The shocking assassination of Charlie Kirk on a college campus in Utah looked like the opposite of the Washington Post motto. It's "Democracy Dies in Sunlight." Thousands of people gathered joyfully to hear freedom of speech and saw it end with a bullet to the neck.
The dominant media reaction was horror, as it should be. When the Biden-boosting media can mourn a powerful MAGA voice, sounding the theme that civility should be embraced and not condemned, that instinct should be applauded.
It shouldn't be a difficult political stand to oppose assassinations and other political violence. It shouldn't be tough to oppose rioting and looting as a form of protest. These should be the firm consensus of any democratic system.
There's no one who's been involved in conservative politics who doesn't know about Kirk -- even if some of us never met him -- and there's no one who doesn't feel like this could have been the fate of any conservative speaker out in public.
Trump supporters can feel even more intensely what they felt last year when Trump was shot. When an entire political party and its media enablers compare Trump to Hitler and suggest he and his voters are an "existential threat" to democracy, we can imagine someone would want to be a hero and remove the "existential threat." The rhetoric from the Democrat/socialist side sounds like an encouragement of violence.
Worse than the encouraging was the celebrating -- the vicious people dancing in TikTok videos or celebrating on Bluesky about Kirk being "in Hell." Former Republican Matthew Dowd proclaimed on MSNBC that Kirk was responsible for his own shooting: "I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that's the environment we're in that, you can't stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have, and then saying these awful words, and not expect awful actions to take place."
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MSNBC showed an instinct of decency by ending his time as a paid contributor.
Conservatives could wonder how we would react en masse if this horrible shoe was on the other foot. If, for example, a leftist influencer like Hasan Piker -- someone who has said America deserved 9/11 and deserves a sequel -- was gunned down, would we celebrate? Would we say he had it coming?
This is the test. That's not to say Kirk and Piker are the same. I'm selecting an example where it would be tempting to sound all the wrong notes. Civility -- not to mention morality -- can be measured by whether you cheer for opposing political activists who come to a violent end.
The murder of Charlie Kirk is certainly a new low for the tolerance of free speech on our college campuses. ABC reporter Aaron Katersky claimed, "There were people on both sides debating whether he should even be allowed to bring his message, often loyal to the agenda of President Trump, to campus."
The irony never ends, that the champions of "democracy" cannot stand anyone taking a pro-Trump point of view on campus. An opposing viewpoint should not "even be allowed."
These are the same people who insisted Kirk was a villain because he "divided" people -- as if it's not divisive to support Hamas, or unlimited abortions, or gender-mutilating surgeries for children. Apparently, conservatives are "divisive" because they divide themselves away from the proper position.
The firm consensus in a democracy should be that taking "divisive" positions should not be punished by execution.
Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.
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