Following the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk last Wednesday, non-MAGA commentators who have felt compelled to weigh in have struggled to find the right balance between expressing their loathing for what Kirk stood for without making it seem like they were celebrating his death.
Condemnation of the shooting was widespread. Perhaps eager to distance themselves from accusations that anyone who does not support MAGA endorses political violence, commenters portrayed Kirk as someone embracing the reasoned debate central to democracy, although he became famous by establishing a database designed to dox professors who expressed opinions he disliked so they would be silenced (I am included on this list).
Indeed, she wrote about her inclusion on Kirk’s Professor Watchlist shortly after it was established in 2016, saying, “I am dangerous not to America but to the people soon to be in charge of it, people like the youngster who wrote this list.” She closed with this: “No, I will not shut up. America is still worth fighting for.”
On the afternoon that right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was murdered, three teenagers, including the shooter, were reported to be in critical condition following a school shooting in Evergreen, Colorado. The shooter later died.
The only difference between these two awful events is that we’ve become numb to gun violence aimed at our children. Indeed, the Colorado incident barely registered in the media, while Kirk’s assassination got front-page coverage and was virtually the only story on cable news Wednesday evening.
What can any of us say at a moment like this except that it was just another day in America? Oliver Darcy offers a rundown (sub. req.) of recent incidents involving political violence:
Acts of political extremism are surfacing with alarming regularity in this country. Paul Pelosi was brutally attacked in his own home. Trump survived an assassination attempt at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, last summer. Luigi Mangione was charged in December with killing the CEO of UnitedHealthcare in what authorities described as a politically motivated act. In the spring, an arsonist set fire to Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s residence and prosecutors later charged a suspect with attempted murder. In Minnesota over the summer, a man was charged after stalking Democrats and murdering House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband. Last month, a gunman sprayed more than 180 bullets at the Centers for Disease Control headquarters, killing a police officer. Each of the incidents were different, but together they paint an unsettling portrait: political violence is increasingly becoming the norm in America.
Darcy is correct in observing that the rise of politically motivated attacks is deeply disturbing. So is the ongoing epidemic of school shootings — not to mention mass gun violence in general. Let’s not forget the horror that unfolded in Lewiston, Maine, in October 2023, when a gunman killed 18 people and injured 13 more.
The Charlie Kirk killing is different in that it has all the appearances of a political assassination; it took place in front of a large crowd of students at Utah Valley University; and the shooting was captured on video that then went viral on social media. One of the videos making the rounds was among the most graphic and disturbing I’ve seen.
Then, too, there was Kirk’s notoriety. He was about as famous as it is possible for a political figure to become without actually serving as an elected official or in a high government position. He was, as you no doubt know, notorious on the left, which led to a lot of offensive social media posts from people who ought to know better. MSNBC fired conservative-turned-liberal commentator Matthew Dowd after he walked right up to the edge of suggesting that Kirk got what he deserved. Dowd later apologized.
There’s really nothing to say at a time like this except that we have to do something about gun violence in this country, and that violence of any kind needs to be firmly condemned by all of us. Our thoughts today should be with Charlie Kirk and his family — as well as the families of the school shooting victims in Colorado, in addition to all the other victims of shootings, past and future.
My What Works partner Ellen Clegg has written a must-read piece on how local newsrooms in Minnesota are responding to the assassination of Melissa Hortman, a member and former speaker of the Minnesota House.
Hortman and her husband, Mark, were fatally shot while another public official, state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, suffered serious but non-fatal gunshot wounds. The gunman, identified as Vance Boelter, remains at large as of 5:10 p.m.
While a larger news outlet like The Minnesota Star Tribune has the reporting capacity to cover a big breaking-news story like this, Ellen writes that smaller outlets, often launched with a handful of journalists, now find themselves scrambling to keep up.
She puts it this way: “An all-hands national news story like this poses a core question for hyperlocal newsrooms, which typically launch with smaller staffs and a tightly focused mission of covering neighborhood people, politics and policies.”
