My first reaction to the stunning assassination of Charlie Kirk was a very human one. Despite my views about Kirk, it hit hard that a young man was struck down in his prime. I thought of his family— a young widow with two small children. No deserves this—even someone whose political views are so far from mine. My next thought was about the effect on our Democracy. Political violence is dangerous, corrosive, and never leads to good things. I have my own strong view about Charlie Kirk, but thought it not the time and place to express them.
The vast majority of comments by Democratic elected officials were the same as mine. Senator Bernie Sanders said that "every American" must condemn what happened to Kirk, and emphasized the importance of being able to speak out “without worrying that they might be killed, injured or humiliated for expressing their political views. Senator Gallego said “Beyond politics Charlie Kirk was someone’s father, husband and son. Remember that first, before engaging in whataboutism. His family will never be the same. Political violence has to stop by all sides.”
I have social media feeds filled with Democratic activists and elected officials, and they generally had the same response in the immediate aftermath of the murder. In the days that followed, however, some—still a distinct minority—put out posts that criticized Kirk’s statement and records. All but a few of these posts still denounced political violence—the posts were simply responding to the growing adoration of Charlie Kirk.
The response—by organized social media lynch mobs and by the Trump Administration itself—to these critical posts has been troubling and dangerous.
First, there was an organized—and apparently successful effort—to ruin the lives of those who expressed any criticism of Charlie Kirk. This effort targeted not just the few those who applauded the killing, but even those who actually denounced the murder, but who also criticized Charlie Kirk. In essence, people are being fired for not being sufficiently mournful and adorning of Kirk. Sadly, large numbers of people are being fired by cowardly employers.
Yes, I get it. Conservative voices have been subject to cancel culture in the past, but I thought that was wrong as well. I have never supported the cancel culture of the left. No one should have their life ruined because of a callous or stupid statement. People say horrible stupid things that do not ultimately reflect their character. I was recently at the Truman library, and his early letters to his wife were filled with racist venom—yet he integrated the military. All of us say hurtful and stupid things during our lives, and we ought to cut each other some slack.
More importantly, as Bernie Sanders noted in discussing the Kirk murder, "a free and democratic society, which is what America is supposed to be about, depends upon the basic premise that people can speak out, organize and take part in public life without fear." Fear comes not only from violence, but from loss of employment or horrific harassment as well.
Much of the retaliation is by the federal government, and therefore violates the First Amendment. There is no “heartless” or “callous” exception to the First Amendment, and the posts that merely criticized Kirk’s work reflected core political speech protected by the First Amendment. Jennifer Rubin offers a good summary of the cancel culture within the federal government:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth . . . has taken to firing people for “glorifying” the conservative icon’s killing.” Restricting speech about a private citizen is unprecedented. And, unsurprisingly, it is not clear the fired individuals were “glorifying” anything. Certainly, criticizing Kirk’s views is not glorification. (I suspect the current Pentagon leadership does not understand the meaning of the word: “to praise, exalt.”)
It has not stopped there. Government Executive reported: “The Homeland Security Department has already taken action against at least three staffers: a Federal Emergency Management Agency employee was placed on administrative leave, Fox News reported, after he posted on Instagram that President Trump had ordered flags at half-staff ‘for the literal racist homophobe misogynist.’” That would be core First Amendment speech. (Incidentally, this is neither glorification nor inaccurate if you look at Kirk’s comments over the years.)
In addition, the U.S. Coast Guard, the Secret Service (whose employee said anyone mourning Kirk should delete him [from their social media] because Kirk “spewed hate and racism”) and the Veterans Affairs Department have either taken disciplinary action or threatened to take action against perceived glorifiers.
There has also been organized efforts to identify the employers of people who posted criticisms of Kirk (most often without applauding the murder in any way), and sadly cowardly employers are complying. The First Amendment does not apply to these private employers, but the harm to free speech is the same.
For me, the most gut retching example was the decision by Perkins Coie—where I was both an associate and partner for over a decade—to fire an attorney for the following post:
Charlie Kirk got famous as one of America’s leading spreaders of hatred, misinformation, and intolerance. The current political moment — where an extremist Supreme Court and feckless Republican Congress are enabling a Republican President to become a tyrant and building him modern-day Gestapo for assaulting black and brown folks — is a result of Charlie Kirk’s “contributions” to American media and politics.
That said, no one in this country should be murdered for their political speech. Wishing comfort to his wife and children in this difficult time.
Maybe this will be the event that gets MAGA to be serious about gun control. Dead school children haven’t been enough.
This post condemns the murder, but apparently is beyond the pale because it speaks ill of Charlie Kirk and did not express the appropriate degree of sorrow at the death. This is certainly not a post I would have made so soon after the murder, but I am embarrassed that Perkins Coie fired an attorney for expressing a political opinion. This was a cowardly act by the firm. They should be ashamed.
But there is an even more dangerous development after Kirk’s death. The Trump Administration is using the murder as an excuse to go after liberal organizations—including even mainstream organizations such as the Ford Foundation.
It began with Trump announcing that he had asked the Attorney General to bring charges under the the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act against “some of the people that you’ve been reading about that have been putting up millions and millions of dollars for agitation.” It was followed by public promises to attack liberal organizations by White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Mill and Vice President Vance.
On Monday, Vance vowed to dismantle institutions on the left: “We are going to go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence,” and named both the Ford Foundation and the Open Society as examples. The Ford Foundation? Apparently funding internships at the Nation Magazine qualifies as funding violence.
Stephen Miller went even further:
We are going to channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination, to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks. The organized doxxing campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification. Posting people’s addresses, combining that with messagings designed to trigger and insight violence. And the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence, it is a vast domestic terror movement. And with God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make American safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.
This is especially troubling since Miller told Sean Hannity on Fox News that “The Democrat Party is not a political party. It is a domestic extremist organization.”
This is not merely talk. The New York Times reports that plans are indeed underway to use the full force of the federal government to go after organizations:
Two senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal planning, said that cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives.
The goal, they said, was to categorize as domestic terrorism left-wing activity that they said led to violence, a continuation of existing efforts by federal agencies to try to punish liberal groups they have accused of funding or otherwise supporting violent protests. One tactic has been to target the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that are critical of Mr. Trump or conservatives.
All of this—the severe punishment of posts that don’t express appropriate mourning at the loss of Charlie Kirk, organizing efforts to go after left/liberal organizations on the premise that they are fomenting violence, and the dangerous rhetoric falsely accusing even the Democratic Party of being a terrorist organization—is dangerous and un-American.
So what do we do? We fight (peacefully!). We refuse to cower to the demands of an organized social media lynch mob. We don’t participate in cancel culture ourselves. We provide legal assistance to the federal employees fired for tweets. Organizations that are attacked by the new anti-left initiative need to fight back, and we all need to help them fight the fight.