The pressure cooker of political violence

A Perpetual Reichstag Fire For The 24-Hour News Cycle

On Sunday, a former Marine drove his truck into a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints chapel in Michigan. He proceeded to set the building on fire and the shot at churchgoers inside before he was killed by law enforcement. Four people were killed and eight others were injured.

And then, only a few hours later, another former Marine attacked a bar on the coast of North Carolina, firing an assault weapon into a waterfront bar from his boat. Three people are dead and eight others are injured. The shooter was taken into custody.

The right-wing internet lit up with wild claims that both shooters were leftist extremists. “This appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians in the United States of America,” President Donald Trump wrote on Truth Social. “THIS EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE IN OUR COUNTRY MUST END, IMMEDIATELY!”

The idea that either attack was carried out by a leftist was almost immediately disproven by the now-routine immediate deep dive conducted by internet users and the media into both shooters’ backgrounds. In the case of the Michigan shooter, he was a vocal conservative, posting memes about killing leftists and the dangers of vaccines, and even went to Trump rallies. The North Carolina shooter was diagnosed with schizophrenia and wrote extensively in self-published Amazon books about being betrayed by the US military. He also filed lawsuits that alleged that 9/11 was orchestrated by a ring of pedophiles led by Jeffrey Epstein.

Adding to the violence this weekend, a Texas man was arrested on Sunday, as well, after allegedly threatening to shoot up a Pride parade as “revenge for Charlie Kirk.”

All of this, as we wrote on Friday, is part of a wave of far-right, accelerationist violence that is the direct result of the Trump administration’s own actions. Trump and his supporters created a feedback loop of political radicalization that has finally grown too vast and unpredictable for them to control. Though they are trying to control it.

The MAGA movement needs violence and intimidation to function, both online and off. Without its central bundle of grievances and universe of enemies — LGBT people, people of color, leftists, Democrats — Trump’s supporters might notice that he’s ransacking the country’s institutions and making their lives worse. So they can’t acknowledge that a decade inside the pressure cooker of political violence has turned Trump supporters in spree shooters in waiting. But Charlie Kirk’s death has put the Trump administration in a complicated position. They flooded social media with claims that Kirk’s death was proof that the country is under siege, demanding their followers sacrifice even more personal freedom to secure America from woke insurrectionists. And so now that Trump supporters are clearly responding to the paranoia and chaos Trump and his media apparatus created with even more political violence, the White House has to continue lying about the nature of that political violence. A perpetual Reichstag Fire for the 24-hour news cycle.

It’s a tricky position to maintain. It’s why right-wing tabloids are still doing their best to make it seem like the entire country is still in mourning over Kirk’s death. It’s also why the Trump administration is scrambling to legally go after anyone that might tell a different story.

Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security published a definitely-not-a-hit-list of “violent rhetoric against DHS law enforcement.” It included a list of politicians and media outlets that have criticized Immigration and Customs Enforcement policies. According to Steve Bannon, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Steven Miller plans to criminally investigate anyone who describes ICE as “authoritarian.” And last week, the White House announced National Security Presidential Memorandum 7, which reporter Ken Klippenstein described as, “targeting pre-crime.” It includes a list of “indicators” of political violence that would now be classified as pre-cursors to domestic terrorism, which include things like, “anti-Americanism,” “extremism on migration,” and “extremism on gender.”

And all of this will soon culminate in Portland, Oregon, where Trump has deployed 200 National Guard members. The state’s Attorney General sued the Trump administration, calling the occupation illegal. And hundreds took to the streets this weekend to protest it. Trump wrote on Truth Social on Saturday, “I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists. I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”

On Saturday, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden posted a video on X, writing, “Taken just a few minutes ago outside the ICE facility in Portland that Trump claims is under siege. My message to Donald Trump is this: we don’t need you here. Stay the hell out of our city.”

Which was quote-posted by Proud Boy Enrique Tarrio, who wrote, “You don’t want US to show up… The FBI and DHS are a lot nicer than we are. So shut the fuck up and clean your city up. You won’t like it when the B team pulls up.”

This is how it’s going to work now. What Michelle Kinney, co-founder of Democratic SuperPAC The Seneca Project, described in an X post as the “vibrating hum beneath the surface of all of our lives now.” The Trump administration will continue to test their legal power to go after their enemies, knowing their paramilitary groups and random spree shooters will target those they can’t yet. They will publicize the violence that follows as more proof that they need to occupy cities, shut down media outlets, and arrest anyone using their First Amendment rights to push back against them. And flood social media with constant updates to make sure that even in an attention economy this fractured and broken you can’t look away.

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Imagine: the best management training in the world. Led by execs and founders. Battle-tested by thousands of leaders. Could be you.

(If you’re not a manager but shed a tear imagining your own boss having these skills… listen, forwarding links isn’t illegal!)

On October 9th, we’re taking over TV Eye for a big party in Ridgewood. It’s going to be a bit different from the live events we’ve done before, but it should feel substantially garbage-y. Special musical guests include Kill Alters, Reagen Holiday, and RGEM. Click the big green button below to grab your tickets while you still can!

A Good Mashup

@jaykay.mp3

Britney Spears x KPop Demon Hunters #kpop #kpopdemonhunters #britneyspears #toxic #remix #dj #mashup #2000s #fyp #fypシ #viral

Tai Lopez Was Indicted (In The Hollywood Hills?)

—by Adam Bumas

Last week, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed a complaint against a company that had bought the brand names of a range of defunct chain stores, including RadioShack and Pier 1 Imports. According to the SEC, the company was actually a giant Ponzi scheme worth over $110 million. Which makes sense, given its biggest strategy for how to use the RadioShack brand name in 2022 was “sell crypto using 2012’s funniest tweets.”

It’s easy to forget, in such a completely financialized system, that shamelessly advertising yourself online used to be unusual, and embarrassing if you got caught. Tai Lopez, one of the founders of the company named in the SEC’s filing, is a figure from this earlier era. Back in 2015, he paid to saturate YouTube with ads of him and his Lamborghini, that viewers saw so many times they started making memes out of it. 

With a decade of hindsight, Lopez was just a little bit ahead of his time, especially focusing on the Lambo. Nothing he did a decade ago would be worth a second look, in the era of Ashton Hall’s morning routine, and of social shopping algorithms driving the majority of the videos we see. Even getting the RadioShack account to post sex jokes feels positively quaint in the era of X. The alleged enormous financial crimes, though, that’s a sign of true vision.

Trump Sure Loves AI Videos

The president posted not one, but two AI-generated videos to his Truth Social account this weekend. One of the videos was about the benefits of hemp and CBD. And the other was promoting the “medbed” conspiracy theory.

It makes a certain amount of sense that Trump wouldn’t think twice about sharing AI-generated videos, he’s 79 years old and that’s the exact demographic pushing AI slop around Facebook right now. But, to make things stranger, he didn’t seem to mind that his voice was deepfaked in one of the videos. Perhaps he thought it was actually something he’s said before? Troubling to consider, no doubt.

The hemp video appears to have come from The Commonwealth Project, basically an advocacy group pushing medical marijuana for seniors that has ties to the Mar-A-Lago crowd. And if you’ve never heard of the “medbed” thing before, it’s big within QAnon circles. The idea is that there will soon be a bed that you can go in and get cured of any disease, immediately. As extremism researcher Mike Rothschild wrote on X, “The medbeds theory is idiotic, but it's also heartbreaking. Many MAGA believers have refused medical treatment because they believe one day Trump or Q or NESARA will release medbed tech that will restore their health in minutes.”

New York City Hates The Stupid AI Pendant Thing

The New York City subway system is plastered in ads for Friend, an AI wearable that records everything around you to power a personal AI assistant. Here’s a good Tumblr post collecting some of the best graffiti on the signs.

Avi Schiffmann, the creator of Friend, wrote on X that they’ve put ads on over 11,000 subway car cards, 1,000-plus platform posters, and 130 urban panels, easily over $1 million in advertising. Which is probably less than they spent on the URL for the company. All for a device so awful and noxious that WIRED’s review of it was simply titled, “I Hate My Friend” lol.

Even more embarrassing, as one X user pointed out, the Friend app only has 18 ratings on the Apple App store.

One Fried Chicken Battle After Another

@realcolonelsanders

#ColonelSanders #STANDWITHCOLONEL #ColonelSandersnephew

So I did not know that Anthony Sanders, the great great grand nephew of KFC’s Colonel Sanders, has been waging a one-man war against the fried chicken brand for the last few years. Apparently Sanders is most upset by the “sexualization” of the Colonel in recent KFC marketing. Sure why not.

Things have become so contentious, apparently, that Sanders decided to leak the 11 herbs and spices recipe on TikTok last month. Better hurry up and save the video to your camera roll before Big Chicken tries to take it down. Stay woke.

Some Good Ambient Music

Some Stray Links

• “MrBeast on His Quest to Turn YouTube Fame Into an Entertainment Empire”

• “Trump-pledged support for Argentina stirs anger among Republicans”

• “The Ultimate Slop-Bowl Ranking”

P.S. here’s a good stock photo.

***Any typos in this email are on purpose actually***