The view from Pete

This was a moment. In the immediate aftermath of a very public assassination of Charlie Kirk, that more rational minds could have spoken up and unilaterally condemned political violence and encouraged the masses to put down their weapons and return to civility.

That did not happen.

To be absolutely clear, nobody deserves to be murdered for speaking their minds in public. I disagree, bitterly at times, with virtually everything that Charlie Kirk said and stood for. In my view, his positions on so many issues were so repugnant that they were ludicrous; deserving the scorn and ridicule they were rightly getting. But he did not deserve to be shot dead over it.

What’s worse is that the garbage that he spewed is now virtually untouchable in many circles because the shooter has made a martyr out of a man who spewed such bile. Now there’s a very public move to immortalize the man with public spaces renamed after him, streets named after him, state level governments partnering with his former organisation to install their politically charged material INTO the public education program.

There is no evidence that the shooter was actually a leftist, certainly no more evidence that he was a rightist, despite the hopes that he can be tied to one tribe or another. The shooter was born and raised in a traditional Mormon family, Mormon community and was surrounded in a conservative worldview. He went to college for a single semester, and dropped out of their trades program. But because we’re stuck in this toxic narrative that if we can blame a supporter of one side, then it justifies an escalation of political violence as ‘revenge’…and so the downward spiral continues.

If I were a betting man though, I’m sure when the evidence is fully revealed – that the shooter was probably subject to some undiagnosed mental health condition.

Again. Political violence is all wrong. It doesn’t matter the target, it doesn’t matter the motivations of the attacker. In a civilized society, we settle our differences at the ballot box; and if our side doesn’t win, we lick our wounds and try again next cycle.

Between elections, we’re supposed to put down the sword and learn to get along. It doesn’t mean that everyone and everything is happy and harmonious, it just means that we’re mature adults and we learn to agree to disagree.

But that’s not where we are at.

Look there is a problem with radicalization of our politics, but it is not an even split. There’s no actual equivalency, except to say that the radicals of the far left and the far right are very capable of violence. But it’s more complex than that.

The right could have had their moment here though. They could have been the side calling for calm, calling for dialogue, they could have been the ones dismissing all political violence as a means to settle differences; but instead they are giving into the most venomous voices of hate and revenge. Worse, the death of Charlie Kirk has allowed them to unmask their desire for fascism.

Instead, despite having suffered assassinations against liberal and left leaning politicians by well established right-wingers, it was the centre-left and moderates calling out political violence and for peaceful dialogue; and condemning the actions of this shooter – even if the “leftist” allegations are as yet unproven.

The extreme right controls the Republican Party. You’re free to prove me wrong, but you’re up against the record of your own President and both houses of congress who have rubber stamped everything promoted by Trump. What used to be the great value of America, the thing that folks around the world admired is the limited government version of administration. Where the President, while powerful, was not all-powerful. Every branch of government had checks and balances to constrain the temptation to rule like a dictator, but those guardrails are coming off – to the cheering crowds of the Trump MAGA people.

This was your moment to pull back the extremists on your side. You control the US government and Trump of all. Instead, you have chosen to lurch into a dark and dangerous future.

It will take generations to undo this damage. One can only hope that it isn’t too late.

my2bits