In the aftermath of the horrendous assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, the latest incident of political violence in the U.S., there’s rising concern that increasing polarization may spin out of control and claim more lives. This is particularly dangerous in a nation where the population has easy access to all manner of guns — pistols, long guns and semi-automatic weapons-of-war, unlike any other nation in the world.
Kirk, founder of the group Turning Point USA focused on youth outreach, a Christian nationalist and an ally of Donald Trump, expressed many controversial views on race, gender and sexual identity, including his condemnation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as “an anti-white weapon.” Although divided on his message, politicians, activists and commentators of all political persuasions unconditionally condemned the act of violence that killed Kirk, who leaves behind a wife and two children.
But unlike most politicians who condemned all incidents of political violence, whether coming from the left or right, Donald Trump singled out leftist groups as being responsible for recent violence, saying in an interview, “radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime.” But according to most studies, terrorists inspired by right-wing ideology are responsible for more than half of all recent deaths attributed to political violence. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Justin Glawe, an independent journalist and editor of the American Doom newsletter. Here he examines Kirk’s assassination and Trump, Vice President J.D. Vance and Attorney General Pam Bondi’s threats to use the murder as a pretext to repress the free speech rights of the regime’s perceived political opponents on the left.
JUSTIN GLAWE: I have been surprised to see what I’m considering the mainstreaming of Charlie Kirk after his really unfortunate, troubling and horrific death that stands on its own as a horrific act and a horrific development and is terrible for his family and his fans, his loved ones and supporters.
But the fact still stands that in any normal world, Charlie Kirk was not a moderate political actor. Charlie Kirk was by definition, a right-wing extremist who held what I believe and what I hope most Americans would say are some pretty extreme views, whether it comes to gay rights, women’s rights, minority rights, things like the power of the executive branch. This was a guy who, like a lot of people in the Trump administration essentially believe that because they are conservative and they are Republican, that their rights supersede everyone else’s right. And to me, that’s a fundamentally extreme position. So it has been surprising to see even mainstream publications and outlets like New York Times, CNN, MSNBC, Washington Post, the New York Times, acting as if Charlie Kirk was a moderate political actor when his own words and his own positions do not reflect that.
SCOTT HARRIS: Thank you for that, Justin. There’s been a lot of really disturbing ripples that have come out after Charlie Kirk’s murder and one was covered by the Washington Post over the weekend where Trump said on Friday morning on Fox News, “The radicals on the left are the problem and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”
We’ve had other administration officials speak about a broad plan that the administration has to focus on public speech and rhetoric declaring that those who speak in violent terms about Trump and his allies will face consequences.
Some suggested a more expansive campaign calling out school teachers and college instructors who’ve made public statements criticizing Kirk since his death and promising to deport non-citizens who do the same. Donald Trump himself recently said that he was calling on prosecutors to file racketeering charges against George Soros, one of the Democratic party’s biggest donors. Trump and his allies have long claimed without evidence that Mr. Soros foments violent protests. What’s your level of concern, Justin, that Charlie Kirk’s murder will be exploited and used as a pretext to crack down on speech—political speech that this administration dislikes.
JUSTIN GLAWE: As high of a level of concern as one can get. The Trump administration was already on this path before Kurt’s killing. I don’t know where their “investigation” stands into ActBlue, the major Democratic fundraising outfit, but they had said several months ago that they were going to investigate them for some type of criminal wrongdoing. They have already been weaponizing the powers of the state to crack down on immigrants or visa holders who make political statements that the administration disagrees with.
And I mean, it wasn’t only but a few months ago that we saw that with the two students, one from Tufts University, and then the kid from, I think NYU, that Marco Rubio basically just said, “I don’t like what you’re saying, so we are arresting you.” So this just pours gasoline on that fire. And the way that I think about it is I think it’s going to look similar to what happened after 9/11, which is this expansion of the surveillance state that we saw with things like the Patriot Act, and of course the whole NSA surveillance debacle that Edward Snowden exposed.
I think it looks something like that, where a horrific event—in that case, Sept. 11, and in this case, Charlie Kirk’s killing—is used, like you said, as pretext to further clamp down on political speech and rights of people that are against the administration. Obviously, what’s, I think, a little bit more troubling here than in that instance perhaps, is that the majority of Americans saw 3,000 of their fellow countrymen die on Sept. 11th and said, “If we need to make a sacrifice of some of our civil liberties, then we’re willing to do that. Whereas this was the killing of a person who is extremely popular.
If you look at the amount of Americans who voted for Trump by about what I don’t know— 35 percent of the country—so we’re now in a situation where our rights and our civil liberties are going to be clamped down upon because of the death of somebody who, like I said before, was frankly a political extremist. And I think that that makes this more troubling than what happened after 9/11 In some ways.
For more information, visit Justin Glawe’s American Doom Newsletter on Substack at american-doom.com.
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