American presidents past and present were quick to respond to the murder of Charlie Kirk at a public event at Utah Valley University on September 10.
One president said: "There is no place in our country for this kind of violence. It must end now. Jill and I are praying for Charlie Kirk’s family and loved ones."
One president said: "We don’t yet know what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk, but this kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy. Michelle and I will be praying for Charlie’s family tonight, especially his wife Erika and their two young children."
One president didn't wait to confirm what motivated the person who shot and killed Charlie Kirk. He said: "For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today."
Trump blames "rhetoric" for "terrorism" — as long as the rhetoric is not his
Donald Trump, the president who declared that the "radical left's rhetoric" was directly responsible for the "terrorism" that took the life of Charlie Kirk, had a different response when two Minnesota politicians were shot, one fatally, in June.
Trump responded to the Minnesota shootings — which targeted Democrats — by saying such "horrific violence will not be tolerated." He did not, however, make any connection between his own rhetoric or the rhetoric of the "radical right" in inspiring "terrorism" in our country.
Within days of the fatal shootings of Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark and the shootings of Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Trump was attacking Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the 2024 Democratic candidate for Vice President, as a "terrible governor," an "incompetent person" and said calling him would be "a waste of time."
These comments came despite the fact that it was already known that the Minnesota terrorist, Vance Boelter, had dozens of apparent Democratic targets:
All of the politicians named in his writing were Democrats, including more than 45 state and federal officials in Minnesota... Elected leaders in Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin said they, too, were mentioned in his writings.
America's most unhinged conspiracy theorists were quick to recast the targeted political attack on Minnesota Democrats as the work of "leftists," with Elon Musk responding to the attacks by tweeting that "the far left is murderously violent."
In today's America, "terrorists" frequently invoke Trump's name as their leader
As LOLGOP wrote for The Farce, the political violence faced by Democrats in 2025 is a continuation of similar violence — many have called it "stochastic terrorism" — by Trump supporters in prior years:
In Trump’s first term, we had one of his fans sending what he hoped were bombs to dozens of Trump’s enemies. We had a mass shooter basically crib Trump’s anti-immigrant hate for a manifesto. We had a monster shoot up a synagogue as Trump was screaming about George Soros importing a caravan from Mexico.
In the second Trump regime, after the pardon of more than a hundred men who assaulted police on his behalf, Trump’s rhetoric has gone nuclear, burning hotter and faster while creating radioactive waste that cannot be disposed of in any ethical way.
As far back as May 2020, a nationwide review conducted by ABC News, "identified at least 54 criminal cases where Trump was invoked in direct connection with violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault."
In at least 12 cases, perpetrators hailed Trump during or in the immediate aftermath of their crime. In 18 cases, "perpetrators cheered or defended Trump while taunting or threatening others." In another 10, "Trump and his rhetoric were cited in court to explain a defendant's violent or threatening behavior."
Trump claimed he couldn't see the connection between his anti-immigrant rhetoric and the anti-immigrant screed posted online by the 21-year-old who opened fire at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas in 2019, killing 22 and injuring dozens of others.
"I think my rhetoric brings people together," Trump said at the time.
Right-wing extremists now say "stochastic terrorism" is real after all
Over the years, right-wing politicians and media have consistently rejected the allegations of "stochastic terrorism," adamantly denying that the violent rhetoric and dehumanizing language used by figures such as Trump and Tucker Carlson — and, before them, Bill O'Reilly — could be blamed for the violence inspired by their words.
The shooting of Charlie Kirk changed that in an instant. Left-wing rhetoric was to blame, said MAGA influencers, who insisted that war had been declared.
Kirk himself had built a career on inciting his followers to act, often violently, in the real world.
In 2021, Kirk boasted on Twitter that his organization Turning Point USA was sending "80-plus buses full of patriots to DC to fight for this president” at the "Stop the Steal" rally. After the insurrection turned deadly, he deleted the tweet.
In his comments last night, Trump claimed that "free speech" was one of the values Kirk had "lived and died" for. In reality, Kirk used his TPUSA organization to relentlessly target academics — especially academics of color — in an effort to intimidate and silence them explicitly for their speech.
As CNN reported as early as 2017, the then-24-year-old Kirk's "Professor Watchlist" website was leading to targeted harassment and death threats by online mobs that were forcing professors off campus. Wrote CNN:
Kirk says it’s not his website but the professors themselves who bear responsibility for the consequences of their words.
In 2023, in comments made a week after three children and three adults were killed at the Christian Covenant School in Nashville, Kirk himself said that some gun deaths were "worth it" in exchange for the preservation of Second Amendment rights, calling the trade-off "a prudent deal" and "rational."
But whereas right-wing commentators habitually respond to gun deaths in America by calling for "thoughts and prayers" and demanding that people do not "politicize" the tragedy, the shooting of Charlie Kirk prompted a different response.
Fox News host Jesse Watters kicked off The Five (the channel's 5pm ET show) by saying, "they are at war with us." He declared "we will avenge" Charlie the way he would want to be avenged. And then randomly threw in a mention of "trans shooters."
As The Guardian reports, the killing of Charlie Kirk even united arch-enemies Steve Bannon and Elon Musk in a shared desire for more bloodshed:
"We have to have steely resolve," said the conservative political strategist Steve Bannon on his show War Room. “Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country. We are.”
“If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die,” wrote Elon Musk on X.
Even as voices on the right were promoting violence, elected Democrats — despite their party being casually labeled "a domestic terror organization" by right-wing influencers — were, without exception, condemning the killing of Charlie Kirk and denouncing political violence in general.
Responsible voices urge Americans to reject violence as a response to speech
"In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in EVERY form," California Gov. Gavin Newsom wrote on X.
The literary and free speech organization PEN America said: "All Americans must reject violence as a response to speech. Ideas must be met with debate and not bullets."
Meanwhile, Trump and his allies are sending a different message. They're seizing on the death of Charlie Kirk as an opportunity to reunite the MAGA base following the division wrought by Trump's betrayal over Jeffrey Epstein.
When they could be denouncing violence, right-wing extremists are talking about vengeance.
When they could be toning down their rhetoric, they're pouring gasoline on the fire.
When they could be encouraging peace, they're promoting war.
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