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Thoughts on Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
I wasn’t planning on writing about Charlie Kirk for a couple reasons. One, though very much aware of him, he wasn’t someone I followed closely. Not because I had anything against him, but because there are only so many hours in the day, and I, firmly entrenched as I am in middle age, wasn’t really Kirk’s target audience. More importantly, I didn’t think I’d be able to say anything that wasn’t already being said by people in a better position to say it. Maybe that’s still the case.
But a brief point in a piece by my colleague at WDEV, Kevin Ellis, changed my mind about taking up the subject. Kevin wrote:
I invited the chairs of the Vermont Democratic and Republican party on my Vermont radio show to discuss political violence. I suspected that if they saw and heard each other, they might dial down their own rhetoric. The Republican accepted. The Democrat did not.
Why am I not surprised?
While all political sides and probably every controversial movement has its fringe elements who take things too far, and nuts or zealots who get violent, only one side today has a massive cheering section for those of their members who do – and that’s the truly frightening aspect of what we’re witnessing. Years ago, someone made the comment to me that our country can survive Barack Obama (and turnabout being fair play I’m sure some today would insert Donald Trump), but not an electorate that would vote him into office. I think a similar dynamic applies here: our country can survive tragedies like this, but not a culture that applauds them.
Yes, we can play “what about” all day long. Charlie Kirk was assassinated, but what about Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman? Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare was murdered, but what about the attack on Paul Pelosi? Sure, there were violent riots after George Floyd’s death, but what about January 6th? The major difference with the above examples – and I’ll add to them the attempted assassination of Donald Trump – are that those on the political Right weren’t and aren’t cheering on the perpetrators.
There are no “Is he dead yet” t-shirts referring to Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries.
Hoards of adoring conservatives aren’t gathering outside the courthouse holding “Free David Wayne DePape” signs for Pelosi’s attacker the way those on the Left are for Luigi Mangione. And before you say those are just a handful of deranged young women who think the gunman is cute, consider that Californians are moving on a 2025 ballot initiative informally titled the “Luigi Mangione Access to Health Care Act.” This was done in the most heavily populated state in the union with the supposition that naming a piece of legislation after a politically motivated murderer would help win support for it amongst California’s deep blue voters. That’s truly sick.
When Congress approved a resolution honoring Democrat Melissa Hortman and condemning political violence, every Republican voted for it in a unanimous roll call vote. For a similar resolution honoring Charlie Kirk, fifty-eight Democrats voted No, another thirty-eight voted Present, and twenty-two more didn’t vote. Seriously, what’s driving this? Their consciences or their constituents? Neither answer is comforting.
When Hortman and her husband were killed, I don’t recall any conservative influencers, politicians, professors and/or talking heads taking to the airwaves and social media with the message, “Sure we all condemn the violence, but she kinda had it coming.” The same can’t be said of the political Left following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
A recent YouGov poll following Kirk’s deth shows that while 11 percent of all adults in the US think political violence is sometimes justified, 25 percent of “very liberal” and 17 percent of “liberal” respondents think so. Just 55 percent believe it’s never acceptable. On the other side, 88 percent of those “very conservative” believe political violence is never acceptable, with just two percent saying it’s sometimes justified. The rest didn’t know or wouldn’t say.
The numbers are particularly concerning when you look at young people. 26 percent of those 18-44 think “violence in order to achieve political goals” can be justified. And the trend seems to indicate the belief is translating into action. Tyler Robinson, Kirk’s assassin, is 22. Thomas Crooks, who nearly killed Donald Trump, was 20. Nicholas Roske was 26 when he travelled to Washington with plans to kill Brett Kavanaugh and other conservative Supreme Court justices. The killer of Melissa Hortman and Trump’s other would-be assassin are in their late 50’s, so we can’t dump all the blame Gen Z, but that generation’s increased activity and attitudes here are cause for alarm.
Where are they getting it from? A political culture that glorifies violent “resistance” to a host of “existential threats”. Those who teach or preach that words, even microaggressions, are a form of violence, justifying actual violence as a response. Institutions that reward destructive forms of protest either actively with praise and encouragement or passively by excusing and not punishing such behavior. Worst of all, those making heroes of political murderers by, I don’t know, naming California Ballot initiatives after them. THIS is what has to stop.
The response to the recent spate of violence from most of the politicians I’ve seen is along the lines of we need to tone down the rhetoric and engage in civil dialogue. Sure, but that’s what Charlie Kirk was doing – reaching out to those who disagreed with him to have a respectful conversations and either find common ground or agree to disagree. Someone shot him for it.
So, while I hope we will see more across the aisle conversations that can serve as examples to younger Americans for how to behave, what also has to happen is parents, teachers, politicians and cultural leaders need to aggressively teach the young people in their movements that political violence is never acceptable. The answer to speech you disagree with is more speech, not shouting down, chasing away, or assassinating the speaker. We need to actively pass down the values that people who disagree with you are not evil; they just have different opinions, and are entitled to them.
I think the political Right – as exemplified by Charlie Kirk — is willing and able to take up that challenge. Is the political Left? I certainly hope so, but the chairman of the VT Democrats refusal to go on Kevin Ellis’s radio program with the Republican chairman isn’t an encouraging start.
Rob Roper is a freelance writer who has been involved with Vermont politics and policy for over 20 years. This article reprinted with permission from Behind the Lines: Rob Roper on Vermont Politics, robertroper.substack.com
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Categories: Commentary
Rob Roper makes one of the most articulate and reasonable assessments of our current political polarity that I’ve seen to date. Please, VDC readers, don’t just comment or read the comments. Rob’s perspective is not only fair and balanced, it’s
enlightening and worth the read.
As I implored John Klar; ‘please submit this missive to publications like Seven Days, VT Digger, and VT Public. No, they likely won’t publish this perspective. But, at least, not for the lack of trying.’
Trying to look into the brain of a leftist is like popping the plug on your septic tank and the first thing that hits you is the smell. The reason they are cheering the killing of Charlie Kirk is because he was getting to the root cause of all the rot in America. He was going into the colleges and universities and challenging what the students were being taught, and it was working.
Thank you Rob. Could I add a few points on those who are encouraging political violence by their words and actions? My mind drifts back to the BLM inspired cop killings in NY City. Dec 20, 2014. Two on duty NYC Police Officers were shot dead as they sat in their patrol car .Less than a week earlier BLM “protesters” in NYC had marched and chanted, “What do we want? Dead Cops! When do we want it? NOW!” This disregard for human life goes back a long way for sure. Now instead of condemning this kind of violence and violent rhetoric in many corners of society and especially on college campuses it is being celebrated and justified.
And for those who push the false equivalency of left and right violence just consider that no conservative speakers have dared to set foot on many college campuses without armed guards and ensuing riots, while speakers on the left face no such threats. Not even close. And consider Erika Kirk’s remarks at her husband’s memorial service this past weekend where she observed no violence, no riots, but over 100,000 people peacefully praying and giving thanks for Charlie Kirk’s life. She even offered Christ like forgiveness to his killer. Which path should we choose America? Time for some reflection, and decisions.
What partisan garbage. Roper seemed to conveniently “overlook” Don Jr. posting his halloween costume with a pair of underwear and a hammer…. flagrantly mocking the attack on Paul Pelosi. How many thousands of trumper’s liked and shared that post? I suppose VDC readers… if Roper doesn’t mention it, it didn’t happen!
Regarding roper’s words: “Hoards of adoring conservatives aren’t gathering outside the courthouse holding “Free David Wayne DePape” signs for Pelosi’s attacker the way those on the Left are for Luigi Mangione.” Roper conveniently “overlooks” a statement by the beloved Charlie Kirk: “Why has he [DePape] not been bailed out? By the way, if some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out.” Seems like kirk wanted to make a hero out that guy, eh?
Thanks, Rob, for yet another unbiased opinion piece.
Oh yeah, remember when Trump ordered the flags lowered after Hortman’s death? You don’t? Because he didn’t. Apparently Kirk is more important than a state senator.
A pair of underwear and a hammer at Halloween? Or the real Hunter naked with a naked pre pubescent girl? Schumer screaming on the steps of the Supreme Court that Kavanaugh and Gorsuch are going to get theirs by ‘seeing a whirlwind’ which inspired a Transgender individual to attempt to assassinate those Supreme Court Justices? Not to mention the recent cheering of the death of President Trump when he took a few hours off during a busy week?
Nice try, Nick. That context of that Kirk quote was not glorifying what DePape did to Pelosi. He was making a comment criticizing cashless bail policies in cities like San Francisco, driving up crime rates, and pointing out the double standard of why it didn’t apply to DePape’s case. I’ll grant you the meme Don Jr posted of Paul Pelosi’s “Halloween Costume” was tasteless, but I’m not sure you want to get into a contest over who re-posted tasteless memes regarding hypothetical violence against politicians. If you do I’ll counter with 8647. You can make a case that federal flags should have been lowered for Hortman even though she was not a federal official or a national figure, but if not lowering flags is the most egregious example of right on left “inciting of or apologizing for violence” you can come up with, gotta say it’s pretty thin and quite the stretch.
Look, dude, I’m not minimizing any of the contexts you bring up about the left. A call for an ‘american hero’ to bail out Depape is justifying his actions, in my view. And you’re acting like “whoever does the most is the worst.” Which does nothing to help the situation. Your article cherry picks incidents that support your partisan persuasion. What about calling for hanging Mike Pence on Jan 6? Was that a hypothetical call for violence? How did you miss that in your article? He was the vice president and a republican mob chanted that they wanted to HANG HIM! But that slipped through the cracks, I suppose. And how about Jesse Waters on Fox calling for homeless people to receive lethal injection or to just be killed? Another convenient ‘oops.’ I would encourage those of you who have the time to research 8647 incidents should rail against the problem of violence in general instead of your juvenile “na na na na na we’re less violent than you” approach.
You’re missing the point, Nick. I did not forget the January 6th riot, but mentioned it. My article admits that nuts do bad things on both sides. It’s in the title. The problem I see is beyond these things happening, how do people in power react to them. With encouragement, tolerance, or condemnation? Politicians, intellectuals, media, entertainers. What Republicans in those areas just mentioned applauded the January 6th riot? From what I saw, everyone in such a position denounced the actions of the rioters. Pence, it should be noted, reacted the way most Republicans reacted — in opposition to what was happening. Who are the Mike Pences in the Democratic party willing to tell its base, no, this is not how you act. Who are the Charlie Kirks in the progressive movement willing to engage in civil debate with whom they disagree? These types of people are the ultimate solution to this problem. I see some on the right. I don’t see any on the left, except for maybe Bill Maher. Can you name any? I’d be thrilled if you can.
The J6 narrative is a canard. The head of the FBI Field Office in Michigan who ran the entrapment of the stooges in the Whitmer “kidnapping plot”, in which the defendants were exonerated, became the head of the DC Field Office of the FBI before J6. Nobody knows this better than Kash Patel. And Ron Johnson.
I cannot wait until this tired, lo-cal, artificial-sweetener-laden, intellectually-challenged narrative rightly takes its place in the dumpster fire of the RICO cases against the DNC crime syndicate. We await the sworn testimony of Ray Epps. And the film highlights – recall the South African contingent in the White House.
Anyway, then we will finally be rid of this tiresome “what about the J6 rioters,” psyop nonesense.
Nice reply. I understand your position. I watched Kirks videos and enjoyed his debates, especially the one in Oxford. Perhaps what you are pointing at is what draws me still to the republican party: willingness to debate. Dems have a tendency to take offense when none is intended.
This article, however, points fingers at a political party and uses such weak statistics. Stats of the “all US adults”-ilk are as reliable as a source in RFK’s MAHA report. That, coupled with the cherry-picking examples, shows your ability to ‘use’ stats rather than ‘report on’ stats. As Koppel said to Hannity, ‘You’re good at what you do.’
Did Charlie Kirk call for someone to bail out the assailant of Paul Pelosi? (These Grok searchers are in response to AOC’s speech today)
Grok:
Yes, Charlie Kirk called for someone to bail out David DePape, the assailant who attacked Paul Pelosi with a hammer in October 2022.On his podcast episode from October 31, 2022, Kirk responded to the incident by questioning why DePape hadn’t been released on bail and suggested that a supporter should post it, estimating it at $30,000–$40,000. He framed it as an opportunity for a “midterm hero,” saying: “By the way, if some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area wants to really be a midterm hero, someone should go and bail this guy out… Bail him out and then go ask him some questions.”
He added that the attack was “awful” and “not right” but used the comment to criticize San Francisco’s bail policies, implying DePape might reveal details about conspiracy theories (such as false claims that Paul Pelosi knew the attacker or that it was a domestic dispute).
This statement was widely reported and criticized at the time for downplaying the violence and promoting misinformation. DePape, who broke into the Pelosi home intending to target Nancy Pelosi over right-wing conspiracies, was denied bail, convicted on federal and state charges, and sentenced to 30 years federally plus life without parole in state court
Mr. Day: Isn’t Grok an amazing tool?!!
One of the cautions in discussing the propensity for one side of the aisle or the other to engage in violence was evident in last night’s TPUSA question and answer session with Megan Kelly. One questioner raised the point that more than 60% of the political deaths over the last couple of decades were at the hands of those with ‘right-wing’ affiliations, e.g., the abortion clinic violence. But what that data doesn’t include is that the violent deaths, attacks against law enforcement, and property damage resulting, for example, from the George Floyd riots, could not be assigned to an individual and was, therefore, not counted in the data.
Of course, my libertarian sensibilities lead me, again, to the conclusion that ‘the left’ abhors individualism for this very reason… accountability. Hiding behind a mob is a sure way to avoid personal responsibility. While 315 of 450 violent political deaths since 1975 have occurred at the hands of those with right-wing affiliations (7 per year give or take), 27 people were killed in the George Floyd, BLM/Antifa, riots in one summer. And not one of those ‘summer of love’ deaths are included in the political death data casting aspersions on the right.
Mr. Ley: I meant to say……
I definitely forgot about this lovely ‘re-tweet’ by the orange man bad… “The only good democrat is a dead democrat.” Yet another ‘oops’ overlook by the author of this article. But heck, I’m sure the post was in jest. …..(now enter the vultures to clean up this mess and tell the VDC readers why it is totally cool to vote for a man that share that type of language.)
Come on, Rosato. Tell the whole truth for a change. The tweet, from five years ago, said the following:
“I’ve come to a place where I’ve come to the conclusion that the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat. I don’t say that in the physical sense and I can already see the videos getting edited where it says I wanna go murder Democrats. No, I say that in the political sense because the Democrat agenda and policy is anti-American right now. It’s where our country’s not coming to a place if you love or hate Donald Trump, our country’s coming to a place if you love or hate America. Because that’s what it’s boiling down to. But um, but as far as Democrats go you had some great conservative candidates.
We need to have, I say the reason why the only good Democrat’s a dead Democrat, I’m saying it politically speaking and I’m saying it because we need to have the majorities in the House and the Senate. It’s the only way that we’re gonna put the brakes on a out-of-control governor. Sometimes you have to hit very rock bottom in order to make real change. It can happen in our own personal lives. It happens in community but it’s also happening in government right now. I believe our government is showing the very worst than they have, and I believe that it’s gonna bring about the very best that our country has politically speaking.”
Again, this was 5 years ago. Trump was being impeached (a second time and unsuccessfully), the unfounded lawfare against him was outrageous, millions of illegal immigrants (including really bad people) were crossing the border unimpeded, more than 300,000 foreign children were being trafficked in the U.S., conservatives were being censored on every major platform, 51 high ranking intelligence officers lied about the Hunter laptop, and the democrats were telling everyone all is well.
Re: ‘now enter the vultures to… tell the VDC readers why it is totally cool to vote for a man that share[s] that type of language.’
Please don’t take the tweet this way. I sincerely don’t want to hear about someone else dressing up like a police officer in Minnesota, or up on a roof, or in the bushes somewhere acting out on contrived hatred.
John 8:7 – So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.
Tyler it has come out this week, released by Congress and hidden by the original Jan 6 farce committee that the Democrat Party had many paid assets in the Jan 6th Capital Crowd. Take the words January 6, Genocide and Hitler out of the Democrat vocabulary they have no arguments
Correction: The southern border wall was being built in 2020, albeit opposed by the democrats. The influx of illegal migrants was yet to come.
When I was in high school back in the sixties, I took a typing class where we practiced typing “now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country”. It sure seems like that time is now and that the way to do it is to go beyond extreme partisianship and have one standard for all. I have recently become an admirerer of the conservative economist Arthur C. Brooks who was the longtime head of The American Enterprise Institute. He has written much on this subject including his book “Love Your Enemies: How decent people can save America from the culture of contempt.” His writings may provide a positive way forward.
“ Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said in a new interview that the “visceral” response to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson should serve as a warning “to everyone in the health care system,” adding that “people can be pushed only so far.”
https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5034574-elizabeth-warren-unitedhealthcare-ceo-shooting-response-warning/
An Introspection:
Margaret Mead made some provocative observations of primitive human behavior in her 1930 book, Growing Up In New Guinea. I recall her account of two tribes competing for limited resources, meeting at the river’s edge from time to time, skirmishing until one of their number was killed, then retreating to their strongholds, one to celebrate victory, the other to eulogize defeat. From a distance, the celebrations were indiscernible from one another. And over time, as the peace faded into the past, they met again at the river and the cycle continued.
The occasional violence was stabilizing for the entire community. I suspect, however, that it will be a while before our current culture can transform itself from thousands of years of development, if, indeed, we should transform our culture at all.
In retrospect, it is clear that over the last 100 years or so, both sides of the aisle have been complicit in this violence to some extent, while only the fringe elements on either side promote it … so far at least. The problem is that our sensibilities are fungible (i.e., interchangeable). Racist, violent, southern democrats migrated to the Republican Party in the 1960s, while otherwise moderate democrats have since become violent radical totalitarians. Charlie Kirk was a victim of circumstances. He did nothing to deserve his fate. But his outcome reflects as much the failure of our collective sensibility as it does the actions of one or more deranged individuals, who promote, execute, or celebrate this violence. That one is on ‘the left’ or ‘the right’ is becoming harder to discern. Charlie Kirk recognized this with his willingness to discuss the issues with all sides.
Mead’s broader point was that human societies, even “primitive” ones, develop mechanisms to channel conflict constructively, thereby preventing chaos. This aligns with my earlier references to free market “constructive competition” and Nietzsche’s view of battling monsters, suggesting that conflict is intrinsic to human nature. However, Mead also emphasized that past cultural practices shaped conflict in cyclical tribal violence as ritualized containment, unlike the unstructured, chaotic escalation we are witnessing in today’s conflict.
I hope everyone keeps this in mind as they point their fingers.
Now that we are taking a look at violence, did the person who shot the three Palestinians in Burlington Vermont ,was he ever found guilty and how much time in jail?????? Comment from Richard Day.
……..”but the chairman of the VT Democrats refusal to go on Kevin Ellis’s radio program with the Republican chairman isn’t an encouraging start.”…….couldn’t agree more Mr.Roper. Great article.