After Charlie Kirk's Murder, Politicians Can Back Away From the Brink, or Make Matters Worse
The political class has been pushing the country towards a conflict nobody should want.
As I write, Charlie Kirk's assassin has yet to be captured. It's still possible that the person who murdered the influential conservative activist was motivated by personal resentment or a business deal gone wrong. But the man shot during a Prove Me Wrong event held for the peaceful debate of policies and ideas was almost certainly the latest victim of America's problem with political violence. And if it feels that this attack was worse in some ways than other high-profile incidents, that's because it was.
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With the assassination attempts on then-presidential candidate Donald Trump, the lethal attack on Minnesota lawmakers, the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, and other crimes, partisan observers could pretend the victims wielded power that made them legitimate targets. But Kirk was about discussion and persuasion. Agree with him or not, he didn't do anything other than offend some sensibilities and, perhaps, change minds. Kirk was likely killed because of what he believed. And it's not yet apparent that Americans will take this crime as a wake-up call rather than an excuse to rally the troops.
Spitting Partisan Venom
"We've seen other political violence occur in other states," Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in response to news of Kirk's assassination. "And I would just say it's got to stop. And I think there are people who are fomenting it in this country. I think the president's rhetoric often foments it."
At MSNBC, political commentator Matthew Dowd went even further in blaming the murder of a conservative activist not just on the political right, but on the victim.
"He's been one of the most divisive, especially divisive, younger figures in this who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech sort of aimed at certain groups," commented Dowd, who was subsequently fired. "And I always go back to: Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which then lead to hateful actions….You can't stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have, and then saying these awful words, and then not expect awful actions to take place."
At Fox News, Jesse Watters was up to the challenge of returning the sentiment.
"Trump gets hit in the ear. Charlie gets shot dead. They came after [Supreme Court Justice Brett] Kavanaugh with a rifle to his neighborhood….They are at war with us," he charged the political left. "How much political violence are we going to tolerate?"
Then again, just the day before Kirk's murder at Utah Valley University, Sen. Chris Murphy (D–Ct.) shared a video of himself insisting, "We're in a war right now to save this country. And so you have to be willing to do whatever is necessary in order to save the country."
If Donald Trump's often rough rhetoric and loose way with insults foments violence, as Pritzker has it, then what in hell is Murphy doing? There's plenty of venom to go around.
And the public hears these clowns. Several of my old college classmates were among those chortling over a meme making the rounds gloating that Charlie Kirk was shot, since that he was a defender of self-defense rights and the Second Amendment. And never mind that Kirk was reportedly killed with a bolt-action rifle, one of the few weapons that gun control advocates say they don't want to ban.
Fortunately, not everybody sees this assassination as an opportunity to stir the pot. The Young Democrats and Young Republicans of Connecticut issued a joint statement denouncing the murder.
"What happened at Utah Valley University this afternoon is unacceptable," it reads. "We reject all forms of political violence. There is no place in our country for such acts, regardless of political disagreements."
That's a nobler sentiment than any number of declarations of domestic war or accusations about who threw the first heated insult. It shows a path forward for peaceful disagreement, which is how healthy political systems are supposed to work and was the basis for Kirk's Prove Me Wrong tour.
Escalating Political Tensions
But that's not where we've been in recent years, and it's too early to know which path Americans will choose going forward. In a country of widely disparate values, divergent ways of life, and policy preferences to match, people are moving to live with their political tribes and apart from their opponents even as the political class increasingly centralizes power and rules from the top down.
"Our analysis suggests partisanship itself, intentional or not, plays a powerful role when Americans uproot and find a new home," Ronda Kaysen and Ethan Singer of The New York Times wrote last year in an examination of 3.5 million Americans who moved their residences. "Across the country, the result is a widening gap between blue neighborhoods and red ones."
That could be an expanded opportunity to govern people differently according to their preferences. But Republicans and Democrats alike treat winning political office as winner-take-all opportunities to transform the country and jam their agendas down the throats of the losers. The result has been escalating frustration and a willingness to look to extreme tactics against political enemies.
A Growing Taste for Violence
In April 2024, a PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll found that "one in 5 U.S. adults believe Americans may have to resort to violence to get their own country back on track." In that poll Republicans, at 28 percent, were more prone to violence than Democrats at 12 percent or independents at 18 percent. Researchers have long assumed that the right is inherently more prone to use force to get its way. A year and a half and lots of violent incidents later, that's no longer the case.
In March of this year—after the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the beginning of a wave of attacks on Tesla dealerships and owners—American University's Dana R. Fisher referenced recent surveys and concluded that "left-leaning Americans participating in peaceful, legally permitted demonstrations are starting to believe that political violence will be necessary to save America."
"Tolerance – and even advocacy – for political violence appears to have surged, especially among politically left-leaning segments of the population," agreed an April 2025 report from the Network Contagion Research Institute and the Rutgers University Social Perception Lab. The report called the phenomenon "assassination culture" and warned that "the online normalization of political violence may increasingly translate into offline action."
Charlie Kirk's assassination was a very unwelcome example of offline action.
So, will the political class keep beating war drums? Or will they step back from escalating the conflict? If they really seek to improve matters, politicians could start by shutting up and leaving us alone.
