There are wildly provocative statements coming from both the “left” and the “right” in the U.S. around the Charlie Kirk murder, both from known political figures, as well as the so-called blogosphere, which are in turn being magnified by extensive press and social media coverage.
Financial Times, for example, features comments by Elon Musk on his X account that “the Left is the party of murder"—a quote which is also covered by numerous other media. “Democrats own what happened today,” Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican, told reporters on Sept. 10. Katie Miller, the influencer and wife of Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, wrote on X: “You called us Hitler. You called us Nazis. You called us Racists. You have blood on your hands.” They also quote Matt Forney, whom they describe as “a rightwing writer and blogger…. He said Democratic politicians should be arrested and the party banned.” The only quotes they provide from him are: “It is time for a complete crackdown on the left.… Charlie Kirk being assassinated is the American Reichstag Fire.”
FT pins the blame for all of this on Trump, saying that he “fueled such fears in a television address on Wednesday night in which he pinned the activist’s murder on the left—before the shooter had been identified, let alone his or her motives.” More to the point, in that speech Trump failed to attack violence from both the left and the right—e.g., the murder of the Democratic Speaker of the Minnesota House—which might have helped to defuse the strategy of tension. FT quotes Donald Moynihan, a professor of public policy at the University of Michigan: “I worry that the White House has missed an opportunity by framing this in a one-sided way, presenting threats as only coming from the left,” he said. “The worst-case scenario is … that the murder of Kirk is used to justify a government crackdown on protected speech.”
