Trump’s cynical use of the Kirk assassination
Rather than appeal to the better angels of our nature, he appeals to the worst of our demons
Friends,
The reaction by Trump to the horrendous assassination of Charlie Kirk has been as irresponsible as anything Trump has done to date to divide our nation.
When bad things happen, presidents traditionally use the highest office in the land to calm and reassure the public. The best of our presidents appeal to the better angels of our nature, asking that we harbor “malice toward none.”
Trump consistently appeals to the worst of our demons, as he did Wednesday night after the shooting when he said:
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
I don’t know at this writing who was responsible for Kirk’s death, and Trump certainly didn’t know when he made these remarks Wednesday night. But for Trump to blame the “radical left” — a term he often uses to describe the whole Democratic Party — is an unconscionable provocation that further polarizes Americans at a time when we badly need to come together.
It’s also a vehicle for silencing criticism of Trump’s own authoritarianism, advancing the presumption that if you criticize someone for being an authoritarian, or the member of an authoritarian political movement, you’re a terrorist who’s inciting murder.
Trump continued:
“My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law-enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.”
It’s unclear what Trump is calling for here, but it sounds as if he may use the Kirk assassination as a pretext for unleashing the FBI and other federal law enforcement on every organization that could possibly be seen as contributing to the “radical left.” This becomes clearer from what he said next:
“From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year, which killed a husband and father, to the attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a health-care executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical-left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”
Trump is attributing America’s rising tide of political violence to the “radical left,” ignoring the significant if not larger amount of political violence perpetrated by Trump supporters on the far-right.
The latter includes the shootings of two Minnesota Democratic legislators at their home earlier this summer, the attempted assassination of Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor Josh Shapiro in April, the series of shootings at the homes of four Democratic elected officials in New Mexico in 2022, the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in 2020, the attempted pipe bombings at the homes of Barack Obama and Joe Biden in 2018, and the attack on former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022.
Trump’s list of so-called “radical-left” violence included attacks on ICE agents — which did not involve gunfire — but conveniently failed to mention the shooting a month ago at CDC headquarters, in which a man protesting Covid-19 vaccines fired more than 180 shots at the building and killed a police officer.
Nor, obviously, did Trump include the violence he himself incited at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, by over 1,500 followers who received prison terms — all of whom Trump subsequently pardoned.
There is no excuse for political violence in America. Nor is there any excuse for provoking even more of it by blaming it on one side or the other.
And no excuse for a president of the United States using a heinous killing as an occasion to treat his political opponents as accomplices to murder and threatening to use the full power of the government to attack them.
We have had enough violence, enough carnage, enough blame. We must do whatever we can to reduce the anger and hate that are consuming and destroying so much of this nation.
It is time for all of us, including a president, to take some responsibility.
Trump is bitching yet again----Today Trump placed all of this country's social unrest squarely upon the shoulders of the far left. What in the hell is the far left? Our political theater consists of 3 basic elements: The Democrats, The Independants, and of course the Republicans. Trump pointed to several incidents involving various degrees of violence all directed against members of the (Far Right) Republican party. He stated these acts of violence must stop! However, Mr. Trump neglected to mention any of the violent acts carried out against the Democrats by members of his own political gang. Why is that? Charlie Kirk would be alive today if he had chosen to follow a member of the Democratic party instead of the lunatic he befriended. Trump's entire movement is orchestrated around hatred of one thing or another, which he just isn't smart enough to understand. Instead of surrounding himself with the minds of experts who could help guide him through this country's everydays problems. Mr. Trump has selected a group of inapt morons who unscrew a light bulb by spinning the ladder while the orange guy holds onto the burned out bulb, and he has the gall to point fingers at the only party with which this country has a future. Now he wants to give Mr. Kirk a metal for his conduct, what conduct. All Kirk ever did was glorify a man who had the power to make gold lose its luster. Mr. Trump, unless you would like to join your outspoken friend I would suggest you tone things down just a bit. Your ridiculous rhetoric is tearing this country apart. Who do I blame for our current debacle? Ranking Republicans who don't have the stones necessary to control a rogue President. Trump's women are floozies, his men are marshmallows, and there isn't an honest American among them, and he wonders why he is having difficulties being the President of a country that doesn't want him.
I find it intriguing that law enforcement are calling for the death penalty for the perpetrator whereas schoolchildren only get thoughts and prayers when someone shoots them.