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It's just a reductionist trick game:
It was pretty vile.
There's another reel making the rounds on social media where a mother is talking with her two daughters, who are probably no more than 8 and 5, and she tells them she has the best news ever. Their first guess is that Trump died. Then the mother laughs and says, no, the second best news ever. So then they guess that Vance died. And then she says, no, it's the third best news ever, and the girls guess that perhaps Elon Musk died. Then finally, she tells them, no, the best news ever is that her "best friend" is getting married, and her "best friend" is Taylor Swift.
Isn't it sad that there are people out there teaching their young children that the "best news ever" is that people are dead?
On that, we agree.
Have you ever had a family member assassinated right in front of you? No? Then by definition, you CANNOT empathize with the Kirk family, because you have absolutely no idea how that feels. According to Miriam Webster, yhe word empathy means:
the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of anotherThis is what I believe Charlie Kirk meant when he said empathy had done much damage. For reference, here is the context of that statement.
So the new communications strategy for Democrats, now that their polling advantage is collapsing in every single state… collapsing in Ohio. It's collapsing even in Arizona. It is now a race where Blake Masters is in striking distance. Kari Lake is doing very, very well. The new communications strategy is not to do what Bill Clinton used to do, where he would say, "I feel your pain." Instead, it is to say, "You're actually not in pain." So let's just, little, very short clip. Bill Clinton in the 1990s. It was all about empathy and sympathy. I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy. That's a separate topic for a different time.
Charlie Kirk once said empathy was 'made-up, new age term'
The authentic quote from the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA circulated online following his fatal shooting on Sept. 10, 2025.www.snopes.com
What Kirk is saying here is that in many (probably most) cases, it is impossible for you to empathize with someone, because you couldn't possibly know how another person is feeling. None of the married women on this forum can empathize with Charlie Kirk's wife, because they've not had their husband gruesomely murdered right in front of them, For another woman to say that she "empathizes" with Erika Kirk is indeed damaging, because how could you possibly even pretend to know how that feels? They can sympathize with her, but the word empathy implies that you know how she feels. Few, if any, of us can claim to understand how she feels.
What I will point to is he doesn't understand what it means. The definition provided won't do him any good, but hopefully it will correct your misunderstanding.
It's not about you, it's about the party. Which while at rock bottom according the the chair of the DNC, keeps doing things enmasse to dig the party even deeper than rock bottom.
Nobody's buying the left has empathy after the way they reacted to Kirk's murder. They're going to have to come up with a new gimmick.
I think the good thing with empathy comes when the one hurting sees that hurt mirrored in the other, the feelings are then validated and it becomes a shared moment. In direct contact with those hurting, sure one have to read the room so that one doesn't project ones own experience on them. You guys need add a word to english, one needs to have "fingertoppskänsla" (finger tip feeling/sensitivity), probably close to having the ability of being very tactful. But I still feel that there is a place for empathy.
Thank you. Understanding what ideologies drive those who carry out acts of violence is helpful regardless of what country they take place in. Naturally, being an American, I'm also interested in what motivates people to commit acts of violence in the US, and I will often read studies related to violent extremism and terrorism that are specific to this country in order to keep up to date on the latest trends. This also helps when discussing these subjects on this forum. Knowing that no credible study over the past two decades has concluded left-wing violence is greater than right-wing makes it easy to debunk any claims made otherwise. Even when the variations in the methodologies and definitions of terms used in the studies are taken into account, the results are still the same. Now whether or not some want to accept the data is another story. That being said, there has been an increase in left-wing violence in recent years, just not enough to be on par with right-wing violence. In fact, the gap between the two is still large. But who knows? It's possible that at some point in the future we will be discussing how left-wing violence is the biggest issue in the US.
According to the study that's the subject of the thread, its purpose is "to provide usable findings for practitioners and policymakers seeking to prevent and respond to acts of ideologically motivated violence." While that is the stated purpose and true reason behind the study, it no doubt offers talking points for those who argue that right-wing extremism poses a greater threat than left-wing.
But my point is that "the party" is being painted with a very broad brush. For example
No, I am speaking of when the originally hurt party sees someone else share their pain, there doesn't have to be any explicit statement at all. Mirror neurons allow us to some degree share their pain. No one is forcing you to be empathetic, but I will say I haven't yet met someone that has complained over being met with too much empathy.
They didn't appear isolated though. It appeared to be across the board in celebrating, derogatory remarks, attempting to portray the shooter as a right-winger, saying the assassination was staged etc etc. Right after the assassination took place before the guy had even been buried. And now there are a whole lot of damage control spins that are just as unappealing. And of course the victim card being played saying they're being unfairly criticized. Now of course there are those who don't fit all of that. But all the ones who do, stand out the most and end up representing the whole group.
This is what happens when your media consumption is largely made up of people with a shared political agenda - whether that's traditional media like Fox News/OANN, political commentators on Youtube like the ones that you've shared in this thread, or social media posts. They have a tendency to laser-focus in on a small number of incidents and present them as if they are the majority opinion because doing so supports the narrative that they want to promote. And because of the narrow scope of viewpoints that you consume, it seems as if this is really true because everyone is saying the same thing everywhere you look. But the reality is that they're all cribbing their talking points from each other and amplifying the false signal.
