"You didn't 'guess' anything. You had a lady asking me what my belief was."
"The whole thing was a shameless series of disgraceful stunts. However,...I haven't seen anything where I didn't feel Erica Kirk was complicit,..."
"This is all theater,...They curated a handpicked audience. They asked them special questions like 'who's your favorite religious figure?' Stuff like that,...And then they handpicked questions that they gave to Erica Kirk before the show."
This is obviously a strange time to be alive. It's even stranger if you started a blog in 2005, called The Macho Response, that predicted the cultural shift we're now experiencing, including - and probably especially - the defeat of the Democratic party. In hindsight, it wasn't that hard to see coming, because TMR was analyzing the deeper reasons America's been failing, not just moaning how bad it is to be where we are. And those underlying forces - like a love for NewAge cultism - still aren't being anywhere near fully addressed. If they were, we wouldn't have the husband to a "reiki master" and homeopath in charge of Medicare.
Oh well. At least cartoons, today, better reflect our cartoon lives.
While the "6-7" meme is cute (and definitely not some "Satanic Numerology bullshit") it's also illustrative, in the wake of "Rapture" claims and the shooting of Christian grifterCharlie Kirk, because it reflects how easy it still is - even in 2025 - for seemingly-educated and intelligent people to get swept away by low-calorie ideas. South Park's contrast (of kids enamored by "6-7," with something equally powerful but invalid that adults are into, like Peter Thiel and the Christian concept of an Anti-Christ) nails how dangerous this cavalier treatment of beliefs is: as school authorities are coming down on innocent kids over nothing, for religious reasons, the powerful also decide they also see threats to us all.
The difference is, the kids know the idea they're playing with is nothing, while, by the time they become adults, they're treating all of it like it's very real. And - except for kids having fun for a while - no good is coming from any of it. As everyone takes action.
Today, contradictions, of all kinds, are starting to pile on top of one another. When Democrats were in power America saw encroachingfascism. Now, the GOPwas complaining that people are shooting at them, before the Young Republicans were caught admitting they're Nazis who love them some Hitler. And this led to JD Vance - who, at the start of the administration, made it known he'd punish anyone being so antisemitic as to criticize Israel's genocide - now claiming these ultimate of antisemites on the right are just kids (in their 20s and 30s) having fun.
"The immediate rush to sainthood; this grotesque canonization currently underway across right-wing media, is an insult to both history and intelligence. Trump's posthumous Medal of Freedom. The flags at half staff. The sudden amnesia about Kirk's actual legacy. It's all part of a passion play, where the protagonist's sins are forgotten the moment he becomes useful as a symbol rather than a person.
Kirk was not some innocent victim of random violence. He was an architect of the very toxicity that ultimately consumed him. For years, he built his brand on catastrophising every cultural disagreement into civilizational conflict: Professors weren't just liberal, they were Marxist indoctrinators. Diversity programs weren't just misguided, they were anti-white racism. Every campus protest was the beginning of a communist revolution. He didn't engage in debate. He declared war and now his allies want to pretend he was a peacetime casualty.
The hagiographies now being written conveniently omit Kirk's greatest hits. His 'Professor Watch List' that targeted academics for harassment. His deliberate misrepresentation of campus events to fuel outrage. His transformation of confused 18-year-olds into culture warriors convinced they were under existential threat. He weaponized victimhood while claiming to oppose victim culture. Creating safe spaces for conservatives while mocking the very concept.Demanding free speech for himself while attempting to silence others.
What's particularly galling is watching the same figures who enabled and amplified Kirk's divisiveness, now positioning themselves as voices of reason, calling for unity. These are the people who cheered when he turned 'owning the libs' into a business model."
There have been few public figures more despicable than the late Christian evangelical, Charlie Kirk, who booked time on campuses to use deceitful debating techniques just to sell lies - he knew were not true - to high school and college kids. That people are motivated to celebrate him in death is as disgusting as how he died. The Trump era sucks. There's just nothing great about it.
