By Victor Davis Hanson
In the past, I’ve talked about all the narratives that the Democratic Party elite and the Left in general have floated to sort of confuse us about who or what was responsible for the horrific shooting of Charlie Kirk.
We’ve been told there was no motive. That was crazy. Or we’ve been told that MAGA people did it. That was shot down very quickly when evidence proved otherwise. We were told that President Donald Trump himself was the catalyst. That was shot down. We were told it was a “love story” between the shooter and his trans boyfriend/girlfriend, and that explained it, the emotional turmoil. That was shot down.
And finally, I suggested to you that they came to what they most naturally felt comfortable with. They were gonna be unapologetic. They were going to attack Charlie Kirk as a disruptive racist, horrible human being, and then things happen. Meaning, he asked for it.
I didn’t quite anticipate what we saw the last week. When Rep. Ilhan Omar went on national TV and when she was asked about some of her comments, saying that he sort of deserved what he got, she doubled down on it, just as I’d expected. But I didn’t think she would do it to that degree of vehement. She said that he was a racist and that he, every day of his life, had been espousing hatred for groups, such as herself.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez tried to top that. And she said that—AOC came in and there’s sort of a rivalry, remember, among members of “the squad,” so she was obviously thinking: How can I gross out Ilhan Omar, by coming up with my own exegesis that is even more heartless and mean? And she did.
She basically said: I’m not gonna be in a position where I have to support Charlie Kirk’s legacy. Nobody was asking her to. They were just asking her, with other members of Congress, to express their sympathies for his family in a memorial vote of remembrance.
And then we, of course, had the ubiquitous Rep. Jasmine Crockett. She came on national news, and she said that she was really upset because the House had voted for this formal declaration of remembrance and commemoration for Charlie Kirk.
And then she said she was really angry because, in her view, there were only two Caucasians—I haven’t heard that word for the Russian caucus in a long time. It’s sort of been relegated to the dustbin. She’s used the word—Ilhan Omar used the word “dustbin.” But in this case, it’s apt. It kind of has the same fossilized, anachronistic sound as “Negro” does: Caucasian. But she used it, nevertheless. And she said, “Only two.” But like everything Jasmine Crockett says, you have to double-check because she is a chronic liar.
And in this case, there were 95 House members who voted not to sign that moment, that letter of commemoration and sympathy. Ninety-five chose not to sign it, and she says only two Caucasian.
That’s false because included in that group were the people who voted against it. And she may mean that applied to those who voted against it, but there was a greater number that never showed up, by intent, or voted “present.” You add them all together, Rep. Crockett, there were 118 House members who said they were not going to put their name or not show up or not vote on anything that expressed sympathy for the passing of Charlie Kirk. And in that 118, there were plenty of people of so-called white legacies.
But here’s the point. The House has a tradition, when major figures—political or in the media or in the popular culture—are gunned down, to express empathy.
One of the more horrific things that happened, recently, was in Minnesota, when the speaker of the Minnesota Legislature and her husband were gunned down by a—he was a private citizen, angry over abortion. And he shot both of them. And he also wounded another legislator and his spouse.
And the point I’m making is the House got together, almost immediately, and expressed their sympathy and outrage, and condemned that shooting. And 424-to-0 was the vote. So, every single Republican went on record saying this is atrocious, that a gunman shot these very liberal, Democratic legislators in the state of liberal Minnesota.
Nobody argued and said, “Well, the shooter was against abortion,” or, “Well, maybe he wasn’t right-wing because Gov. Tim Walz seemed to have appointed”—there was none of that. All that mattered was this was a horrific act. And everybody felt bad for the families, but more importantly, outraged that anybody would use violence for political purposes.
So, all people were trying to do after the death of Charlie Kirk, Rep. Crockett, Rep. Omar, Rep. Ocasio-Cortez, just show a little sympathy, just put away the politics. And you failed that basic human test. And you not only failed it, you did something even worse.
You kept saying that he was a racist and he was a racist every day, and he was mean-spirited, etc. And then, you did not give one shred of evidence. You didn’t produce a written document. And when we have seen people who have quoted him, they misquoted him. Why don’t you just watch his videos and see what he says when he encountered racists of either side? And he always opposed that.
But for all of these representatives that represent the new face of the Democratic Party, the more we get to know you, the more we’re not going to like you or support you.
First published in the Daily Signal
One Response
The left is struggling with its theory that speech is violence. This was useful in silencing debate, but the inevitable outcome is that if speech is violence, then violence is justified to protect oneself or agenda from violence. If the speech was effective in questioning your agenda or beliefs then it was harmful, dangerous violence hence justifying physical violence in return. If the defensive violence of shaming, doxxing, deplatforming and job loss is insufficient then physical violence is justified. Hence the determined effort to demonize Kirk as a rational for violence without addressing the root cause. If speech is violence open, honest debate is both impossible and dangerous. Just think how many times the Left has claimed that a different opinion is placing lives at risk and terrorizing people. If one looks closely at the commentary on Kirk you see a common pattern of “he attacked us’, he caused harm, he endangered the vulnerable all in essence justification for “defensive” violence. Free speech and debate cannot survive if the belief that speech is violence is not addressed.