This has only been made more apparent given the FBI's searches in Oklahoma on Thursday, after Klippenstein wrote.
Here's his opener:
Three who knew him since at least middle school agreed to speak to me on the condition that I not name them, corroborating their friendship with photos and other records. Their accounts paint the picture of someone with a vaguely libertarian bent who despised both major parties and politicians generally (including Trump) but who didn’t engage with politics beyond that. He preferred edgy humor, video games and the message board 4chan, all of which he became increasingly steeped in as he withdrew from social life as well as their own friendships several years ago, they said.
Problem?
First, note the "several years ago." People change a fair amount, or change what they reveal a fair amount, in their 20s.
Ken does admit that:
I wasn’t able to find anyone with insight into Jahn’s more recent views, something that his friends said was unsurprising given his withdrawal from social life over the past few years.
That said, I would have moved that caveat up earlier.
This:
Another friend showed me a Facebook post describing how Jahn had flooded his friends’ comment sections with rape jokes — “playful shock humor,” the friend said.
Also reflects badly on his friends. That said, why isn't Ken quoting it? He boasts about transparency. He could put up a "trigger alert" or hide the actual messages behind spoilers.
And this:
“He was never really into politics, especially not politicians,” said another friend, who had known Jahn since age 8. “He was into politics only in the 4chan sense — contrarian, provocative, boundary-pushing for laughs, not conviction.”
Undersells what 4Chan is all about. It also, along with being several years older, sets him off from Robinson, who, as far as we know, had no 4Chan presence.
Ken himself kind of "undersells" what it is:
4chan, the anonymous message board where provocation and meme warfare thrive, was apparently one of Jahn’s favorite haunts. His abrasive humor is where his friends’ opinions on him diverge the most, with some describing it as amusing but others as grating especially as his online persona bled into real life.
Try throwing the word "racism" in there. Now, we don't know what 4Chan "boards" he was on, like /pol, one of the definitely racist ones.
Or else, per the loose screw shooters, an attempt to cash in on their Marshall McLuhan 15 minutes of fame. Even if they asked to talk to Ken anonymously, unlike Robinson's friends, I wouldn't discount that.
As far as the bullet message, there was something nuttier yet on a car allegedly belonging to him, per Channel 4 in Dallas. So, that alone says the anti-ICE message wasn't a political message. Or does it? It could easy be read as an anti-nuke statement, nutty as it is.
That said, someone Ken didn't talk to told Channel 5 in Dallas that Jahn had been sympathetic toward immigrants, at least in the past. So, was he trying to hit ICE agents instead, then? In that case, maybe he was more politicized than Ken, and than his older friends, want to admit. The New York Post, quoting from Sharon Jahn's apparently now-deleted Facebook page, notes she called out Greg Abbott and John Cornyn as gun nuts.
OOPS: According to the FBI, Jahn intended this, per a handwritten note at his place in Durant, Oklahoma.
Jahn allegedly left handwritten notes behind that read in part, "Hopefully this will give ICE agents real terror, to think, ‘Is there a sniper with AP rounds on that roof?’"
Well, there you go.
And, he supposedly used apps that track movements of ICE agents. And, he allegedly accused them of "human trafficking."
So, Ken, maybe Jahn was a bit more politicized than you think.
Yes, theoretically, because a dead person cannot be legally libeled, FBI agents could be taking items out of context in Jahn's suicide note and other things, and then destroying them without letting his parents see them. That's highly unlikely, though; if nothing else, like with Seth Rich's family, you open yourself to a lawsuit for causing emotional duress, and sovereign immunity generally doesn't cover civil issues, and certainly not to the degree it extends to criminal law and government officials.
This gets back to the "laundering" above.
Per all of the above, he, even more than Robinson, especially given that he's several years older, fits the "target" of isolated and self-isolating gamer addict type. And, most likely, someone with other mental health issues.
Also, I get that Klippenstein is pushing back against the narratives of Der Grüppenfuehrer himself, as well as minions AG Pam Bondi, FBI head Kash Patel and Homeland Security dog-shooter Kristi Noem, but?
What if, even if short of a blaze, there's a few embers behind the smoke, which it certainly appears there are.
The big issue is the memelording, isolated and deliberately isolating White young man. (Maybe Black extreme gamers will come up with their version of Lee Boyd Malvo in the future.) IF Ken wants to run a narrative contra that of the MAGAts, this looks to be the better one.
In any case, I don't think this will age that well for Ken. I don't think his Tyler Robinson piece will age that well either.
To put it another way: This is like people saying, "We didn't know a child sexual abuser lived next door," or "We didn't know a serial killer lived next door." They either were talking about a time years before their crimes, or else they ignored signals that they could have known.
I also also know that Ken's been complaining about not enough of his subscribers being paid ones. I don't mean this as a diss, but I noted on Shitter about not leaving your day job, especially if Substack doesn't pay you a big old publisher's advance, like Glennwald and others got years ago. Otherwise, there's the option of paywalling at least some of your pieces to boost paid subscriber numbers.
Update, Sept. 30: Fortunately, Klipp has not seen fit to try to explain this last weekend's shooters.
No comments:
Post a Comment