The guy who killed Kirk was less a hardened leftist and more a young guy with psychological problems who was radicalized by memes wafting in his direction. The guys who tried to kill Trump were nutcases. People with psychological problems are motivated by stupid shit to do something crazy. Toning down the rhetoric may help, but that’s hard when the president is abusing his power and breaking the Constitution left and right. Accurately describing what the president is doing sounds like heated rhetoric when it is not.
“At least one person was killed and nine were injured when a gunman attacked a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints service in Michigan on Sunday morning, police said. The shooter was killed by police.
Authorities say the 40-year-old male suspect rammed his vehicle through the front doors of the church in Grand Blanc Township, about 60 miles northwest of Detroit, before exiting and opening fire with an “assault rifle” on the hundreds of worshippers inside.
Grand Blanc Township Police Chief William Renye said investigators believe the suspect also deliberately set fire to the church, which appeared engulfed in flames in photos and videos shared on social media.”
“An archived version of the study is still available online, and states that “far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides” than the left”
Political violence has been going on for decades, including recent history. Kirk’s murder is an outrage and we need to preach peace, love, and free speech, but it’s not unique.
People get mad when you quote some of what Charlie Kirk said because a lot of what he said was misleading or false. People praise Charlie Kirk for being for free speech and then demand others stop exercising their free speech because they pointed out that Kirk had some bad ideas.
Some on the right are using Kirk’s death to encourage further violence. They often cherry-pick examples of violence that exclude violence done by people more on the right, and blame all “the left” or all “Democrats” even though almost no one on the left had anything to do with Kirk’s death.
“The responsibility for Kirk’s killing, as in basically all acts of political violence, does not flow “directly” from political rhetoric, no matter how vile, but rather from the finger of the sniper; motives and mental state to hopefully be determined later. And all of Trump’s cited examples of violence were left-wingers targeting either conservatives or businessmen or law enforcement; nothing about the assassination this June of Democratic Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D–Brooklyn Park), no word about the 2022 skull-fracturing home-invasion hammer-attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul (which Trump has serially joked about); and certainly full radio silence on the multiple assaults on law enforcement committed by Trump’s own supporters on January 6, 2021.
…
“The Left is the party of murder,” Elon Musk wrote. Fox host Jesse Watters on Wednesday asserted that, “They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it?” Self-described “Libertarian, GMU Econ, Writer and Think Tanker” Simon Laird declared, “I’m done with de-escalation. I’m done with compromise,” adding: “Killing a few dozen Federal judges and New York Times journalists would have an effect. I’m not calling for violence at this time, but I’m done with the idea that violence is not an option on the negotiation table.”
The above is people on the right hypocritically and falsely claiming that “the left” was responsible for this murder while implying that further murders against people who had nothing to do with Kirk’s death would be justified.
Prominent people on the right are using this horrible murder to falsely blame Democrats and the entire left. They falsely claim all of the right is under attack, subtly, and sometimes not so subtly, encouraging more violence. While, of course, ignoring the times people on the left are attacked and murdered.
“I’m hugely in favor of stopping violent crime, but using federal agents to get the job done—and perhaps more worryingly, having the president direct how minors are charged—is likely to get into sticky territory rather quickly. “Because D.C. is not a state, the federal government has unique authority to exert control over city affairs—even amid objections from the residents and locally elected government,” notes The Washington Post. “The Home Rule Act of 1973 gave D.C. residents the ability to elect their own mayor and council members. A federal takeover of the D.C. police force would be an extraordinary assertion of power in a place where local leaders have few avenues to resist federal encroachment.””