Political violence in America is nothing new. The assassinations of Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, and Kennedy changed the course of the nation. Teddy Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan were both targeted by deranged gunmen who heard voices in their heads. More recently, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump, the targeted killing of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her family, the cold-blooded murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson allegedly by Luigi Mangione, and the murder of two children and wounding of 18 others who were praying in a Catholic church mark the entrance of a dark new cycle of politically motivated violence not seen since the Sixties. The horrific murder of Charlie Kirk, the most influential young Republican of his generation, is the latest entry in this terrifying era.
We’ve reached this tragic inflection point step by dismal step. There are myriad reasons for the drift to extremes by far too many of our fellow citizens. The hyper-partisan era ushered in during the Nineties eroded all sense of cooperation or shared mission of governance; the disputed 2000 election destroyed all trust between the two parties. The never-ending War on Terror, the 2008 financial crisis, and the opioid epidemic hollowed out too much of the country and wrecked too many lives. The Covid-19 pandemic created fissures that have never healed. Politicians focus on becoming performance artists to get on the cable news shows over the hard task of governing and writing legislation and finding compromise.
Social media fractured whatever remained of the monoculture, dividing us further and leading to the splintering of tastes and increased tribalism. No one was ever rewarded for being measured on Twitter. Nuance and thoughtfulness are a liability, not a strength, on the platforms. Extremes are commoditized.
Kirk was a bright and ambitious partisan warrior. He was a huge figure on the right and harnessed a massive following of young Americans, mostly men, who chafed against the leftism and identity politics of the Obama era and embraced conservative Christian values. His rise coincided with the Trump era, and he was the avatar of the MAGA youth movement. His stock was never higher than at the time of his murder. He would have been a force in our culture for decades to come. His murder was a despicable, cowardly, and monstrous act.
In the immediate aftermath online, there were calls for civil war and retribution on the right and grotesque gloating on the left. The constant replaying of the assassination on X was like watching a snuff film in real time. Combined with the awful videos of the bloody and senseless murder of a Ukrainian woman on a train by a mentally disturbed man with a long criminal history, the platform plays a big role in amping up anxiety and tension across the world.
Eventually, the violence of the 1960s burned out and the fallout from Watergate led to much of the malaise of the 1970s. One of the great neo-noir films of the time, Night Moves, captures the spirit of the decade. Gene Hackman’s cynical private eye is watching a football game, and when his wife asks him who is winning, he answers: “Nobody. One side is just losing a little slower than the other.”
Even slowly losing would be better than the violence and intolerance we are seeing across every spectrum of our society.
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The country is circling the abyss. It’s up to us to pull ourselves out of it. If we can.
From Rolling Stone US
