The United States is currently going through a lot of soul-searching. On 10 September, Charlie Kirk, one of the most important figures of the Make America Great Again movement and a key conservative voice in the current political setup, was assassinated at Utah Valley University.
Kirk was an admirer of President Trump since 2016. After Trump returned to power in January this year, Kirk’s advice was often sought, even though he was not formally a part of the administration. After his assassination, “as a mark of respect for the memory of Charlie Kirk”, Trump issued an order that “the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff” at all federal buildings and military posts, in the US and abroad.
But how did 31-year-old Kirk become so important, rising to such heights of political influence at such a young age?
In 2012, as a mere 18-year-old, he dropped out of college and founded an organisation, Turning Point USA. Its primary function was to create a conservative base especially in American colleges. Kirk’s argument was that colleges had become a citadel of liberal and Left-wing viewpoints, and Gen Z, brainwashed by professors, was plunging headlong into a Left-liberal swamp. To change that, Turning Point USA would sponsor Kirk’s speaking tours in colleges, where he would ‘debate’ with liberal college students, demonstrating to them the vacuity of their positions and displaying the worth of conservatism.
As his influence grew, his own positions became increasingly Right-wing, including belief in Christian roots of America as a nation, endorsement of the traditional family structure with women seen primarily as mothers and daughters, and opposition to non-White immigration, abortion, gun control, gay marriage, and transgender rights. Democrat-controlled cities had to be especially cleaned up, according to Kirk, as Democrats had an alliance with forces of crime and disorder.
These positions are also at the core of the MAGA movement. In 2021, for example, JD Vance, now America’s Vice President, gave a speech titled ‘Universities are the enemy’. The MAGA movement has viewed colleges and universities as America’s preeminent institutions teaching non-American values, corrupting the morals of younger Americans, and sapping the strength of America as a nation.
No stranger to violence
Why is Kirk’s assassination leading to soul-searching in many, if not all, circles?
The key issue is whether violence should be allowed to settle ideological differences. In a democracy, differences are settled through the ballot box, legislatures, and courts. Violence is not the way to resolve ideological divergence.
But the recourse to violence in the US is, in part, a reflection of some key features of American polity. America’s constitutional commitment to free speech is close to absolute, due to which exceedingly inflammatory things can be said about people and communities. In many societies, such speech would be banned, but the First Amendment to the United States Constitution protects it. In other words, Americans have a constitutional right to be harsh and denigrating, if they honestly feel that way.
While the First Amendment allows what many would find to be hurtful and disparaging speech, the Second Amendment makes owning a gun legally easier than in almost any society in the world. The two together can explode at certain junctures of politics and history. Guns have been used in attempts to settle differences, when high passions get attached to such differences.
Historically, America has been no stranger to violence. Perhaps the most violent period of US history was in the so-called Jim Crow era, 1880-1910 in particular, when legally enforced segregation and vigilante violence, especially lynchings, led to Black subordination and White supremacy in the American south.
But the current phase of violence is different. It is political violence aimed at those who exercise power, either via appointed or elected positions, or via influence over millions through movements. In the last ten years, there have been mob attacks on legislatures, including the US Capitol riots of 6 January 2021; attempts to assassinate a presidential candidate, a Supreme Court justice, a Congressman; arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor’s mansion; an attempt to kidnap the Michigan Governor; violent entry into the home of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, followed by an attack on her husband; killing of a state legislator in Minnesota. Both Democrats and Republicans have been targeted.
This is reminding scholars and observers of the 1960s, when four major US political figures were assassinated — President John F Kennedy and his brother, Robert F Kennedy, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King. America returned to comparative peace by the mid-1970s.
The 1960s were also called a polarised decade when, overcoming stiff resistance from the White community of the south, Washington brought legal and political equality to the Black community. The Vietnam War further divided America. But most observers believe that the degree of polarisation today is much greater. The political elite is so deeply divided that bridges may be much harder to build.
Also read: Charlie Kirk’s killing has America at war with itself. Foreigners & visa-seekers ‘warned’
A choice
Is the Kirk assassination an attack on the Right by what President Trump calls “the lunatic radical left”, or is it something larger and bigger?
The words of Utah Governor Spencer Cox are worthy of attention. Kirk’s assassination, he said, is “much bigger than an attack on an individual”. Rather, “it is an attack on the American experiment. It is an attack on our ideals. We can return violence with fire and violence. We can return hate with hate. And that is the problem with political violence”.
He added, “At some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or it is going to get much worse. History will dictate if this is a turning point for our country. To my young friends out there, you are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage. But we can choose a different path. Every single one of us gets to choose right now.”
A Cox-like approach can save America from collapsing deeper into a violent quagmire. Will America go for an off ramp, or seek to crush political opponents?
Ashutosh Varshney is Sol Goldman Professor of International Studies and the Social Sciences and Professor of Political Science at Brown University. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)
Come on the print, you can do better…..
They (the American right) have made Charlie Kirk into some kind of idol and are even trying to equate him with Martin Luther King Jr. Also, he has deliberately said very controversial stuff (which has been glossed over in this article). Yes, there are lots of problems with the American left, but trying to blindly pin Charlie’s murder on them is a terrible idea.
I would also like to quote Spencer Cox’s exact words after the killer was apprehended. “For the last 33 hours, I had been praying that this person (who murdered Charlie Kirk) was from another country. That he was not one of us because we are not like that. But it was one of us.”.
Kirk was as Ezra Klein points out in NYT doing politics the right way. However, Ezra‘s article found dramatic opposition from democratic supporters. Kirk‘s way of promoting free speech might be at least momentarily, the biggest casualty of his passing. It was a phenomenon across universities that students whether they were defeated in debates by Kirk or not that they had come to Openly talk about issues that were previously not OK to talk about the Democrat camp had made universities into echo chambers, where only Democrat views where branded as good and truly American while other views were sullied as extreme right wing and bad for America and not worthy of own debates. Kirk single-handedly changed that I made conservative politics, cool on campuses. Once again he may have in fact begun to eclipse Trump as a potential young conservative voice that might eventually shift the balance of power within the Republican party itself. He supposed reluctance on American blind support for Israel could have been another reason why he was beginning to be seen as a threat. At the moment, when transgender ism had already been pushed aside as a priority by the trumpet administration there was no immediate provocation for assassinating Charlie Kirk. Yet he was sought out by a seemingly left oriented young man with a person stake in transgender freedom. We might never know what the truth behind all this really is.
Kirk had started questioning unflinching American support to Israel – and paid the ultimate price. MAGA cannot be unless they eschew slavish support to the genocidal zionists.