Selective Outrage Won't Save the Republic
The tragedy of Charlie Kirk's murder teaches us what we already knew: Nobody is going to take responsibility for their inflammatory rhetoric.
The tragedy of Charlie Kirk's murder is bad enough. Perpetuating the pain publicly with blaming and heartless online commentary just makes it exponentially worse. Today, the chattering (er...screaming) class is just about everybody. Everyone is online. Many on the right are calling for civil war.
Does anybody blathering on X or Instagram or whatever other social media channel, really think their short-form brain farts are accomplishing anything? Are memes improving the world? Are insults and derogatory put-downs making America stronger, more humane, or better prepared for the future?
Arguably, they're doing no worse than the empty sentiments, inflammatory rhetoric and crocodile tears flowing from Congress and the Oval Office.
It's tragic enough that Charlie Kirk was murdered in public, in front of a crowd of young college students. Does the callous blame game that's followed get us anywhere? Can't our public servants do something more constructive than the finger-pointing of online trolls? Apparently not.
President Trump claimed on Fox News that right-wing nuts are just trying to stop crime, but that "the radicals on the left are the problem." Tell that to the more than 140 police officers who were injured by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021.
Leave it to our president to not tone it down, to turn up the temperature, and see only one side of the problem. President Trump made a video addressing the tragedy of political violence and did what he always does: He blamed the left and the left alone. He completely ignored attacks on Democrats, including the murder of Minnesota house speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband in June of this year. I guess that murderer was trying to stop a crime.
How quickly our memories evaporate when we're narcissistically wrapped up in our own grievances, cynically trying to score political points, and pretending we alone are the only victim.
Perhaps Trump has forgotten the repulsive manner in which he mentioned Nancy Pelosi's husband after he was attacked at home three years ago. "How's he doing?" Trump sneered during a speech, conveying no sympathy at all. He could have known, of course, if he'd simply picked up the phone.
The apple doesn't fall far from the tree, as the saying goes. Trump's son, Don Jr., mocked Paul Pelosi on social media. The intruder had attacked Pelosi with a hammer, yelling "Where's Nancy?", inflicting a skull fracture. Rather than express sympathy for a traumatized victim who was almost murdered, Don Jr. mocked him by posting a callous joke. He captioned a photo of a pair of underwear and a hammer, saying he was going to dress up as Paul Pelosi for Halloween. How sick. This is the new political morality, the new greatness—mocking a political rival who is undergoing skull surgery after a violent assault by one of your deranged followers. It couldn't be any more callous.
You won't hear Republicans talk about the man who set fire to the governor's mansion in Pennsylvania, either—because a Democrat lives there. Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro and his family were sleeping upstairs when a man "harboring hatred" for Shapiro set the house on fire. Had he encountered the governor, the man said he would have attacked him with a hammer. The hatred spreads like wildfire. But no Republican is going to take responsibility for anything any of them say that might incite right-wing violence. You know the drill: All the hate is on the left.
Maybe you don't remember when Donald Trump called for national unity—because he never really did. In July 2024, just after Trump was nearly assassinated, a New York Post headline read, "Donald Trump delivers heartfelt call for 'unity' and recounts harrowing assassination bid in RNC speech..."
The Post had to put the word unity in quotes because Trump did not, in fact, directly call for unity at the Republican National Convention. In fact, he only referred to it by quoting his wife. He obliquely mentioned Melania's letter that called for national unity. After all of Trump's insults and name-calling, it was almost like a miracle that he even referred to such a foreign concept. Then he went right back to his typical litany of grievances. He spoke for 90 minutes. Not one word of the rest of the disjointed ramble totaling more than twelve thousand words was "unity".
Tragedy should be a teaching moment, making empathy our primary goal toward everyone hurt or traumatized. Instead, our divisive political climate is bringing out the worst in many of us—no desire to heal or to reach out, only to make a fist and swing harder than ever. Our representatives in Congress are clearly not up for this task. Their blaming and arguing show just how out of touch they are. They don't role model. They don't even seem to understand how we got to this moment. Republicans blame Democrats, who blame Republicans, and around and around. Add in the celebrity actors and online influencers calling for civil war and flaunting their anger management issues on Twitter (X, whatever) and we have obliterated all ability for civil discourse. Mix in the callous comments supporting the murder of Charlie Kirk, and what civility can possibly survive? I'm reminded of the Rudyard Kipling poem, "If: A Father's Advice to His Son". My father used to paraphrase it, saying, "If you can keep your head when everyone around you is losing theirs, then, my son, you will be a man."
It seems no one remembers how this descent to the edge of oblivion began. Is no one going to take personal responsibility for perpetuating the conflict? Will anyone be a real adult and police their own rhetoric and resolve to tone it down for the betterment of something bigger than themselves? It seems politicians these days have had no incentive to act like adults at all. We, the voters, apparently have a thirst for this gladiator-like style of childish political entertainment. We like the stunts, the viral memes, the non-stop political insult theater. The internet poisons our souls and we keep on swiping. We need a full reckoning—and we're not going to get it from our current political class.
None of this political violence is happening in a vacuum. The animosity has been building for years, and it's built on rhetoric, insults, dismissals, empty promises, dehumanizing comments, conspiracies and lies.
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder, Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna said of Democrats, "Y'all caused this." She further complained about Democrats: "They use their national platforms to say that we're fascists, that we're going to take away their rights, that we're basically demons in office."
That exact same sentiment could have come out of the mouth of a Democrat during Barak Obama's tenure. Remember the online vitriol about Michelle Obama supposedly being a man? Remember how Trump whipped up hysteria by pushing a conspiracy that Obama was born in Kenya?
South Carolina Rep. Nancy Mace took the blame game a step further, "absolutely" blaming Democrats for the murder of Charlie Kirk, saying, "This is what the left has done to brainwash people who are already mentally ill."
Swap "left" for "right" or "Trump" and that quote perfectly describes the January 6, 2021, Stop the Steal riot at the Capitol.
It's quite astonishing how words suddenly become so powerful in the mouths of Democrats, after years of Republicans pooh-poohing complaints about their own rhetoric inspiring hate and violence. So let's rewind a bit. I'm betting that Republicans want you to conveniently forget everything repulsive they have said and done over the past decade. I guess the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, North Carolina, in 2017 was not enough evidence that words that encourage (or fail to condemn) right-wing paramilitary fantasies might be akin to playing with fire. A poster for the "Unite the Right" gathering said, "Join, or Die". Flags flown at the event mimic a German Nazi war flag, and are associated with neo-Nazi and nationalist groups. If you want an on-the-ground account of the lead-up to the rally, I suggest reading the book "Black Pill" by Elle Reeve.
Republicans want you to forget that in 2020, in a debate with Joe Biden, Donald Trump refused to condemn a white supremacist group. Instead, he said, "Proud Boys, stand back and stand by." They did.
Republicans have been shrugging their shoulders and denying culpability for years. They called everything "fake news". When their right-wing paramilitary goons attacked our Capitol, they claimed that Donald Trump's words had in no way contributed to the mob violence. It was pure gaslighting. Trump had spent six months lying about election fraud, losing more than 60 meritless court cases in the process, and amplifying his lies with the "Stop the Steal" slogan. But, no, that had nothing to do with it. Trump's combative rhetoric and distortions of reality? Nope. See no evil.
In the aftermath of January 6, Republicans played word games. They said the riot was not an insurrection, downplaying the severity of the right-wing violence, always denying that it had any connection to Trump's lies, conspiracies and inflammatory rhetoric. Republicans have never owned up to Trump's election fraud lies. They refused to hold him accountable.
More than 140 police officers were injured at the Capitol on January 6, 2021—and Donald Trump had the audacity to blame the violence on antifa. Obviously, it was a mob of Trump's own supporters at his rally. But now, when the right wing becomes the target of political violence, suddenly words are no longer free speech that must be defended, but rather a deadly weapon they must blame. Are these people insane? You can't have it both ways. Inflammatory rhetoric is unacceptable. Either everyone turns down the volume or no one does. Political violence needs to be mourned across the board—not selectively for one's own political party only.
In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk's murder, Republicans are only mentioning political violence aimed at Republicans. They are conveniently blaming it all on the rhetoric of the left. Apparently, the words of Democrats have a lot more power over people's behavior than the lies and blaming of Trump and his fellow Republicans.
Here's the latest spin: On X, Dinesh D'Souza wrote, "I'd like to know the names of the professors who radicalized this young man." Well, apparently this young man was a student at a technical college in St. George. How many history, sociology, philosophy and political science courses are offered at a technical college? That would be exactly zero. Why are Republicans so obsessed with left-wing brainwashing that they just assume it happens? This doesn't surprise me. D'Souza made the propaganda film 2000 Mules, which is all about election fraud conspiracies. Last August, D'Souza couldn't even figure out that a fake movie of a Harris/Walz rally was a satire—even though the video clearly said "satire" on it.
Here's a headline on Substack I found particularly tone deaf: "Left's Dehumanization Of MAGA Behind Rising Support For Violence." Really? The writers sound totally unaware of right-wing dehumanization and support for violence. Maybe they should be reminded that a Dominion Voting Systems executive had to go into hiding because of Donald Trump's false claims of election fraud in the 2020 election. Angry and delusional Trump supporters published the executive's home address and put a million-dollar bounty on his head. Two-thirds of Republicans believed the lie that Joe Biden's victory was illegitimate. How's that for brainwashing?
After the violence in Charlottesville, does anyone really believe that the Republican party does not have a hate speech and political violence problem? You can't invite white nationalists into your tent and not condone white nationalism. How about right-wing author Jack Posobiec's polemical book about leftists? It's called “Unhumans”. It was a New York Times bestseller just last year. Steve Bannon wrote the introduction. J.D. Vance wrote a blurb for the jacket. Posobiec has propagandized conspiracy theories such as the Great Replacement, Stop the Steal, and Pizzagate. The book takes aim at the history of Communist takeovers, but—no surprise—lumps everybody left of Trump on culture war issues with the “unhuman” Communists. I'm not defending Communists. I hate Communism. But equating everyone to the left of you politically as heretically left-wing is the same as calling all Republicans fascists.
Everyday conservatives have a legitimate beef with such left-wing labeling. Shouting down all conservatives as racists is wrong and breeds animosity. Glorifying activists who disrupt free speech is not heroic. But when Republicans don't distance themselves from the right-wing provocateurs, it can be seen as guilt by association. The same is true of Democrats who fail to renounce theft and the destruction of property when marches for justice get out of hand.
A democracy without free speech is no longer a democracy. Both Democrats and Republicans must deliver this message and do so forcefully. If free and peaceful debate can not be had out in the open, it will metastasize underground like a cancer.
Everyone has a duty to condemn tasteless expressions of approval for political violence, regardless of political party. Charlie Kirk left behind a wife and two children. Taking joy in his murder is sick. I disagree with much of what I understand Kirk to have professed, but killing someone for what they say has no place in civil society. If you don't like what someone says, debate them. Prove them wrong.
It's a crime we haven't yet been shaken up enough to forcefully and effectively confront this disturbing new reactionary political landscape. It's a shame that our political leaders can't work together, and choose only to point fingers and blame one another. Words matter. They always have. Even the ones that come out of your own mouth.