“I’ll see you in Valhalla”
The FBI Director DARVOs a political murder and signals to neo-Nazis.
Today, Charlie Kirk’s murderer was turned into the authorities by his parents—about 36 hours after the shooting. The Governor of Utah gave a press conference where FBI Director Kash Patel spoke and mostly congratulated a lot of people who had nothing to do with catching the killer. Patel signed off with this message:
“To my friend Charlie Kirk. Rest now brother. We have the watch. I’ll see you in Valhalla.”
Full disclosure, as my readers know, Kash sued me for calling him a “chud” among other accurate commentary. So when I saw this video I tweeted it with the note:
“I’ll see you in Valhalla” may be the single cringiest thing I’ve ever seen.
This assessment seemed to resonate with people because the video is up to three million views in a few hours. But what’s beneath this weird comment?
Odin’s Hall
In Old Norse mythology, Valhalla is Odin’s hall for warriors who die in battle (the einherjar), feasting and training until Ragnarök—the Norse equivalent of the End Times or the Kali Yuga. Valhalla has been idealized in Norse mythology and gave Scandinavians a widespread cultural belief that there is nothing more glorious than dying in battle.
Valhalla looms over the Ring Cycle, Der Ring des Nibelungen, by Richard Wagner, a staunch German nationalist and a virulent antisemite. He was adopted as a hero by Hitler and the Third Reich.
The Nazis made Richard Wagner a national hero. Hitler loved his music, and Germany made the Bayreuth Music Festival a center of Nazi propaganda. Goebbels called Die Meistersinger “the most German of all German operas.” Today, many consider Wagner inseparable from Nazism and avoid his music dramas.
Appropriation
The Valknut is considered a symbol the Norse God Odin and Valhalla and by some interpretations represents three soldiers in death—“a knot frozen in battle.” However, like other symbols it has been appropriated by neo-Nazis and other extremists, including QAnon, ICE agents, and Bannon muse, uber-fascist philosopher Julius Evola.
Since the mid-20th century, the valknut has been adopted as a symbol by white supremacists, anti-government extremists, and Neo-Pagan racists, such as Odinists (sometimes called Wotanists). In countries where the swastika is outlawed, Neo-Nazis use the valknut as a socially acceptable substitute
The phrase “See you in Valhalla” has been used by military combat veterans for decades as a brotherly call to bravery in combat. However, it has also been increasingly used as a signal between white supremacists as a call to racial holy war. For example, Brenton Tarrant, the neo-Nazi mass murderer who killed 51 people in Christchurch, New Zealand, wrote this on the extremist website 8chan—which also hosted “Q”—as the last message before embarking on his massacre.
"It's been a long ride and despite all your rampant f***otry, fecklessness and degeneracy, you are all top blokes and the best bunch of cobbers a man could ask for," the post continued. "If I don't survive the attack, goodbye, godbless and I will see you all in Valhalla!"
A casual search on the Russian-owned propaganda network Telegram for “Valhalla” reveals a term almost exclusively used by Russian, QAnon and neo-Nazi channels.
Note that neither Kash Patel nor Charlie Kirk ever served in uniform.
DARVOing Murder
While Kash Patel was busy delaying the investigation so he could stand at a press conference yesterday, his FBI was leaking false information to the Wall Street Journal about “transgender, antifascist ideology” engraved on the ammunition. While they updated the story to “some sources urge caution” the damage has been done.
Propagandists routinely use the gap between “first reports” and the actual facts to spread rumors and take advantage of the primacy effect, which is about the tendency of first impressions to stick. But unfortunately this gap is now being exploited by the federal government and people like Kash Patel.
At the press conference, it was mentioned that there were etchings recovered from three bullets with the weapon. These were read out by the Governor of Utah at the press conference.
“hey fascist! catch!” followed by arrow symbols (“↑ → ↓ ↓ ↓”)
“Notices, bulges, OwO what’s this?”
“oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao.”
“if you read this you are gay lmao.”
When asked about the symbols, the governor focused on “Hey fascist! Catch” as the one that “speaks for itself.”
But all of the inscriptions are “very online” memes from video games and other pop culture references.
The arrow inscriptions are a sequence from the sci-fi shooter video game Helldivers II that unleashes a “500kg bomb.”
“Notices… OwO” is a general deep internet meme for “horny.”
“Oh bella ciao” is an Italian folk song used in post-WWII as an anti-Nazi anthem. However, it has also been used in a number of video games, including Far Cry 6 and Hearts of Iron IV, and is widely used and remixed.
“if you read this you are gay lmao” is a long-running meme used on 4chan, Reddit, and similar venues.
The shooter is a Mormon whose family have a deep familial attachment to firearms, including training their children from a very young age to get used to carrying, and firing, high-powered weapons. This is not a family from “the left.”
Why the shooter engraved symbols that had dual meanings as “antifascist” slogans and very online trolling is unknown, but it is a frequent tactic of extremists to send false signals to confuse the media narrative and authorities. But given the totality of the circumstances, what you can say for certain is that “hey fascist! catch!” does not, as the governor of Utah said, “speak for itself.”
This press conference was, in short, DARVO-ing murder.
Their Incompetence May Have Saved Us
Donald Trump and his MAGA cult immediately jumped to the conclusion that the “radical left” and Democrats were somehow responsible through their “rhetoric” about Charlie Kirk, for his murder.
In one of the more disturbing offshoots of this phenomenon, neo-Nazi propagandist Chaya Raichik, who operates under the pseudonym Libs of TikTok, started a website called “Charlie’s murderers” which targets and doxes anyone who dares to speak ill of him. MAGA Congressman Clay Higgins said he would socially destroy and take the driver’s licenses of anyone who “belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
As I wrote, the Trump regime and its allies, including Elon Musk, were prepared to “fight or die” to save themselves from the alleged leftist conspiracy that killed Charlie Kirk. The fever pitch for revenge has been frightening to watch. But it may be that the incompetence of Kash Patel in spinning this story, and screwing it up several times in the first place, that prevented more violence—by the regime, or its supporters.
The Desire for Violence Will Not Go Away
While we may not get a spiral of violence from this event, simply because the evidence is too clear for the regime to change the facts, it is a sign of what they will do with everything that happens—until they get what they want, full dictatorship.
We must not back down or censor ourselves based on threats or altered facts. We should never apologize for calling a fascist a fascist. It is moments like this where too many well-meaning people capitulate, or write op-eds whitewashing one of the most virulent propagandists in modern history as someone who “practiced politics the right way.”
This is the fundamental error too many privileged liberals and Democrats make—that we are still engaged in “politics.” Charlie Kirk was engaged in a holy war against America, against the Constitution, against Black & brown people, against women, against LGBTQ+ people—and against everyone who didn’t look like him.
You cannot only vote your way out of this scenario. The government has every intention of following through with its plans to dismantle the Democratic Party and democracy. We’re going to have to stand up, and put ourselves at risk, to be fearless in telling the truth no matter what they threaten us with.
War is hell.
You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. —Leon Trotsky
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Thank you for writing this.
Fantastic, superb. Every day brings us closer to the Twilight of the Gods. Unfortunately, no one will be left to let the media know what happened or who was responsible, when all the time the writing was on the wall for all to see. You can't really understand fascism until it shows up at your door. It's at the door.