Imagine If Your Psycho Ex Was the Guy Who Shot the Health Insurance CEO

uh oh!

Do not be too eager to deal out death in judgement. For even the very wise cannot see all ends.

-Gandalf

In this post I sketch out a broad coalition against “violent endgame politics”, an umbrella term I use to group together the following:

• Endorsement of violent revolution when there’s a legitimate democratic process.

• Accelerationism.

• Condoning the execution of bankers, landlords, billionaires, health insurance CEO’s, or other perceived enemies of the 99%.

• Guillotine memes.

• Riot apologetics.

• The entire “what will your job be after the revolution?” genre:

  

• “Lock them up!” chants.

• Civil war fantasies.

• Race war fantasies.

• Judgment day fantasies.

Though I’ll mostly be criticizing leftist political violence, I’ve included four right-coded examples to show that this ugliness is cross-ideological. If two opposing revolutionary factions both yearn for a violent endgame, then what they want is no different from trial by combat. There’s no a priori reason to believe that the “better” faction will be divinely favored, since violence just favors the side with bigger weapons. Thus, if you support “might makes right” only when it benefits the left, uncomfortable comparisons to right-wing eschatology are the first hurdles you must overcome.

Have you overcome them yet? If not, then you’re probably already persuaded that violence is bad and you may close this article now. But supporters of violent endgame politics might be temperamentally inclined to close this article anyway. After all, if they advocate for resolving policy disputes by force, then meta-disputes about the appropriateness of violence should also be ones they’d resolve by force, as well as meta-disputes about those disputes, and so on. Otherwise we have a contradiction: if nonviolent persuasion is on the table when justifying violence, then it should be on the table for whatever the violence was intended to accomplish too. If you’re open to persuading people (e.g.) that we should celebrate the murder health insurance CEO’s, then you should be open to persuading health insurance CEO’s, policymakers, or the electorate towards the changes you want.

This is the second hurdle to overcome: that violence advocacy is indifferent, if not hostile, to the art of persuasion. When you signal a willingness to exact your preferred outcomes through force, you signal an unwillingness to be convincing, because otherwise you would just do that instead. Implicitly, this calls for a minority of voters bloodily imposing their will on a noncompliant majority, a pathology which takes many forms with many familiar preloaded rebuttals:

• “We’re actually in the majority, but the democratic process is rigged.” (see also: “Stop the Steal”, DNC primary trutherism)

• “We would be in the majority, but elites/the system/the media/PMC liberals are too good at dividing/distracting us.” (see also: “false consciousness theory”, anti-news cultism)

• “We can’t be in the majority, but only because people are too brainwashed/they don’t know what’s best for them.” (see also: academic elitism)

• Or, none of the above. Why waste time coming up with justifications for not having to justify yourself? Just go “pew pew” and make the bad people go away!

Suppose you clear the first two hurdles, somehow convincing yourself that political violence is fine only when the left does it, and that the left would somehow prevail in a bloody culmination against gun-worshippers who regularly fantasize about civil war. Further suppose that you have an airtight justification for casual political violence, one that you have no obligation to disclose or convince people of, despite longstanding consensus that force should only be used as a last resort.

There’s still a third hurdle: how do we guarantee that violence won’t be used capriciously? Answering this question is necessary for the flourishing of organized human life, so it shouldn’t be dismissed lightly, even if this is just a dispute over political tactics. It’s not like there’s anything in the revolutionary by-laws saying, “only use violence if you have a really really good reason”. The “really really good reason” standard for violence is just the status quo – that’s just what civilization is – whereas violent endgame politics is about suspending the orderly process, the one meant to determine whether the reason is “really really good”. The left was once more distrusting of “righteous” applications of force, as seen in its historical opposition to the death penalty, suggesting some inconsistency within leftist violence apologism.

The type who deputizes himself with power over life and death is exactly the type I don’t trust with that power. When nonviolent options are available, the choice to always favor violence selects overwhelmingly for the brutish and undiscerning. We see this play out among parents who use corporal punishment, as they’re more likely to commit crimes, to use the wrong punishment, and to use it when punishing the wrong offenses. What meaningful difference is there between the logical contortions used to justify extrajudicial murder, and the ones used to justify beating kids? Both opt for violent solutions before exhausting the alternatives, both seek to punish one person’s definition of “bad behavior”, and both tend to be endorsed by dysregulated manchildren.

Force is the default solution for those who have no business prescribing solutions, but it’s also the preserve of the unattractive. I don’t necessarily refer to physical attractiveness, but to unflattering political aesthetics and temperament that bring down the whole average. Violence advocacy on the left – especially in how it combines smug certitude, intellectual laziness, and casual bloodlust – is so repulsive that it should disqualify membership in any serious coalition. We’ve had a hard-fought understanding about this, but it’s one which wanes in cycles: where the Columbine massacre once inspired deranged fan clubs deifying the shooters, now social media unironically lusts after Brian Thompson’s assassin.¹

A helpful framing here is that the assassin, unless he’s led an unusually pious life up until very recently, is probably someone’s ex. Do you think she’s having regrets? I wonder, given what an upstanding citizen this guy turned out to be. If your ex committed a cold-blooded execution – and was elevated to folk hero status by the same people who’d casually justify said execution – you’d probably think that you dodged a bullet, and not just literally!

The next assassin might be someone’s psycho ex too, and – apologies for zooming in further on this unpleasant image – they could even be one of yours. If this is too theoretical, consider testimony from exes of the Aurora theatre shooter, wherein they detailed his violent fixations and generally disturbing behavior:

Haha, isn’t that adorable? Just bask in that. If you’re tempted to look away, instead consider heeding the lessons of those who have known killers at their most intimate and seen the signs. Further, don’t rule out similar stories being told of Brian Thompson’s killer once he’s brought to justice. His behavioral profile doesn’t seem all that different from the others, also grandiose fame-seekers (check) who taunted the authorities (check) and sought to impress women with murderous spectacle (check?). Given the motivations at play, these crimes are at notoriously high risk of inspiring unhinged copycats. Question for the ladies: are we sure we want to encourage this?

Because gunning down a CEO in broad daylight wasn’t dramatic enough, the suspect reportedly had Monopoly money in his backpack. Or rather, I should say that he planted Monopoly money in his backpack as a sad and ostentatious stunt. Easily impressed edgelords might approve, but the rest of us can agree that this is super lame, right? I can just imagine the guy retrieving the Monopoly board from his parents’ closet, stashing its contents into his bag, refreshing his browser again and again after the deed was done.

I don’t know what’s more pathetic: the obvious glory-seeking, or the sheer vacuum of subtlety. Seriously, Monopoly money? That is the single most on-the-nose symbol of capitalist excess; he couldn’t think of anything more original than Monopoly money? I’d forgive this if it was meant as a clever statement against the state’s monopoly on violence or something, but that might be a tad subtle for someone whose approach to problem-solving is indistinguishable from an animal’s.

These days, those who would hypothetically make for interesting killers instead channel their creativity into being high-functioning members of society. This leaves only the dregs to engage in violent theatre, as evidenced by data which shows them to be overwhelmingly dumb and gross-looking. It’s no wonder that serial killers and mass shooters tend to struggle with basic proofreading; the best talent have more adult things to do than playing cat-and-mouse games with whoever provides them attention.

We on the left must do more to police unattractive conduct among our rank-and-file. From the disastrous outcome of the 2024 election, it’s clear this problem now represents an emergency. Mediocrity, violent outbursts, a pathological need to have things your way and be the center of attention… these are unfuckable loser behaviors. If we don’t reestablish our communal understanding of this, then it’ll only get uglier from here.

1. I’m aware that some of this is strictly just transgressive humor. The intention behind that is fine and people are allowed to joke around, but it often crosses the line into sincere glorification, which is a part of the whole package that I’m criticizing here.