Editorial: A Hard Week in America

It's been a week since leading conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated. It's been a hard week, especially for those who were closest to him. But it's also been a hard week for our country. As advocates ourselves, we share the condemnations that have been made of the shooting -- from the left, from the right, and every other direction.

We applaud Utah Governor Spencer Cox's uniting words in the wake of the tragedy. We similarly regret that President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance -- unlike how perhaps all of their predecessors reacted to such events -- have vigorously attempted to exploit this shooting to fan the flames of division.

Trump falsely and implausibly claimed political violence is only a problem of the left -- ignoring the recent shootings of Democratic lawmakers and family members in Minnesota, the hammer attack on Paul Pelosi, the January 6th insurrection, and the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, among other events. Vance, guest hosting Charlie Kirk's podcast, promised to go after organizations of the left -- a threat smacking of fascism -- including major funders like the Ford Foundation and  the Open Society Foundations.

A study published by the Cato Institute -- not a bastion of the left -- found that political violence in America, while having serious ramifications, in its frequency is rare. Looking at political murders since 2020 (a timeframe which excludes crimes with unusually large numbers of victims like the 9/11 attack, the Oklahoma City bombing and the Pulse nightclub shooting), one finds 81 victims. Right-wing terrorists accounted for more than half of these, according to Cato researcher Alex Nowrasteh, while left-wing accounted for 22 percent.

In citing this fact, I am by no means suggesting the focus of discussion in the immediate wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination should be on right-wing violence either. But since some figures on the right, including the two most powerful and prominent, have attempted to point fingers at the left, it's important for everyone to understand how untenable that is. As Jack Nicastro documents in Reason, "[m]ajorities on the left and on the right denounce political violence and its celebration."

In fact those who have condemned the Kirk assassination include people who had little love for Kirk's work in life. An organization that has long been unjustly maligned by figures on the right, Black Lives Matter, in a statement distributed by email wrote, "Our refusal to celebrate political violence in any form is not an endorsement of anyone's politics. Charlie Kirk was not a friend to us, but he is a human being. We rise above hate in all forms as a commitment to... the belief that no one should face a death sentence for their ideals."

Similarly, if I were to encounter a group of Turning Point activists, there are certainly areas of disagreement that I'd like to discuss with them. But the first thing I'd want to say is that I'm sorry this happened.

Unfortunately, the Kirk assassination was not the only way the past week has been a tough one. As I warned was possible last February, President Trump has now begun Duterte-style extrajudicial drug war killings. So far they are outside the US and on the high seas, not on the streets of our cities, and the number is not yet large. But there are now three incidents in which the president of the United States has directly ordered what legally can only be considered murder of supposed drug suspects. We have a larger discussion with thoughts on what to do about this being prepared, so check back here over the next few days.