On the same day conservative political activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, Fox News host Jesse Watters, as well as other right-wing commentators and Republican elected officials, immediately and publicly blamed Democrats for his death. Experts in American history and politics are sounding the alarm about the dangers of this rhetoric.
Kirk, an influential right-wing activist who founded conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, was shot and killed on Wednesday while speaking at Utah Valley University as a part of a tour dubbed “The American Comeback Tour.”
In a segment of “The Five” that aired on Fox News shortly after Kirk was pronounced dead, Watters listed off other examples of political violence in recent years before he looked at the camera. “They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us,” he said.
“And what are we going to do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate? And that’s the question we’re just going to have to ask ourselves,” he added. “Now, Charlie would want us to put as much pressure on these people as possible.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) said on Capitol Hill shortly after the shooting that “Democrats own this.”
Conservative podcast host Katie Miller, a former staffer for the so-called Department of Government Efficiency and wife of President Donald Trump’s adviser Stephen Miller, wrote on X at the time: “It’s a real treat to see all these Liberals condemn political violence now. You called us Hitler. You called us Nazis. You called us Racists. You have blood on your hands.”
And Trump shared a video message hours after the shooting, blaming the “radical left” for Kirk’s death. “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,” 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,” he continued.
“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now,” he added.
The search for a suspect continued into Thursday, after the Utah Department of Public Safety had detained and then later released two other individuals in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. On Friday, authorities announced that Utah officials had detained a man suspected of shooting Kirk. The suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, lived in southwest Utah.
As the investigation surrounding Kirk’s assassination continues to unfold, both Republican and Democratic officials have continued to strongly condemn the fatal shooting.
However, many prominent Republicans have nonetheless been pushing the notion that one party is “at war” with another. And it’s all “dangerous nonsense,” said Peter Loge, associate professor of media and public affairs, and director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at The George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs.
“No one party is at war with another party; Americans need to come together to solve shared problems,” Loge told HuffPost on Thursday.
“We are instead arguing about whether or not half of America is responsible for the brutal slaying of a political celebrity,” he continued before noting that Republican pundits and conservative elected officials are focused on trying to “score political points by pitting Americans against each other.”
He added, “That’s anti-Democratic and frankly un-American.”
Loge went on to say, “The solution to more violence isn’t yelling about more violence and blaming people for more violence.” He instead offered to “dial it back” and to take the opportunity to discuss various policies, such as gun control and policing.
“Do not use it as political opportunities to get on TV and make everything worse,” he said.
Experts warn that rhetoric blaming Democrats for Kirk’s death could lead to more political violence.
Loge warned that rhetoric suggesting politics is violent “means that politics becomes violent.”
He pointed out that Kirk was a political celebrity, not an elected official or policymaker, and that “most of politics, most of the time, is mostly boring.”
“If the politics most people see is violence and rage, politics will become more violent and rageful,” he said. And while Loge noted that violence has always been a part of politics, he thinks “elected officials, candidates, pundits and the press have an ethical obligation to highlight that violence happens, but [that] it is not the norm and it is unacceptable.”
Shawn Donahue, assistant professor of political science at the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences, also spoke to HuffPost on Thursday, and emphasized that there was not a lot of information known surrounding the investigation at the time.
Even still, Donahue pointed out that “when any political figure is targeted, there seems to be a rush for some to try to place blame. With social media and the internet, this seems to have accelerated.”
Donahue continued, “However, in all contexts in politics lately, politicians and media figures that engage in extreme rhetoric seem to get rewarded with more likes, clicks, and media appearances.”
The fear surrounding this extreme rhetoric is that it can “lead more to a cycle of political violence that could be difficult to contain if some hear these things and decide to act on them,” he added.
Donahue also stated that threats against elected officials and their families could deter people from running for office or continuing to serve in their roles.
Kevin Boyle, William Smith Mason professor of American history and history department chair at Northwestern University, said that anyone mainstreaming violent rhetoric, whether it’s from the left or the right, “risks mainstreaming violent actions.”
Boyle added, “That’s the terrible danger we’re facing.”
In the end, Loge warns that as long as people continue to blame the other side for political violence, “we’re going to see more of this,” explaining that “it’s going to get worse. And it might get much worse.”
Loge emphasized elsewhere that “people need to see that politics is mostly people trying to work together to solve problems,” before saying how politics is about “managing disagreement with persuasion, not guns. Guns are [a] failure of politics.”