Zooming out a bit for a moment, mhaze...

You keep talking about the pendulum “swinging back” to conservative values, but pendulums don’t erase evidence on the way through. We now know things we didn’t fifty years ago - about minority stress, the health impacts of discrimination, the protective effects of inclusion, and the measurable harms of policies that ignore those realities.

To “swing back” in the way you describe would require deliberate amnesia: pretending decades of social research never happened. It would mean ignoring the data showing that marginalisation raises risks of depression, substance abuse, and suicide - and ignoring the equally strong evidence that inclusive laws and cultures reduce those harms. That isn’t a pendulum. That’s regression disguised as inevitability.

And the irony is that while dismissing this research, you’re at the same time leaning into one of the most studied and dangerous social dynamics of the last century: the Horst Wessel effect. That’s the process where a polarising figure is mythologised into martyrdom, and their death is used as symbolic fuel for movements that thrive on grievance and sanctity. It’s a dynamic we know doesn’t end in moderation or balance, it ends in escalation.

So when you frame Kirk’s death as an “inflexion point” and couple it with talk of a righteous pendulum swing, you’re not analysing. You’re narrating. You’re building the very scaffolding that turns tragedy into mobilisation.

The real question isn’t whether history swings back and forth. It’s whether we’re prepared to ignore what research has already uncovered - about minority stress, about myth-making, about how rhetoric escalates - just to make the swing feel comfortable.

If a revival of conservative values is realised, then it would have to be brute-forced - and probably with a lot of book burning along the way - which would explain the approach the Trump administration is taking.

Not really much of a a pendulum swing at all, when you think about it.

Trumpster,

Sitting in from of your 'puter, dressed in your Buffalo Horn outfit, with face painted red, white and blue, having Donald pics plastered all over the walls, with the trusty 303 at the ready, banging away at your keyboard with much diatribe. Me thinks we know where you are coming from, FROM FAR OUT RIGHT FIELD!

I see Donald has ordered the "lynching" of some dude he don't like. A Mr Comey, defiantly martyrdom material, a living saint, no less.

"That’s emotional mobilisation through dehumanisation - and yes, that’s how retribution culture grows, whether you admit it or not."
- Why do we have to even care about 'retribution culture'?
Why do we have to be civilised?
Why do we have to pop on our woke underpants to be acceptable to your way of things?
'Dehumanisation' 'retribution culture'
It's all very weak and pansy-like.
Why can't people just say what they think?
'incite' 'retribution', that's a guilt-ridden expectation to self censor.
If other people break the law that's on them, it's not on Trump for saying things others didn't like hearing.
These are the 'not my President' crowd, they didn't vote for him, he doesn't owe them anything, his job is to defend those who gave him a mandate.

Nothing wrong with calling them 'radical left lunatics' if that's what they really are.
- 'Release the hounds'.

"I’m not pretending there’s no violence from the left. I’m saying that when the narrative becomes 'we’re under siege, and God is with us,' history shows us what often comes next. You don’t need a manifesto to light a fire - just a cause, a symbol, and a villain."

- You make a valid point, but on the other hand most US regime changes are done often with student movements and people on the left, civil society groups etc to topple 'authoritarian regimes'.
I'm not saying the right isn't responsible for it's fair share of dramas, but left-wing movements the world over create huge enough messes of their own.

Take Ukraine, Started in 2013 with a US sponsored regime change of the government lead by Viktor Yanukovych, 12 years later, a million dead and maybe double that more in wounded.

hi Paul,
"I see Donald has ordered the 'lynching' of some dude he don't like. A Mr Comey, defiantly martyrdom material, a living saint, no less."

He's a bit slow the old Donald, probably meant to sort that out back in January and forgot.

Comey's no saint, being FBI director during Russiagate hoax, fake FISA warrants and spying on Trump campaign 'Crossfire Hurricane' interfere in a US presidential election, undermine 'democracy' - Comey deserves it and more, he was probably laundering money for the Clinton's over at HSBC when he was there prior to 2013. That's probably why he got promoted to FBI Director.

Hi AC,

Only in America, Trump's America is thrashing about like a beached whale, its time in the Sun is rapidly coming to an end, it will soon economically and morally cark it, and then stink to high heaven. All this MAGA nonsense is only forestalling their inevitable collapse.

p/s When America goes down, they'll put on the biggest "fireworks" display the world has ever seen, as they unleash their arsenal of atomic weapons on the rest of the world.

JD.

"We now know things we didn’t fifty years ago - about minority stress, the health impacts of discrimination, the protective effects of inclusion, and the measurable harms of policies that ignore those realities."

Alas and alack, you've utterly misunderstood the nature of the change currently occurring. This isn't about winding back changes from the last few decades in regards to social issues as you mistakenly think. This is about returning the US to its spiritual and conservative base, not retracting social advances. You might want to notice how many of the minority groups are on board with this. They aren't threatened by it.

But people like you are threatened by the changes because they challenged the cosy shibboleths that the left have developed this century. And that's the point.

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"Sitting in from of your 'puter, dressed in your Buffalo Horn outfit,..."

More highly considered insights from Paul. Struth what a dill.

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As to Comey, I notice no one is saying he didn't do it. Just that he shouldn't suffer consequences for it.

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And since the usual crowd have raised J6 a few times...
Remember when it was a conspiracy theory to say that the FBI had agents embedded in the crowd? Never mind... http://tiny.cc/c44t001