Poetic Justice, Bah Humbug!

The murder of Charlie Kirk didn’t make me cry, or cheer. It left me shaking my head.

As much as I disagreed with his stands on gun violence, Black people, women’s and immigrants’ rights, I wonder if he, ironically, could represent one of the final beacons of freedom before a new Dark Ages snuffs out the democratic lights of the 21st Century.

Having grown up in America, I see alarming similarities with Israel, where I live now. Whether it’s Yankee liberals shushing  conservatives for not being woke enough, or Yankee conservatives badgering liberals who favor diversity over exceptionalism, the overall effect is the same. People from both sides have closed their minds, preferring to spout bromides, or unsupportable “facts,” rather than engage in reasoned, civil discourse.

As time passes, will someone like Kirk, whether on the far right or left, be able to speak out in the world’s so-called liberal democracies as Charlie did?

The 31-year-old political activist who quit college at 18 in order to spread conservative ideals around America was shot dead at a college in Utah on September 10th. Though a standard bearer of free speech, for better or worse, he was also  Othello’s Iago, adding his silver-tongued dictums to President Donald Trump’s MAGA echo chamber of hyperbole, conspiracy theories, personal insults, and lies.

Following the assassination of two Democratic politicians in Minnesota, President Trump declared that it would be “a waste of time” to reach out to the state’s Governor Tim Walz. “I think the governor of Minnesota is so whacked out. I’m not calling him,” said Trump, in part. “Uh, the guy doesn’t have a clue. He’s a mess. I could be nice and call, but why waste time?”

Why waste time. Exactly. Democracy is so dang inefficient.

Why waste time when you can rule by executive order? When you can trample thorny laws with the blessings of the US Supreme Court?  When you can mobilize the National Guard at your whim?

In Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu seems intent on prolonging an increasingly unpopular war for his own political and personal reasons rather than cut a deal with Hamas and stop the fighting. Generals and cabinet members who question him are vilified and replaced with loyalists à la Trump.

As for his push for judicial reform, it seems more like a power grab to snuff out political dissent.

A Palestinian-Bedouin activist gets shot by a messianic Jew in the West Bank, and the activist is labeled a terrorist, while the settler, filmed in the act of shooting, goes free. A rigorous finding of facts be damned. So inefficient when we’re at war.

As I write this, we don’t know who killed Charlie Kirk. We do know that Donald Trump adored him. Writing on his Truth Social platform, Trump labeled his ardent supporter and mega-fundraiser, “Great, and even Legendary,” adding: “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us.”

While my youthful days are past, I HAVE NEVER LOVED OR ADMIRED Charlie Kirk.

Still, I mourn the death of the man who said:“I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

If only Kirk had survived the shooting and went on to eschew the venom-filled example of Donald Trump who, after dodging an assassin’s bullet, continued to promote conspiracy theories and foment hate.

If only Kirk had survived and gone on to emulate George Wallace, the long-serving governor of Alabama who opposed civil rights back in the day and supported “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”

While Wallace was running for president in 1975, a man shot him at a campaign rally.  Wallace survived, but he spent the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He also later apologized to Black civil rights leaders for his racist opposition to desegregation, admitting to have sought power and glory when what he truly needed to do was seek love and forgiveness.

If only Charlie Kirk had survived the Utah shooting and later apologized to the victims of gun violence, the women he marginalized, the immigrants he demeaned. As things stand, his martyrdom may spur the MAGA faithful to endorse even more strongly Donald Trump’s assault on Superman’s cherished “truth, justice and the American way.”

For those who hated Kirk, the best they have come up with is that his murder for the sake of the 2nd Amendment represents poetic justice.

I stand in the camp that deems such poetic justice, whether it be in America or Israel, nothing more than a hill of beans.