A president who calls his opponents “scum” and “the enemy within,” who ordered the murder of 11 people in a boat headed for Trinidad then posted snuff photos of the hit, and who has repeatedly encouraged political violence in his name, is trying to catapult Charlie Kirk’s murder into a push for maximum state power. Deliberately stoking outrage on the right, Trump is riding Kirk’s death hard, using it to declare a crackdown against people who don’t support Trump politically.
Trump is specifically vowing to silence progressive voices who are critical of Kirk’s pro-gun, pro-violence, anti-diversity message, while he celebrates Kirk as an icon of free speech.
Setting aside the thick irony of celebrating Kirk’s free speech by shutting down voices against him, it is well settled legal precedent that government attempts to silence opposing political views violate the First Amendment. Although the six Trump-aligned justices on the Supreme Court have bent over backward to rule in Trump’s favor on the shadow docket, where legal analysis is conveniently optional, it would be nearly impossible — even for them — to contrive a free speech carve-out just for Trump.
SCOTUS allowing Trump to prohibit, regulate, repress, or punish anti-Kirk political speech would be a tacit admission that all six Republicans on the bench are in on Trump’s overthrow of the Constitution — an admission all but Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito would be loathe to make.
Trump loves to hate
Although the alleged shooter is now in custody, before his identity was known, Trump politicized the murder.
In a televised statement from the Oval Office, Trump told the nation his own political opponents were responsible for Kirk’s death, claiming:
“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, and it must stop right now. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and other political violence.”
Anyone outside the Fox News bubble knows that Trump himself is the Inciter-in-Chief, having encouraged violence against his perceived political “enemies” for years. He not only organized a violent physical attack against his own government on January 6, he pardoned everyone who committed violence on his behalf that day, including people convicted of other heinous crimes who violently attacked the police.
Whipping up his gun-toting base instead of urging healing, Trump is agitating about “radical left political violence,” to encourage his militant followers, including pardoned J6 rioters, to target them.
Trump claimed without evidence that Kirk was assassinated by “the radical left.” Again blind to his own rhetoric, Trump expounded, "It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree” — without acknowledging how he personally leads the effort to demonize anyone who doesn’t support him.
Trump, unlike any president before him, literally calls Democrats “the enemy within,” as he threatens to deploy the military against Democratic-run cities.
Unfit to serve
Trump’s Oval Office address deserves further reading. After praising pro-gun, anti-gay, anti-minority Kirk as the “ideal American,” Trump’s speech turned dangerously divisive. He said:
“This is a dark moment for America. On campuses nationwide, he championed his ideas with courage, logic, humor, and grace. It’s long past time for all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.
“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, and it must stop right now.
“My Administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country. From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania last year, which killed a husband and father, to the attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a healthcare executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died: the values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God.
“Charlie was the best of America, and the monster who attacked him was attacking our whole country…”
Trump did not mention Melissa and Mark Hortman, the Minnesota legislator and her husband who were murdered only two months ago.
He did not mention how in 2022 U.S. Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, was beaten with a hammer, nor Donald Trump Jr.’s sickening mockery of the attack.
He did not mention the 2020 plot to kidnap Michigan’s Governor Gretchen Witmer, any school shootings, the violence he encouraged on J6, nor any political violence executed on his behalf since he began encouraging political violence during his 2016 campaign rallies.
He failed to mention that last summer's assassination attempt against his own person was committed by a registered Republican.
Adult in the room
In direct contrast to Trump, Utah Governor Spencer Cox, the adult Republican in the room, is making a full-throated appeal for national healing.
Calling for forgiveness and national unity, Cox is doing what a responsible statesman does: trying to lower the political temperature in a deeply fraught moment.
Governor Cox said:
“We can return violence with violence, we can return hate with hate, and that’s the problem with political violence — it metastasizes. Because we can always point the finger at the other side. And at some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse.”
Cox’s plea for calm and healing is a welcome balm to Trump’s bombast, which he continued to deliver on Fox News on Friday morning.
Still trying to rachet up the division, even after the shooter, who comes from a pro-Trump MAGA family, was caught, Trump said: “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”
A Fox panelist pushed back, telling Trump: “We have radicals on the right as well. How do we fix this country?”
Trump said: “I'll tell you something that's gonna get me in trouble but I couldn't care less. The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem.”
Governor Cox, in contrast, put the blame on one person: The shooter.
No democracy can survive when political differences become death sentences. Even if Trump doesn’t understand this, his immediate advisers do. By directly encouraging right-wing online agitators to attack people on the left, Trump is supporting something, but it’s not democracy.
Blaming Democrats, Trump hopes to trigger retaliation against them. The demonization Trump encourages, which culminated in Kirk’s horrific murder, is pure trickle-down hatred. The spigot of bigotry is his own mouth, and he’s keeping it open to serve his own interests over the best interests of the country.
- Sabrina Haake is a columnist and 25+ year federal trial attorney specializing in 1st and 14th Amendment defense. Her Substack, The Haake Take, is free.
