At this pivotal moment in our nation’s history, we must appeal to our better angels.
America is still a grand experiment in self-governance - of, by, and for the people.
Charlie modeled that truth: debate passionately, but never hate the person across from you.
Conversation or violence. That’s the ultimate choice. You can’t have both. Anyone who celebrates violence has no fucking idea what it’s like to live in real political disorder and their ignorance is a luxury of having lived a privileged life in a stable society.
What America needs right now is what Charlie modeled every day: sharp debate without hatred, conviction with compassion.
He believed in reconciliation - that even in disagreement, we must leave the door open to heal divides.
That spirit made our country stronger.
Trump's perhaps biggest blindspot
as a pol is his utter inability to even try to play the unifying leader. He couldn't/wouldn't during COVID, and he isn't doing it now. His divisive style can be effective, but it throws away all benefits of statesmanship in moments like this.
The Constitution survived 700,000 dead in the Civil War, 407,000 dead in WWII, and other tragedies beyond comprehension. Anyone on the right calling to dispense with the Constitution because of Charlie Kirk's sad shooting clearly never believed in America in the first place.
The assassin could have been a right-winger trying to stir up conflict (or who thought Kirk was too moderate)!
We won't know until the assassin is caught.
@TClaudiusCAG@lionel_trolling Ironically, the best thing Trump could do right now (aside from destroy these radical left AND right wing underground terror/militia groups) is to declare war on Venezuela
Charlie Kirk expressed views you may have disagreed with, but if you think he deserved to die, then you are the problem. You've probably been coddled by your private school teachers, but the reality is, we are a country built on freedom of speech.
Resorting to violence to take out your political opponents isn't just wicked and cowardly. It's a confession — a desperate and damning admission that your ideas can't be advanced by anything but force.
Let's be clear: these are calls for mass political violence. They are not really related to Kirk's assassination, about which nothing is known. It is people who have been looking for a reason to call for Democrats to be killed and their cities bombed, and found a pretext.
We have no suspect.
We have no motive.
We have no weapon.
But the President of the United States took to the airwaves to call for purge of the opposition party.
Unfortunate missed opportunity to lower the temperature.
Declaring “war” is not only dumb but incredibly dangerous. You might get views and likes on social media, but this only divides us further and puts more people in danger. Nobody, left or right, should be speaking like this. My thoughts go out to Charlie Kirk’s family.
I do not know how America is supposed to go on surviving in a social-media world, but a good place to start would be by educating people that the main purpose of social media is to locate and serve you up whatever take is going to make you, personally, the maddest.
You can always count on President Trump to fail to meet the moment. Instead of trying to bring people together and de-escalate all the recent political violence, he decides to throw partisan cheap shots. Of course.
Two smallish groups of people who should be drummed out of public life: Anyone posting gleefully about the assassination, & anyone saying that "this" is what "they" want. The overwhelming majority of Americans are horrified by what happened today. We must drown out the remainder.