Or, more likely, a bit of both?
A copycat will definitely happen eventually. How many happen after that depends on what goes down.
The primary thing stopping this from happening is the feeling that people will get caught doing it. If some people start getting away with it, a lot of people start thinking they can too.
If two get away with it, it's going to become open season.
All good until crazy chuds get inspired and start killing doctors and nurses. That’s what I am really afraid of.
I work in healthcare with patients and I have zero fear of this beyond random acts of violence.
I’d be lying if I said the thought hadn’t crossed my mind, but people generally see frontline health workers as care providers and sometimes friends.
The doctors that provide trans healthcare and abortions are the ones I’d be scared for.
I proudly provide care to at least a few trans people every week.
And now I can concealed carry at work, they can try and stop me.
Bad guy with a gun, good guy with a gun, and so on.
May the blessing of every Soviet in the Red Army be with you.
I don’t know about that. In America, the conservatives think performing abortion is a sin. There are crazy people out there who are on the brink of committing violence as soon as they realize how much they can get away with it.
I’d be more worried about mass shootings at health insurance company HQs and shit that only end up hurting the lowest level workers.
But also if you work for a health insurance company I kinda don’t give a fuck about you. Even if it’s the call center. Work in a different call center. I’ve been unemployed for 4 months and working for a health insurance company has been considered among being a prison guard and joining the US Military, which is to say I haven’t considered it at all.
Working customer support for the orphan crushing machine is an evil job, I see them no different from cops or other evil professions.
If there's no weapon and no relationship they can't do shit. The cameras definitely tip things in their favor but as long as someone covers their face and has no visible tattoos they are helpless.
Yeah trying to convict on just the video would be impossible. That could be literally any white man. There were several hundred white guys in NYC wearing that outfit that day.
Some of them are just rubbernecking, but it's an opportunity to get people thinking about social murder and the appropriate response
The number of "UHC killed my loved ones with their greed" stories spilling out into social media right now is an unequivocally good thing.
Can't say whether it will juice further action, but it's the precursor for radicalization.
Yep, gotta make sure the Capitalists can't take the reins on this one
They're trying really hard, but right now, the ball is loose on the court
oh god I cant wait for the libs to run "social murder" into nothingness like "karen" or "incel"
it's a beautiful flash in the pan of consciousness that will fade, much like burning down the police station. Nothing will come of it, Americans are not organized and will kick and scream against any type of communist formation or party structure so it goes nowhere
I’m not sure of that, there’s real talk in even .world of legitimate organizing, like a general strike. Most are afraid of everyone not being able to come together, but it’s been mentioned, which is promising imo.
Lmao general strikes out of nowhere is radlib wishcasting 101 and gets mentions a million times and has never occurred in history
Sure, but for an instance that blocks Hexbear and has a lot of users with .ml hate, it’s nice seeing them thinking about that. I’m hoping those radlibs change instances so they can see Hexbear.
yeah a few will be radicalized, and that is good, but if the extent of their radicalization is cheering at propaganda of the deed when it occurs it doesn't mean much
I found the post I was talking about - it’s from an asklemmy post on .world asking about the ethics of the shooters actions: *removed externally hosted image*
I can’t find the post it was in, but I found this one with a quick look.
*removed externally hosted image*
I know this isn’t real solidarity and could surely be radlib roleplay, but the fact that some of them are having these feelings gives me hope (especially since I’ve been there).
I’ll keep looking.
Americans went ACAB for half a year and now even police reform isnt on the minds of most of them.
the culture war and media beat Americans into submission to the point that only like 20% were supporting the protests by the end, whereas 70% supported burning down the precinct. Democrats and corporations got their grubby hands on it and started coopting everything, and the rightwing media went into overdrive with racist propaganda and pro-cop nonsense.
Americans are fickle and stupid and easily swayed. I take little hope in this flash in the pan because they've never shown any serious longevity or adherence to an actual coordinated project, they just wash around in the tide.
i think private health sector CEOs are particularly hated. i doubt the reaction would have been as strong if it were Ford CEO or something.
There's a few other industries you'd get a similar response, like a defense contractor or something, but in general you're right.
The fact that it's become and bandwagon thing is a good sign by itself. I've stopped caring about whether this was a hit job or not, because the shooter isn't the story anymore, everyone's reaction is the bigger story now
i think calling it a hit job was straight propaganda, it doesn't look anything like one and it's good for the media's narrative
But as OP pointed out, the story is now the public reaction to the assassination.
And I can't stress this enough. In previous times, the media would not have been covering the public reaction. It's actually remarkable they're giving it the attention it deserves.
**This is due to the near unanimity of it;
That we are in an era where nearly all Americans do not trust institutions (haven't been here since Watergate);
And that the establishment (media, corporations, the political class) were caught off guard by the public's reaction.**
The right doesn't analyze any of this fully. They just realize the reality of public opinion is easy to game in order to seize power. And were ahead of everyone in realizing we're already here.
The liberals weren't aware things are where they are, and seek to understand it better, but only with the goal of fixing the unfixable. Maintaining capitalism.
The left i think expected things to get here but maybe didn't realize things already were here. And now are left scrambling to organize, unprepared to take advantage of public sentiment in order to move forward with any type of equitable future.
It's not a good place to be. It could be good in the long run, but it might be worse considering where the chess pieces are.
A bit of both - the fact that it became a pop culture moment is, itself, a good sign.
It's good that at least people even in a housebroken nation like US acknowledge how blatantly evil the health insurance industry is. The facebook post by the company mourning his death got tens of thousands of 😂 emoji reactions.
My friend, even Ben Shapiro’s viewers are telling him he’s taking the wrong stance by condemning this.
I’d say if you polled Americans under 40 you’d get majority support.
there's definitely an age gap and i think it mirrors the generational cohort social divides.
also: i was referring to the comment about americans realizing that the health care industry was evil.
I’d say if you polled Americans under 40 you’d get majority support.
which makes them millennials and are a majority which also likes tiktok and abhors genocides; but live in a hegemony that bans tiktok; escalates beyond the gazan genocide; and voted in a presidency that will reverse civil liberty gains that they once enjoyed.
i don't think that majority support is enough anymore.
It means it is being defanged and integrated into imperial propaganda - eventually an act of killing a murderer that caused the death of thousands - will aid to uphold the system that produces and elevates those murderers.
Trotsky actually had a good quote about this phenomena.
A strike, even of modest size, has social consequences: strengthening of the workers’ self-confidence, growth of the trade union, and not infrequently even an improvement in productive technology. The murder of a factory owner produces effects of a police nature only, or a change of proprietors devoid of any social significance. Whether a terrorist attempt, even a ‘successful’ one throws the ruling class into confusion depends on the concrete political circumstances. In any case the confusion can only be shortlived; the capitalist state does not base itself on government ministers and cannot be eliminated with them. The classes it serves will always find new people; the mechanism remains intact and continues to function.
But the disarray introduced into the ranks of the working masses themselves by a terrorist attempt is much deeper. If it is enough to arm oneself with a pistol in order to achieve one’s goal, why the efforts of the class struggle? If a thimbleful of gunpowder and a little chunk of lead is enough to shoot the enemy through the neck, what need is there for a class organisation? If it makes sense to terrify highly placed personages with the roar of explosions, where is the need for the party? Why meetings, mass agitation and elections if one can so easily take aim at the ministerial bench from the gallery of parliament?
In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission. The anarchist prophets of the ‘propaganda of the deed’ can argue all they want about the elevating and stimulating influence of terrorist acts on the masses. Theoretical considerations and political experience prove otherwise. The more ‘effective’ the terrorist acts, the greater their impact, the more they reduce the interest of the masses in self-organisation and self-education. But the smoke from the confusion clears away, the panic disappears, the successor of the murdered minister makes his appearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as before; only the police repression grows more savage and brazen. And as a result, in place of the kindled hopes and artificially aroused excitement comes disillusionment and apathy.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1911/11/tia09.htm
but with a hoodie