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Once unleashed, political violence comes for everyone.
It doesn’t know what side of the aisle you’re on or what your ideology might be, who your allies are or what your vision for the future includes. It doesn’t know what brand of media you consume or how many ardent followers you have.
Political violence doesn’t know and doesn’t care about such things.
Like an infectious disease, it simply – and efficiently – finds more and more victims. It isn’t picky about who they are.
Whatever his beliefs, the killing of Charlie Kirk at a campus event in Utah on Wednesday is tragic. Also tragic is how partisan, violent and ugly much of the immediate reaction was, mostly on the right. Nancy Mace, a Republican congressperson from South Carolina, told a gathering of reporters that “Democrats own what happened today.” She offered no evidence, only partisan vitriol.
On Fox News, one of the most prominent rightwing media figures, Jesse Watters, sought reprisal.
“We’re gonna avenge Charlie’s death,” Watters told the on-air audience. “Everybody’s accountable. And we’re watching … the politicians, the media and all these rats out there.”
Granted that, on the left, some were too quick to say, in essence, “you reap what you sow,” but most prominent progressives – from Barack Obama to Mehdi Hasan – expressed sympathy and sadness. Some did so while acknowledging political differences, but emphasizing that those didn’t matter in this moment.
There was plenty of blame and talk about accountability. But we already know that, when it comes to gun violence, there will be no real change, no real accountability. Because that’s hard, bipartisan work, and too much of America – deeply entrenched in tribal politics and egged on by a president who glories in violent rhetoric – is not interested.
Gun “rights” – and gun-industry money – rule the day.
Adding to the ugliness was the way social media revved its engines and did what it always does – made it worse.
“The degree to which the algorithm on this platform is pushing video of the shooting is incredibly disturbing,” wrote CNN’s Abby Phillip on X. “There has to be some human that can turn the dial down in a situation like this.”
That gun violence truly is an epidemic in America couldn’t have been clearer than when media coverage of Kirk’s assassination was interrupted by yet another school shooting, this one in Evergreen, Colorado.
The Denver TV station KDVR offered a heartbreaking interview with a student who said he was new to the region.
“I only moved here a few months ago, and I didn’t think this would happen so soon.”
Those two words – so soon – speak volumes. School kids fully expect the life-changing trauma; they’re only hoping it might take a while to come to them.
Because, as noted, it comes to everyone.
Gabrielle Giffords, a former Democratic congressperson from Arizona, was shot and suffered a severe brain injury in 2012 and is now a passionate advocate for preventing gun violence. Admirable and dedicated as she is, her posted reaction seemed curious, although it surely was meant to offer some hope in a dark moment.
“Democratic societies will always have political disagreements,” she wrote, “but we must never allow America to become a country that confronts those disagreements with violence.”
But, as Giffords knows all too well, we already have allowed it. And America already is that country.
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Margaret Sullivan is a Guardian US columnist writing on media, politics and culture
