Charlie Kirk’s killing stirs calls to address political violence
The murder of Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and a pre -eminent leader of the right of the young magazine, aroused a wave of sorrow and the condemnations of political violence of the members of the two major parties.
Mr. Kirk died Wednesday after being killed while he was addressed to around 3,000 people at the University of Utah Valley. He was at Campus OREM, in Utah, launching his “American tour”, in which he hired students across the country in provocative and sometimes ardent political debates. The leaders of a press conference said that they thought the shooting was “a targeted attack on an individual”.
While the motive for the shooting remains unknown, the republican governor of Utah Spencer Cox called him “a political assassination” and urged all Americans to engage in self-reflection.
Why we wrote this
While the motive behind the mortal shot of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk remains unknown, the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, called him “a political assassination”. Some experts say that concerted leadership is necessary to stem such violence.
“We just need each person in this country to think about where we are and where we want to be,” he said. “To ask us, is that, is that it? Is that what 250 years have done to us? I pray that this is not the case.”
Mr. Kirk’s deadly shooting intervenes at an era of increased political violence in America against the Republicans and Democrats – including attempts to assassinate last year against the candidate of the time, Donald Trump; A criminal fire attack against the house of the Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania, Josh Shapiro; And the murder of the former speaker of the Minnesota Chamber, Melissa Hortman, also a democrat, and her husband in June.
The leaders of the two parties strongly condemned Mr. Kirk’s shooting. “Completely devastating,” wrote the republican president of the Mike Johnson room on X, adding: “Each political leader must denounce this violence loudly and clearly.” “Political violence is never acceptable,” said Hakeem Jeffries, a democratic leader of the Chamber. President Trump has ordered that the flags of the nation are lowered to half of the staff.
Violence and threats against elected officials and public figures have increased in recent years, while political rhetoric has darkened and developed more existential. The officials of the two main parties have repeatedly criticized violence and urged restraint, but polarizing and dehumanizing discourse has also become much more common. And although some data suggest that recent political violence has in fact reduced the hostility of voters towards the opposing party, incidents like what happened Wednesday afternoon remains far too common.
For many, America looks like a Tinderbox. And this could require a sustained effort – and a bipartite political will – to return to a more civilized place.
“The last era of political violence, at least on the scale that we are witnessing now, was in the 1960s and 1970s – and it took a long time to get out of that time,” said Matthew Dallek, a political historian at George Washington University. “I imagine that the country will come out from this time at a given moment, but it is difficult to see how it happens. It is difficult to see how institutions, individual leaders, civic society, really culture, repels effectively to start braking its frequency and appearance and impact. ”
Many on the left considered Mr. Kirk as an imprudent provocateur. He once called on transgender people an “abomination” and Wednesday answered a question concerning transgender mass shooters when the shot rang. His supporters considered the young Republican as an intrepid defender of conservative beliefs and Christian values, willing to hold political arguments in hostile territory, such as extremely liberal university campuses. The Americans on both sides noted that Mr. Kirk had been killed while opening his opponents openly through ideas and speeches.
“Charlie believed in the power of freedom of expression and debate to shape ideas and persuade people,” said Governor Cox. “Historically, our university campuses … were the place where truth and ideas are formulated and debated. And that is what he does. He comes to university campuses and he debates.”
Trent Nelson / The Salt Lake Tribune / Reuters
Some politicians were quick to blame themselves for rhetorical climbing which led to Mr. Kirk’s shooting. After a moment of silence at Congress on Wednesday, representative Anna Paulina Luna, a Republican from Florida who was close to Mr. Kirk and credited him with having put him into politics, shouted through the aisle to the Democrats they “caused this”. Others on the left underlined Mr. Kirk’s own comments after Paul Pelosi, the husband of the former Democrat speaker Nancy Pelosi, was attacked in the couple’s California house, calling a “hero” to bail out the striker outside prison.
On Wednesday evening, President Trump published a video declaration from the Oval Office in which he called “all Americans and the media to face the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequences of demonizing those with whom you disagree.” But he has hodidly accused one side of having done demonization, saying: “For years, those on the radical left compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to the Nazis and the worst mass murderers and criminals in the world. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for terrorism that we see in our country today, and that must stop right away. ”
Others say that Mr. Trump himself has more responsibility for the current fuel climate than anyone.
“Over the past 10 years, the most important political figure in the world has made a scheme for promoting and approving political violence,” explains Peter Simi, sociologist at Chapman University who studies extremist violence. As examples, he underlines the rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, in Virginia, in August 2017 and the riot of the American Capitol on January 6, 2021.
“One of the things we know absolutely necessary is that there is leadership on this subject.” Said Dr. Simi. “If that is not there, other efforts will be at best ineffective.”
About three quarters of all Americans said that politically motivated violence was a “major” problem for America in an NPR / PBS News / Marist survey in June. But the survey also shows that many Americans consider political violence as a “legitimate method” to achieve political objectives, explains Brian Levin, founding director of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism at the California State University in San Bernardino. Mr. Levin points to in particular the impact of an underestimated and extreme information environment, many people now obtaining their news and having their opinions shaped by social media.
“We have always balanced free wheel policy with civic standards, but the problem is now that there is no railing – because the exhibition to all kinds of social and political speeches is not managed or published by the local editor or the head of the Kiwanis Club or the football coach or the school teacher on Sunday,” said Levin. “It is an unpleasant tsunami from Jetsam, associated with accessibility to firearms.”
Mr. Kirk was a leading republican voice since his USA turning point foundation in 2012 at the age of 18. The organization says that it has chapters on more than 3,500 high school and college campuses across the country, helping to record young voters, bring right -of -right personalities to speak on campus and offer a camaraderie to conservative colleagues. By 2024, Turning Point USA had reached an organization of almost $ 85 million. Mr. Kirk also supervised the Turning Point action, the political action group which has moved away from its original organization.
His “American Comeback Tour” was to include 14 additional events in September and October in colleges and universities across the country.
Mr. Kirk, who married in 2021 and has two small children, was undoubtedly one of the most influential figures of the Maga movement, becoming a close friend of the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., as well as Sen. JD VANCE, which he promoted for the slit of vice-president. He organized a popular conservative radio program, “The Charlie Kirk Show”, which has published episodes daily.
But Mr. Kirk could have been best known for his social media activities, in which he would criticize democrats and their policies to millions of followers on X, Tiktok, Instagram and Youtube. Mr. Kirk spoke in the last three republican national conventions. Although he never held his elected duties or an official position in the White House, Kirk has long been one of Mr. Trump’s trust confidants.
The president credited Mr. Kirk and his “army of young people” for helping him improve his margins among young people in the 2024 elections.
“I want to thank Charlie,” said Trump at an event in January before his inauguration. “Charlie is fantastic. I mean, this guy. Do not believe things when you hear liberal children. They are not liberal. Maybe they have been, but they are no longer.”
Mr. Kirk spoke publicly about the threats he had to face while increasing Turning Point USA. When he was asked by someone in 2023 why he turned his interaction, Kirk said that the cameras were the “greatest protection” he had in a video published on YouTube.
“We record it all so that we can put it on the internet, so that people can see these ideas colliding.” I think what makes this country about to go to a place where we do not want it to go right now is that we are afraid of going to places like this and to have these conversations. I am not. “
