This passage is circulating in my memory during this noxious moment in the collective. I believe you, Mr. Sykes shared it previously. It well describes the playbook in use by the trump regime and too many on the extreme right of every argument.
“ It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” Joseph Heller, Catch 22
I saw this in the news today too, from a couple different sources; i.e., That Gov. Cox said that Robinson's roommate is trans, was unaware of Robinson's actions, and is cooperating with the investigation. In my opinion, the veracity of Cox's statement is questionable, as it was made after he received a call from Trump shortly after Cox's press conference. After that call, the script flipped. Whether or not the roommate is trans has no bearing on the case and should NOT have been mentioned to the press -This will be red meat for the MAGA crowd, and puts the roommate at risk.
I lost a lot of friends due to the Kirk death. This “loving, Christian family man” lived in dark world that promoted violence and sexual subjugation along with Fuentes.
I pondered the possibility that trump orchestrated the shooting to deflect attention from the Epstein issue.
I went from extreme fear to relief to fear again. It’s a black or white issue. It’s also an issue of the minority owning a majority of the guns in America.
Thank you, Mr. Sykes. This is where djt’s total amorality is in clear display. maga was very ready for the charlie kirk moment. They knew they were fomenting violence and just waited until the time was right. The details didn’t work out for them so they just spin, spin, spin their way out of it. That is not strength. That is dangerous childishness. He is running the same scam internationally. Lying about the origins of the war in Ukraine. Moving deadlines. Sliding out of NATO instead of making a statement that he is withdrawing the United States.
Yes, I devoutly wished that Spencer Cox was our president when I heard the words he spoke and the way he spoke them. I could care less if political ambition motivated him; we need good politicians in power about now. From what I can tell from this distance, Cox is one.
Yeah if you accept that it doesn't matter who started it you will lay down your weapons and hope the opponent will reciprocate in kind. Of course we all know damn well who started it and if you put your weapons down you will just get beaten to a bloody mess.
Utah Governor Cox’s words unfortunately is but a spit in the ocean of the cesspool of the hatred, vitriol of political rhetoric and intemperance in his verbal attacks against any and all who dare to disagree with him.
As Heather Cox Richardson pointed out in her Letters From An American “Almost as soon as Tyler Robinson was identified, the tone of MAGA leader’s conversation about the shooting changed. Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC), who had used a slur to refer to the shooter as pro-transgender, posted on social media: “We know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such an evil, and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find Jesus Christ. We will try to do the same.”
Since the apprehension of Robinson the posts from that political party now seems to have changed as it appears that it may be that “one of them” within the factions of this political party went astray. What’s even more disturbing is that some individuals who posted such vileness towards the “left” which included millions of Americans who just are not on the bandwagon of their ideology have now removed those posts.
However the Commander-in-Chief who knows no limits, nor has been placed in check by any of the loyalist individuals in the two branches of our government as well as his followers and the longevity of his “Get out of Jail” free pass. He has continued with the hate baiting, and the continued political rhetoric that inflames violence. This is not “normal” and what’s even more disturbing is that it seems to have become “normal” as if we have been anesthetized into some brainless stupor.
Even today in an exclusive interview with NBC News that a “radical left” contingent in the country stands as a barrier to reconciliation, he spews.
“I’d like to see it [the nation] heal,” Trump said in a brief telephone interview. “But we’re dealing with a radical left group of lunatics, and they don’t play fair and they never did.” He continues, “We’ll see what happens. They [the left] don’t like what’s been happening. We’ve been winning very big.”
In his an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning, Trump singled out George Soros, the 95-year-old Democratic megadonor and the founder of a group called the Open Society Foundations. Trump said that “we’re going to look into Soros for possible violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law.”
In reply to a question from NBC News today about Soros, Trump said, “Soros should be put in jail.” Trump added, “He’s a bad guy.”
Soros has long funded both Democratic candidates and progressive causes and been one of the biggest donors on the left.
Asked to comment Saturday, a spokesman for the Open Society Foundations pointed to a post from the group last month on X.
Trump had posted back in August that Soros and his son, Alex, now the chair of the organization, should be charged under RICO “because of their support for Violent Protest, and much more, all throughout the United States of America.”
In reply, the group wrote that it does not “support or fund violent protests. Allegations to the contrary are false, and the threats against our founder and chair are outrageous. Our mission is to advance human rights, justice, and democratic principles in the United States and around the world.”
“We stand for fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution,” the group added, “including the rights to free speech and peaceful protest that are hallmarks of any vibrant democracy.”
We are only at a point of 235 days into this term, we have 1,224 more days to go until he is out of the Oval.
If anyone thinks that Trump will change any of his hate, political rhetoric and stoking violence that has been going on for years will dissipate even if the resolution is approved by both the House and Senate to allow Charlie Kirk, now a martyr to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and who knows what else. Will so be looking forward to seeing Ron Serling come back to life and hear him say “There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man... This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone"
The murder of Kirk was heinous, didn't matter who he was. The fact that the entire right winged apparatchik wanted to go to war against anyone not bowing to the feet of Trump was terrifying. It was almost lucky that the alleged perpetrator is a young white Mormon male from a gun-toting MAGA family and the crime took place in a ruby red state. Had it been in San Francisco, Boston or Chicago, I can only imagine the worst.
If a comparable left-wing figure—say, someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ibram X. Kendi, or even a lesser-known progressive activist—had been assassinated, it is extremely unlikely that Kirk would have:
> Described them in humanizing terms ("a decent human being, a spouse, a parent"), or
> Refrained from ideological point-scoring, conspiracy-theorizing, or gloating insinuations.
Based on Kirk’s public record:
> He routinely demonized political opponents in dehumanizing and inflammatory terms.
> He described the Democratic Party as evil, accused public school teachers of being groomers, and called COVID precautions tyranny.
> In instances of violence against conservatives, Kirk consistently invoked moral panic and partisan blame—but he minimized or justified violence when it came from the right, or ignored it altogether.
So in this hypothetical:
If someone on the left had been murdered, Kirk’s likely response would have involved:
> blame to the victim’s ideology ("this is what happens when you incite class warfare / defund the police / undermine America").
> Using the moment to attack the left and rally his base.
> Possibly even suggesting the killer had been provoked, while invoking moral equivalence to deflect from right-wing extremism.
Which underscores Sykes’s point:
By choosing to be decent, Sykes is highlighting a civic standard that Kirk himself consistently rejected. That contrast is not just speculative—it’s rooted in years of Kirk’s rhetoric and media conduct. The tragedy, then, is not just the killing—it’s how unlikely it is that the same grace would have been extended in reverse.
However, Charlie Sykes is operating from a belief in shared norms: that public decency, truth, and civic virtue still carry persuasive weight. But the MAGA movement—and especially its digital shock troops—operates in a radically different moral universe, one where:
> Compassion is weakness,
> Restraint is surrender, and
> Any tragedy is an opportunity for domination or score-settling.
They will not respond to Sykes's hand-wringing with reflection or mutual de-escalation. Instead, they will:
> Mock him for being “soft” or “cucked,”
> Use his decency performatively to contrast with their own self-styled strength, and
> Exploit the moral high ground he tries to occupy—not by meeting him there, but by weaponizing his vulnerability.
This is a fundamental asymmetry that moderates and Never Trump conservatives still struggle to reckon with:
You cannot reason someone out of a position they were never reasoned into—and you cannot shame someone who does not believe in shame.
So what’s the alternative?
It doesn’t mean embracing the other side’s nihilism or abandoning moral standards. But it does mean developing a new rhetorical and political posture—one that:
Names the asymmetry clearly: “They would never show us the grace we’re showing them.”
Refuses to be baited into weakness masquerading as virtue.
Calls out bad faith directly, without dignifying it with false equivalence.
Sykes is trying to salvage a pre-2016 framework of civic morality. The tragedy is that his old allies have moved on—and his new allies (on the center-left) often don't understand the depth of the epistemic and moral break that's occurred.
FB has been a wild ride this weekend. I operate with a "real people I know personally only" policy on there, so it's the only way I see people I went to high school with in the Deep South's opinions. A few brave souls tried to reason with people they actually know, and it was like watching someone running into a brick wall. They believe what they want to believe. Period. The end.
God bless Utah governor Cox, he is a mouse squeaking blessed reason in the face of a gale of hatred and intemperance breathed by the Commander-in-Chief. Perhaps after their martyr is honored in the Capitol Rotunda and lain next to Kennedy’s eternal flame, they can go in peace. We do live in improbable times.
Mr Sykes, thank you , for podcasts, always, give your dogs a hug.
This passage is circulating in my memory during this noxious moment in the collective. I believe you, Mr. Sykes shared it previously. It well describes the playbook in use by the trump regime and too many on the extreme right of every argument.
“ It was miraculous. It was almost no trick at all, he saw, to turn vice into virtue and slander into truth, impotence into abstinence, arrogance into humility, plunder into philanthropy, thievery into honor, blasphemy into wisdom, brutality into patriotism, and sadism into justice. Anybody could do it; it required no brains at all. It merely required no character.” Joseph Heller, Catch 22
Just read in NYT that the Utah governor is claiming that Kirk's shooter was indeed a leftist with a trans partner. So much for turning down the heat.
I saw this in the news today too, from a couple different sources; i.e., That Gov. Cox said that Robinson's roommate is trans, was unaware of Robinson's actions, and is cooperating with the investigation. In my opinion, the veracity of Cox's statement is questionable, as it was made after he received a call from Trump shortly after Cox's press conference. After that call, the script flipped. Whether or not the roommate is trans has no bearing on the case and should NOT have been mentioned to the press -This will be red meat for the MAGA crowd, and puts the roommate at risk.
Salt Lake Tribune reference regarding Cox's statements: https://www.sltrib.com/news/2025/09/14/gov-cox-provides-update-charlie/
Thank you for Weekend Eli. I want to put my arms around him and bury my face in his fur. And cry.
I lost a lot of friends due to the Kirk death. This “loving, Christian family man” lived in dark world that promoted violence and sexual subjugation along with Fuentes.
I pondered the possibility that trump orchestrated the shooting to deflect attention from the Epstein issue.
I went from extreme fear to relief to fear again. It’s a black or white issue. It’s also an issue of the minority owning a majority of the guns in America.
Thank you, Mr. Sykes. This is where djt’s total amorality is in clear display. maga was very ready for the charlie kirk moment. They knew they were fomenting violence and just waited until the time was right. The details didn’t work out for them so they just spin, spin, spin their way out of it. That is not strength. That is dangerous childishness. He is running the same scam internationally. Lying about the origins of the war in Ukraine. Moving deadlines. Sliding out of NATO instead of making a statement that he is withdrawing the United States.
Yes, I devoutly wished that Spencer Cox was our president when I heard the words he spoke and the way he spoke them. I could care less if political ambition motivated him; we need good politicians in power about now. From what I can tell from this distance, Cox is one.
That rhetoric has already shifted:
BEFORE learning the shooter was a cisgender far-right white man:
Rep. Nancy Mace @RepNancyMace
Time to bring back the death penalty.
9:29 PM • 9/10/25 • 239K Views
AFTER learning the shooter was a cisgender far-right white man:
Rep. Nancy Mace @RepNancyMace
We know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such an evil, and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find Jesus Christ.
We will try to do the same.
10:36 AM • 9/12/25 - 1.5M Views
Well written, article. Must love dogs everyone. Good night everyone.
Yeah if you accept that it doesn't matter who started it you will lay down your weapons and hope the opponent will reciprocate in kind. Of course we all know damn well who started it and if you put your weapons down you will just get beaten to a bloody mess.
I’m starting to think our President studied Joseph Gobbles Hitler’ s propagandist in chief
Someone in the administration did, likely, but not the felon in chief.
Utah Governor Cox’s words unfortunately is but a spit in the ocean of the cesspool of the hatred, vitriol of political rhetoric and intemperance in his verbal attacks against any and all who dare to disagree with him.
As Heather Cox Richardson pointed out in her Letters From An American “Almost as soon as Tyler Robinson was identified, the tone of MAGA leader’s conversation about the shooting changed. Representative Nancy Mace (R-SC), who had used a slur to refer to the shooter as pro-transgender, posted on social media: “We know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such an evil, and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find Jesus Christ. We will try to do the same.”
Since the apprehension of Robinson the posts from that political party now seems to have changed as it appears that it may be that “one of them” within the factions of this political party went astray. What’s even more disturbing is that some individuals who posted such vileness towards the “left” which included millions of Americans who just are not on the bandwagon of their ideology have now removed those posts.
However the Commander-in-Chief who knows no limits, nor has been placed in check by any of the loyalist individuals in the two branches of our government as well as his followers and the longevity of his “Get out of Jail” free pass. He has continued with the hate baiting, and the continued political rhetoric that inflames violence. This is not “normal” and what’s even more disturbing is that it seems to have become “normal” as if we have been anesthetized into some brainless stupor.
Even today in an exclusive interview with NBC News that a “radical left” contingent in the country stands as a barrier to reconciliation, he spews.
“I’d like to see it [the nation] heal,” Trump said in a brief telephone interview. “But we’re dealing with a radical left group of lunatics, and they don’t play fair and they never did.” He continues, “We’ll see what happens. They [the left] don’t like what’s been happening. We’ve been winning very big.”
In his an appearance on “Fox & Friends” Friday morning, Trump singled out George Soros, the 95-year-old Democratic megadonor and the founder of a group called the Open Society Foundations. Trump said that “we’re going to look into Soros for possible violations of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law.”
In reply to a question from NBC News today about Soros, Trump said, “Soros should be put in jail.” Trump added, “He’s a bad guy.”
Soros has long funded both Democratic candidates and progressive causes and been one of the biggest donors on the left.
Asked to comment Saturday, a spokesman for the Open Society Foundations pointed to a post from the group last month on X.
Trump had posted back in August that Soros and his son, Alex, now the chair of the organization, should be charged under RICO “because of their support for Violent Protest, and much more, all throughout the United States of America.”
In reply, the group wrote that it does not “support or fund violent protests. Allegations to the contrary are false, and the threats against our founder and chair are outrageous. Our mission is to advance human rights, justice, and democratic principles in the United States and around the world.”
“We stand for fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution,” the group added, “including the rights to free speech and peaceful protest that are hallmarks of any vibrant democracy.”
https://x.com/opensociety/status/1960730048119316618?s=46
We are only at a point of 235 days into this term, we have 1,224 more days to go until he is out of the Oval.
If anyone thinks that Trump will change any of his hate, political rhetoric and stoking violence that has been going on for years will dissipate even if the resolution is approved by both the House and Senate to allow Charlie Kirk, now a martyr to lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda and who knows what else. Will so be looking forward to seeing Ron Serling come back to life and hear him say “There is a fifth dimension, beyond that which is known to man... This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone"
The murder of Kirk was heinous, didn't matter who he was. The fact that the entire right winged apparatchik wanted to go to war against anyone not bowing to the feet of Trump was terrifying. It was almost lucky that the alleged perpetrator is a young white Mormon male from a gun-toting MAGA family and the crime took place in a ruby red state. Had it been in San Francisco, Boston or Chicago, I can only imagine the worst.
If a comparable left-wing figure—say, someone like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ibram X. Kendi, or even a lesser-known progressive activist—had been assassinated, it is extremely unlikely that Kirk would have:
> Described them in humanizing terms ("a decent human being, a spouse, a parent"), or
> Refrained from ideological point-scoring, conspiracy-theorizing, or gloating insinuations.
Based on Kirk’s public record:
> He routinely demonized political opponents in dehumanizing and inflammatory terms.
> He described the Democratic Party as evil, accused public school teachers of being groomers, and called COVID precautions tyranny.
> In instances of violence against conservatives, Kirk consistently invoked moral panic and partisan blame—but he minimized or justified violence when it came from the right, or ignored it altogether.
So in this hypothetical:
If someone on the left had been murdered, Kirk’s likely response would have involved:
> blame to the victim’s ideology ("this is what happens when you incite class warfare / defund the police / undermine America").
> Using the moment to attack the left and rally his base.
> Possibly even suggesting the killer had been provoked, while invoking moral equivalence to deflect from right-wing extremism.
Which underscores Sykes’s point:
By choosing to be decent, Sykes is highlighting a civic standard that Kirk himself consistently rejected. That contrast is not just speculative—it’s rooted in years of Kirk’s rhetoric and media conduct. The tragedy, then, is not just the killing—it’s how unlikely it is that the same grace would have been extended in reverse.
However, Charlie Sykes is operating from a belief in shared norms: that public decency, truth, and civic virtue still carry persuasive weight. But the MAGA movement—and especially its digital shock troops—operates in a radically different moral universe, one where:
> Compassion is weakness,
> Restraint is surrender, and
> Any tragedy is an opportunity for domination or score-settling.
They will not respond to Sykes's hand-wringing with reflection or mutual de-escalation. Instead, they will:
> Mock him for being “soft” or “cucked,”
> Use his decency performatively to contrast with their own self-styled strength, and
> Exploit the moral high ground he tries to occupy—not by meeting him there, but by weaponizing his vulnerability.
This is a fundamental asymmetry that moderates and Never Trump conservatives still struggle to reckon with:
You cannot reason someone out of a position they were never reasoned into—and you cannot shame someone who does not believe in shame.
So what’s the alternative?
It doesn’t mean embracing the other side’s nihilism or abandoning moral standards. But it does mean developing a new rhetorical and political posture—one that:
Names the asymmetry clearly: “They would never show us the grace we’re showing them.”
Refuses to be baited into weakness masquerading as virtue.
Calls out bad faith directly, without dignifying it with false equivalence.
Sykes is trying to salvage a pre-2016 framework of civic morality. The tragedy is that his old allies have moved on—and his new allies (on the center-left) often don't understand the depth of the epistemic and moral break that's occurred.
This ^^^^^!!!!!! 👍
FB has been a wild ride this weekend. I operate with a "real people I know personally only" policy on there, so it's the only way I see people I went to high school with in the Deep South's opinions. A few brave souls tried to reason with people they actually know, and it was like watching someone running into a brick wall. They believe what they want to believe. Period. The end.
God bless Utah governor Cox, he is a mouse squeaking blessed reason in the face of a gale of hatred and intemperance breathed by the Commander-in-Chief. Perhaps after their martyr is honored in the Capitol Rotunda and lain next to Kennedy’s eternal flame, they can go in peace. We do live in improbable times.
Great coverage, especially of info that slipped through the cracks. Kee up the good work!!