By Steve Levy
It seems everyone had an opinion after the tragic slaying of conservative leader Charlie Kirk at a Utah university.
Some partisans on the left tried to say this all stems from the vitriol emanating from the combative Donald Trump. Many on the right point out there is a pattern that flows from the left’s advocacy for violence that has now carried over into its actual implementation.
Then there was the appropriate approach by Utah’s governor.
He refrained from talking about the right or the left, and instead implored everyone, especially the young people in his state, to unite in peace and tolerance.
That was the correct message in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
President Trump appropriately gave an address from the Oval Office regarding this political violence. As a victim of it himself, he was totally justified in speaking out politically regarding the assaults occurring against public figures.
Had he left it there, it could’ve served as a good healing opportunity. But Trump‘s biggest flaw, despite his many wise policy proposals, is that he has consistently failed to be a unifier. Whether it was in the midst of COVID or after the George Floyd riots, Trump would almost always resort to this confrontational approach.
This is not to say that Joe Biden was any different. We can recall his speeches with a blood red background on the stage, castigating half of the American population as being right-wing terrorists.
We have to go back to the speeches of George W. Bush after 911 and Bill Clinton after the Oklahoma City bombings, to see what a unification speech is all about.
President Trump had many opportunities in the past to give unifying speeches. Even at his convention, just after his being shot, we were eagerly awaiting for him to open his arms to the half of America that had rejected him in the past. The initial part of his speech indicated he was heading there, but then it shifted back to the same old speeches, probably written by Stephen Miller, that made it an “us versus them” diatribe.
There is certainly a time for that and we will get into it later in this article. But there’s also a time for presidents to be uniters. Trump’s speech the other evening that lauded the virtues of Charlie Kirk was right on. But then he harped once again on the rhetoric that the left is stoking violence in our country.
Now, don’t get us wrong, we think Trump is right on that. It was simply the wrong time to bring it up as president. We should try to bring us together, as Utah’s governor did. That was presidential.
However, as the dust settles in the weeks ahead, we can and should indeed focus attention on what is happening in this country when it comes to political violence, and we must be honest about it.
There is a temptation for journalists to say it happens on both sides. However, it’s not a 50-50 proposition.
Yes, there are examples of attacks by a conservative against a liberal, as was the case with Nancy Pelosi‘s husband (though at times the assailant was both a radical of the left and the right). There was the bombing of the CDC building and the killing of a Minnesota Democratic legislator. And there was the January 6 riot.
The violence coming from the left, however, appears to be far more organized and persistent, and designed with a motive to sow chaos in order to fundamentally change the fabric of America into a more Marxist/socialist utopia.
It includes a well-funded and organized Antifa movement that deliberately uses the terms “Nazi” and “fascist” to describe the left’s political opposition. Repetitively claiming Donald Trump and Charlie Kirk are Nazis or fascists embeds within the most activated radicals that any measure, including murder, is justified to stop the next Hitler.
This vitriol that is spurred on by billions of dollars donated from the diabolical George Soros is coupled with indoctrination of our younger generation by Marxist-leaning professors within our university systems.
This, in turn, has led many on the left to believe that hurtful words are violence, and that violence is justified to stop hurtful words. This is not just anecdotal, but is actually proven through polls that confirm that the left has become more tolerant of violence in the political arena than the right.
When asked if violence is a suitable means to an end in bringing about one’s political philosophy, conservatives overwhelmingly said no. But, frighteningly, over half of Democrats surveyed said that shooting Donald Trump could be justified. Almost as many said that Elon Musk’s assasination could also be justified.
Marxist professors continuously preach critical race theory that views almost every issue through the prism of the white, Christian, heterosexual male as the oppressor of women, minorities, gays and all other “exploited” classes.
Our younger generation has been spoonfed this garbage. It is no wonder that they are far more likely to act on this type of violence. (See the violent response to the George Floyd murders as opposed to peaceful vigils after the Kirk murder.)
It helps explain why so many young people on the left were cheering Luigi Mangione as a cult hero for murdering a husband and father for no reason other than he was a healthcare executive. It is the same group that got on social media to cheer Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Governor Cox had a better tone than President Trump did in the immediate aftermath of the Kirk shooting, but down the road we will have to have the conversation as to how the Marxist element within our society is using the terms “Nazi” and “fascist” to make political assassinations the new normal.