Every Shooting Is a Tragedy—and a Chance for the Right to Play Bully
I admit that I learned useful things about Charlie Kirk this week. I learned that he commanded unique respect and even an ardor on Maga law. Former secondary friends who are Maga appear regularly on my Facebook flow, and they were distraught, several at the point of tears. They had it torn it off for a future president, which never came to my mind, but which made sense after having thought. He was young, articulated, beautiful; had a certain type of charisma. He had an instinct to know how to connect with young men emotionally. I have also read some liberals who knew him say in recent days that he was, in person, without bankrupt, and that counts. It is the kirk that the law remembers: someone who has embarked on a civilian debate and a persuasion and who exasperated the liberals only because he was intelligent and he generally won.
Kirk’s most ardent fans can believe what they want. The truth is that he has returned to our many of us because he has spread toxic lies across this country such as an Orange agent coverage (David Corn and Joan Walsh iterated a certain number this week). And although he has often had an impressive battery of facts to his command, his way of debating involved a lot of light dishonest rhetorical. I watched a clip in which he challenged a young white student somewhere on Thursday: “What can a white man do in this country that a black man cannot do?”
This is a very intelligent question. This framing – The use of the verb “do” – reduces racism to questions of the freedom to move in society. And in this sense, what is the problem? Yes, we once had white and “colorful” waiting rooms in the south, but these days, a black father can take his children to a ball game just like a white father. But a real conversation on racism means to speak, for example, on the historical inheritances which led white households with an average $ 250,400 in wealth and black households $ 24,520. This is the direct result of the non-authorization of blacks to buy houses Most of the districts of this country Until relatively recently. In addition, there is always Tons of discrimination in mortgage loans. It is What racism is, and the fact that black men can “do” a lot of what white men can “do” in this country do nothing to alleviate these persistent facts – makes efforts that only the Liberals, by the way, have never had the courage to try to change.
Was Kirk’s assassination a tragedy? It was absolutely a tragedy. Whether the killer has a political motivation or not, the silence of a voice, even a toxic voice, in this way is horrible. If you spend enough time online (and here is a good reason why you should not), you can find people, apparently somewhere on the left of the political spectrum, laughing at the death of Kirk. It is an understatement to say that it is a very bad shape. But you will find it difficult to find eminent liberal leaders or elected democrats by saying something like, oh, for example, incredibly irresponsible things Mike Lee – an American senator! – said when the Minnesota Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband were executed by a right -wing extremist.
Here is what I saw, however: I saw a number of figures on the good saying, instantly and long before an identified attacker (the news that the alleged shooter was arrested did not break before Friday morning) that “the left” was responsible for the death of Kirk. Dozens of them, from Donald Trump, immediately jumped to this conclusion.
They did it to a fierce degree after the two assassination attempts on the life of Donald Trump. Especially after the first, many important personalities on the right began to point the finger at people and organizations on the left (The New Republic Included) to have Trump’s blood on the hands. It was relentless for about three days; I remember it very well. Then it turned out that the potential assassin Matthew Crooks had in fact not had any particular political motivation – he was an intimidated lonely who was probably looking for a reputation. But during these first days, he was considered a data on the right that Crooks was a hateful leftist.
Trump’s second attempt at the life came two months later. You may have thought, given how false they were the first time, they would have waited. But again, many figures on the right rushed to say that Ryan Routh was a registered democrat, which he was in the past but not for a long time. This time, in all justice, figures on the left stressed other evidence saying that Routh had republican sympathies. But it turns out that he is only a confused man, as he proved this week (as fate would have) judges the judge Aileen Cannon where he is tried for the assassination attempt – and where his dismissed declaration of opening approached Adolf Hitler, Henry Ford and the Wright Brothers.
The law always jumps to such conclusions and to speak of revenge, no justice. The biggest rider of all is Trump himself, who pronounced an absolutely frightening address on Wednesday evening of the oval office. He declared that his administration would denigrate “those who have contributed to this atrocity and other political violence, including organizations that finance and support it, as well as those who seek our judges, responsible for the application of laws and all those who bring order to our country.”
If another president had said something like that, we could consider him playing in his peanut gallery. But when Trump says, we must assume that he and his movement mean him. “Those who have contributed to this atrocity” could mean thousands of people and organizations, and “other political violence” can mean all that Trump and Stephen Miller want this to mean. They will use this tragic event to try to intimidate the non-trump America in the submission.
Some people on the right are really in mourning. They can choose not to see the sides of Charlie Kirk that they do not want to see (and I always find it difficult to understand how much hatred and such provocation is in accordance with the teachings of Jesus Christ), but this is what human beings in mourning often do – on the left and between the two. Let them cry in peace.
But Trump and many leaders on the right promised to use this tragedy to do what they always wanted to do anyway: to make this more authoritarian society in which the brutal criticism of the regime is redefined as an incentive to violence and even to terrorism. On Thursday, the State Department warned immigrants not to make fun of the death of Kirk. In Trump America, we can be sure that he will not stop there.
