist, and Christian nationalist activists led by Nick Fuentes. Members of the group have attempted to introduce alt-right politics into mainstream conservatism in the United States and participated in the January 6 United States Capitol attack and the protests leading up to it. They have targeted other conservative groups and individuals whose agendas they view as too moderate and insufficiently racist and nationalist. The Groyper movement has been described as white nationalist, homophobic, nativist, fascist, sexist, antisemitic, and an attempt to rebrand the declining alt-right movement.

Groypers are a loosely defined group of Fuentes's followers and fans. After him, there is no clear second in the Groyper hierarchy. Groypers are named after a cartoon amphibian named "Groyper", a variant of the Internet meme Pepe the Frog. In February 2021, the Groyper movement splintered between Fuentes and Patrick Casey over fears of infiltration by federal informants and doxing at the 2021 America First Political Action Conference, held by Fuentes. Jaden McNeil of America First Students joined in support of Fuentes's conference and accused Casey of disloyalty to Fuentes. In May 2022, McNeil distanced himself from Fuentes in an "interpersonal clash of egos" following conflict over his former position as treasurer of Fuentes's America First Foundation.

You probably recall that Donald Trump hosted a dinner with Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye (formerly Kanye West) at Mar-a-Lago on November 22, 2022. That meeting drew criticism due to Fuentes' known racist and antisemitic views. Trump later claimed he was unaware of Fuentes' background at the time of the dinner.

The following, from Wikipedia, is very relevant because it describes a major falling out between Nick Fuentes and Charlie Kirk:

In the fall of 2019, Charlie Kirk launched a college speaking tour with Turning Point USA titled "Culture War", featuring himself and guests such as Rand Paul, Donald Trump Jr., Kimberly Guilfoyle, Lara Trump, and Dan Crenshaw.^[3] In retaliation for the firing of St. Clair and the Politicon incident, Fuentes began organizing a social media campaign asking his followers to go to Kirk's events and ask provocative and controversial leading questions about his stances on immigration, Israel, and LGBT rights to expose Kirk as a "fake conservative". At a Culture War event hosted by Ohio State University on October 29, 11 out of 14 questions were asked by Groypers.^[28] Their questions included "Can you prove that our white European ideals will be maintained if the country is no longer made up of white European descendants?"^[31] They asked Kirk's co-host Rob Smith, a gay, black Iraq War veteran, "How does anal sex help us win the culture war?"^] Fuentes's social media campaign against Kirk became known as the "Groyper Wars".^[8][24] Kirk, Smith, and others at Turning Point USA, including Benny Johnson, began calling the questioners white supremacists and antisemites.^[25][32]

Another Turning Point USA event the Groypers targeted was a promotional event for Donald Trump Jr.'s book Triggered, featuring Trump, Kirk, and Guilfoyle at the University of California, Los Angeles in November 2019. Anticipating further questions from Fuentes's followers, it was announced that the event's Q&A portion would be canceled, which led to heckling and boos from the mostly pro-Trump audience.^[33]The disruptions forced the event, originally scheduled to last two hours, to end after 30 minutes.^{[34][35][11][36]}

Groypers' targets for heckling quickly expanded beyond Kirk and Turning Point USA^[24][37] to other mainstream conservative groups and individuals, which they sometimes collectively call "Conservative Inc.", including Young America's Foundation and its student outreach branch Young Americans for Freedom, which included such speakers as Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh of The Daily Wire and Jonah Goldberg of The Dispatch.^[5][37] Groypers' questions often focus on United States–Israel relations, immigration policy, affirmative action, and LGBTQ conservatives.^[6][38][8] They regularly use antisemitic dog-whistles, including questions about the USS Liberty incident and references to the "dancing Israelis" conspiracy theory alleging Israeli involvement in the September 11 attacks.^[11][3]

The only hard evidence that has come out so far as the what might have motivated Tyler Robinson to shoot Charlie Kirk is literally “hard” evidence because it is what he reportedly wrote on his 2 ½ long 30-06 shell casings which the police recovered. 

The idea that Robinson was motivated to shoot Kirk because he wasn’t extreme enough is the complete opposite of the narrative MAGA is spinning. It may turn out that instead of his being a far-left radical lunatic he is a far-right radical lunatic.

If, and this “if” must be taken cautiously unless and until we know more, if we discover that Robinson was a militant Groyper and supporter of Nick Fuentes this would totally derail and upend the MAGA portrayal of him as a far-left radical lunatic.

This morning’s Substack:

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The Aftermath: Already Avenge Charlie is Rightwing mantra, By Hal M. Brown

 

.

There is absolutely no doubt that there are unstable people “out there” who are prone to violence who may be prompted to seek revenge for Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

I woke up to two headlines on the HUFFPOST main page which were of grave concern to me. They are the third and fourth below:

This is the article about Trump: 

Excerpt:

President Donald Trump quickly placed blame for conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination on the rhetoric of the “radical left,” despite no evidence yet indicating the shooter’s motive.

In a video message posted by the White House on Wednesday evening, Trump mourned the loss of Kirk, a fierce ally of the president’s who helped Trump build support among young conservatives.

Trump said his administration would track down every person who “contributed to this atrocity.” He then went on to list several acts of violence he blamed on the “left,” including the 2024 assassination attempt against him, the shooting at a congressional baseball team practice in 2017 that left Rep. Steve Scalise injured and the shooting death of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year.

“Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives,” Trump said.

Trump did not mention any of the many recent examples of violence against left-leaning politicians, including the shooting of two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota this summer.

The article also included two references that I’d omitted from yesterday afternoon’s Substack (which I have republished below).

Billionaire and erstwhile Trump ally Elon Musk offered a similar message to the president on X: “The Left is the party of murder.”

“THIS IS WAR,” declared Libs of TikTok’s Chaya Raichik.

This is the other article:

It expands the list of people calling for vengeance which I posted yesterday adding a number of figures from the Right and concludes with someone expressing my fear:

Progressive streamer Hasan Piker, who was scheduled to debate Kirk later this month, raised concerns on Wednesday about the focus on retribution after the shooting.

“The reverberation of people seeking out vengeance in the aftermath of this violent, abhorrent incident is going to be genuinely worrisome,” he said.

As I write this Trump is commemorating the 9/11 attack. He began expressing grief over the death of Charlie Kirk and announced he would be posthumously awarding him the Medal of Freedom.

By elevating Kirk to a hero for freedom he is doing more than honoring him. He is making him a martyr and this fuels the desires for those inclined to avenge his death.

It certainly doesn’t help that we have our Secretary of State coming out with this:

Few if any sane people will “make light of Kirk’s death. 

The same applies to those who would belittle him. 

Again, all of this could lead a mentally unbalanced person to think that taking violent action against a public figure on either the Right of Left will make them a hero to their side.

He writes:

let me state right up top that political violence solves nothing, and only creates new problems — and oh boy, are we ever in a world of new problems.

right now, every establishment Democrat is denouncing political violence.

“Today’s act of political violence in Utah against Charlie Kirk is absolutely disgusting and unacceptable. We don’t have to agree on everything, but we should all agree on this: political violence is wrong, and has no place in our democracy.”

as for the Republicans, I wish I could say the same — but they’re not. even though (again, as of this writing) we have no idea what motivated the unknown killer, these dimestore detectives have already decided who to blame — because of course they have.

“The Left is the party of murder.”

These are the lines from popular Substacker JOJOFROMJERZ’s personal and powerful essay about the killing abut why she cried when she heard about the shooting which stood out to me:

I didn’t cry because I loved Charlie Kirk — I didn’t. I cried because this is not what I want for my country. I cried because this is not what I want for anyone, anywhere. The tears came from grief, not for him, but for us — because this is not who we should be.

The reaction described in the above article is what I was afraid of when I wrote this morning’s Substack.

I am posting the Substack I wrote this morning again (below) since there has been a startling and horrifying event that relates directely to the subject I wrote about.

We don't yet know why someone shot Charlie Kirk. For all we know at this time he was shot by someone who knew him and had a personal grudge. More likely than that, he was shot for political reasons. This could be literally the first murder committed by the resistance, small or capital R, against Trump and Trumpism. 

When the shooter is identified depending on what is learned about their motivation this could go down in history as an example of extreme violence committed that has a parallel to what Resistance snipers did in World War II. 

The Resistance snipers, like snipers in other wars, target the highest value enemies that they can. While they can’t get to the top leaders because they are so protected, they try to kill the next highest level officers.

As far as an enemy could be concerned Charlie Kirk would be analogous to a front line colonel rather than a general. He is out and about without the protection a general would have.

I can only hope that the shooter turns out to be deranged. Otherwise if he has some kind of anti-MAGA agenda the country may be embarking on the darkest of violent dark times. I am fearful that this will usher in a police state that makes what Trump has created so far look like child's play.

This is already happening (read article)

Take the following excerpt from the article:

"The Left lectured us for the last decade about the dangers of violence from the Right," Shaun Maguire, a partner at Sequoia Capital, postedon X. "From the assassination attempts of President Trump to Brian Thompson, the United Healthcare CEO, being murdered. Now to Charlie Kirk. The danger was actually on the Left."

Then see how this way of thinking leads to this:

"I don’t think the Left knows what they’ve just started," political consultant Joey Mannarino posted on x.

What, indeed, is Mr. Mannarino suggesting that the Left has started? Is he saying “if you think we’ve had a police state, you ain’t seen nothing yet?”

Here’s another story along the same lines:

Excerpt:

"They are at war with us," Watters continued. "Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate? And that's the question we're just going to have to ask ourselves."

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