An ugly fall

POTUS and conservative media outlets are fanning flames.

Photo credit: Gage Skimore

Here we go again. Right wing media blamed the left for the assassination of Charlie Kirk without a whit of evidence. Donald Trump blasted Democrats. Turns out, the killer is from a gun-happy, conservative family in Utah. We don’t know much about his ideology, but it’s probably not very coherent despite what people will claim.

The shooting of Kirk was horrific. Three months ago, former Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and her husband were gunned down in their home and Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were shot numerous times, miraculously surviving. It’s an escalation of political violence that brings flashbacks to the assassinations, bombings, and violence of the 1960s.

To hear Donald Trump and Republican tell it, the violence is all coming from the left. Trump blamed left-wing rhetoric for Kirk’s death and vowed to crack down. Several right-wing commentators called for retribution. Others even called for civil war.

Thom Tillis pushed back. When asked about his response to Kirk’s death, he said, “What I was really disgusted by yesterday is a couple of talking heads that sees this as an opportunity to say we’re at war so that they could get some of our conservative followers lathered up over this. It seems like a cheap, disgusting, awful way to pretend like you’re a leader of a conservative movement. And there were two in particular that I found particularly disgusting.”

Good on Tillis. We need people who see the opportunists spreading fear, especially when we don’t even know the motive for the murder. The guy who tried to shoot Trump was just a nut job, not a leftist.

Here in North Carolina, conservatives are somehow blaming Democrats for the terrible murder of Iryna Zarutska at the hands of a deranged man with a long criminal history. They claim soft-on-crime policies and liberal district attorneys didn’t hold the murderer accountable and left him to wander the streets.

I read that the prosecutor who handled the killer’s last few court cases is a Republican. In North Carolina, Republicans control the legislature and make the laws. If bad criminal justice policy is to blame, they deserve some of it. Personally, I think the death on that train was terrible tragedy that had little to with politics. It’s just an excuse for Republicans to push their anti-crime narrative.

If the killings and attempts are any evidence, the right is a far more violent world than the left. In addition to shootings the Minnesota, Trumpists have tried to kill the governor of Pennsylvania. It’s not Democrats walking around strapped or carrying assault weapons into fast food joints. It’s not the left calling for civil war.

I hope the rhetoric and emotions calm down. I’m not optimistic. The President of the United States and right-wing media outlets are fanning the flames. The right thrives on victimization as an excuse for excess. I expect there will be retribution for Kirk’s death no matter what the shooter’s intentions. It’s probably going to be an ugly fall.