Charlie Kirk was assassinated. All Americans should grieve.
Democrats especially.
In an Oval Office speech yesterday, Trump said the "radical left" is "directly responsible" for the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Trump's video comment on Kirk's death began with words about the value of open debate, civil discourse, and Charlie Kirk's work to engage citizens. But two minutes into his four-minute talk, the tone shifted. It went dark. The nation was under attack and we are at war against an enemy within.
Trump said:
It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree, day after day and year after year and in the most hateful and despicable way possible. 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. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organization that funded and supported, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country 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 healthcare 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. . . .
The amicus brief my attorney filed in the tariff case before the U.S. Court of Appeals -- and there will be a new one now that the case has gone to the Supreme Court -- argued that the case was about more than tariffs. It was about our form of government. President Trump is changing it from a constitutional democracy with broadly shared powers into a form of strong-man government. The brief argues that tariffs, which under our Constitution are to be determined by Congress, are a strong place to draw the line on Trump overreach.
The weakness in this argument is a president who would claim wartime emergency power. If a president declares that a decades-old problem is in fact a time-sensitive emergency, or a president says that a chronic problem in America -- gun violence -- is in fact an act of war against the U.S., then the rules of civil government might be lifted, especially if a compliant Supreme Court wants that particular president to have his way. In a wartime emergency, a president can ignore the usual checks and balances. A president with a taste for autocracy could silence, arrest, imprison, or kill whomever he targets.
There is history to observe here. In 1933, the German parliament building, the Reichstag, caught fire and burned under mysterious circumstances. The Nazis blamed communists. The Reichstag fire was a convenient excuse for the Nazis to suspend civil liberties and to silence and arrest opposition activists. This allowed the National Socialist Party to increase its plurality in the next election, and, from that, to take total control of the government.
An event like the Reichstag fire is an opportunity. Without knowing the real culprit, and without acknowledging their own acts of insurrection and civil discord, both Hitler and Trump instantly blamed a partisan opponent. Trump, using inflammatory and divisive speech, blamed "the radical left" for using inflammatory and divisive speech. Irony is not dead. Like the Nazis in 1933, Trump says he intends to go after the institutions of his opponents.
The German National Socialists wanted a justification for suspending the rules. Trump argues that he already has justification: immigrants, fentanyl, gangs, unbalanced trade, a fire in Los Angeles, crime in Chicago and other cities, mail ballots, protests on university campuses, and more.
Now he has another. A visible one. A shocking one. A sad one for the Kirk family and the country. This one doesn't appear, at first look, like a murder committed by the traditional villain of school shootings, some mentally ill person with random murderous intent. This one has a different first-impression look: Charlie Kirk was assassinated with a weapon of war.
I sense this is a Reichstag fire event, an opportunity to accelerate suspending the rules of a constitutional democracy. When America is at war, a president can do anything.
[Note: To get daily delivery of this blog to your email go to: https://petersage.substack.com. Subscribe. Don't pay. The blog is free and always will be.]
13 comments:
It didn’t take two minutes for the tone to shift here! “Kirk assassinated” and “All Americans should grieve” quickly segues into “Democrats especially so”.
Yes, Democrats are the primary victims of this anti-Right execution. Just as quelling an Islamophobic backlash was the priority after 9/11 and Fort Hood.
“Kirk assassinated—Republicans pounce!” This is partisan derangement. At least we don’t have insinuations [here] that Trump brought this about himself.
There has been an ugly cultural conceit in recent years that certain words, ideas and positions “equal” violence and hence warrant proactive violence.
We’ll likely know soon if Kirk died for that conceit. We may soon see if America has another folk “hero” for many to lionize, like Luigi Mangione.
Has anybody not seen Trump’s “Chipacolypse Now” posting with the warning: “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR”? The first sentence in the Trump diatribe Peter quoted is right on, and he is the nation’s most prominent example of someone who demonizes those with whom he disagrees, day after day and year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.
A rifle recovered in the hunt for conservative influencer Charlie Kirk’s assassin contained ammo engraved with “transgender and anti-fascist ideology,” according to preliminary reports from law enforcement sources.
Let's be honest, in the eyes of many, Charlie Kirk was not a good person. I don't need a pretentious historical lecture. We all know who the Occupant is and what he wants.
Let's talk about who Charlie Kirk was. For one thing, he pleaded the Fifth Amendment before the January 6 subcommittee. What were his views on guns and gun control? He was an intentionally provocative person who seemed to enjoy insulting and offending people. He left a legacy of hate.
When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.
The Nazis probably orchestrated the Reichstag fire somehow. I seriously doubt that anyone associated with Trump or the right orchestrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Has Joni Ernst said anything pithy about this? Not long ago she expressed her views about death and dying, remember? She even made a video in a cemetery about it.
And by the way, what about all the people here and around the world who are dying or who have died because the party in charge cut their food, medical and other life-saving assistance? What about all of those children, women and men?
I suspect Trump can’t believe this “gift”. In many ways Kirk is far more valuable to him as a martyr than a spokesman.
Among the world's affluent nations, the U.S. has the highest rates of homicide and gun violence. But don't hold your breath waiting for Republicans to do anything about it, even when the victim is one of their own.
I do grieve the loss of Charlie Kirk, a vibrant young man, engaging, charismatic, a proud husband and father. Unapologetically normal.
Benny Johnson and Matt Walsh are also proudly normal men, and conservative political activists.
The Lefties tend to offer up men of the LGBTQ+ (Jeffrey Marsh, Dylan Mulvaney), or 98 pound weaklings as their influencers. I seriously see a lack of healthy normal men among the young Democrats. This is a factor, IMHO, in the red shift of young men detected in polls of the last few years.
The older I get, the more I appreciate my Christian upbringing. The church community supported my elderly parents with love in their final years. The liberals tossed away the church, but have not created any community in its place. For lonely young people, the old fashioned church and old time values can sound pretty good. Charlie Kirk sold it with a smile and wit and an invitation to all to join in.
Rest In Peace Charlie Kirk.
Sometimes people on the right also get killed by too many guns. Oh well, thoughts and prayers for the family, but not much sympathy for the conservatives. It’s the policy they want.
Post a Comment