Stephen King’s factual statement is receiving a lot of “right wing” backlash in the comments.

Steve probably had to stop and choose one of the 19 examples that immediately popped in his head. And that kinda says it all.

I was saying about some right wing bellend of ours (UK) recently, like the free speech thing has really accelerated how easily its recruiting people to the far right.

Like, the infamous quote “I may not agree with what you say but I’d die for your right to say it”, even though already whacked out quite outrageously, seems to have been completely lost. Now its like “if I think the response to what you said was disproportionate in any way I will bend over backwards to say it was actually fine and true to say”.

This is dangerous in two ways, its like end stage of the “free speech means hard right politics” conversion. It actually *isn’t* anymore about having the right to say things even if they’re bad things, it’s just literally like, I’ve chosen a side and if you’re on my side then you’re good. It’s normalising hard right politics aggressively but also its really undermining the free speech part of free speech. None of these people will ever defend against the proscription of Palestine Action (again that’s uk specific sorry) or all the ICE raids in the US.

Idk how to conclude this point exactly but it’s just, over the last year or so it’s just all really accelerated in how racist and other bigotry – including calls to actual violence against minorities has been ultra normalised and *promoted* by people who I really think, a few years ago would never have done it. The Overton window has moved at the speed of light.

If this is the backlash (in general) when it comes to one of Trump’s goons dying, just IMAGINE the utter shit show it’s going to be when he eventually drops. People are losing their jobs for stating reality and Kirk wasn’t even a high profile person.