They called him a Nazi and now he’s gone

And now, he’s gone.

How did we let it get this far? The answer is staring us in the face. For years, the mainstream media and the far-left have thrown gasoline on the fire, calling conservatives “Nazis” and “fascists” simply for daring to disagree. When you tell people often enough that someone is the next Hitler, you don’t need to order them to commit violence — you’ve already planted the seed.  Young people who have very little life experience and even less perspective are ripe for action and over reaction.

The fact that a 22-year-old took the life of Charlie Kirk cannot be seen in isolation. A young man like this was clearly manipulated by older, more experienced operators. These operators know full well the impact of these manipulations and are therefore directly responsible.

The tools that enabled this manipulation are obvious: social media coupled with the drumbeat of extremist accusations.

First, the moral bankruptcy of those who deliberately radicalize young people, pushing them toward violence.

Second, the negligence of the platforms themselves. The people who hold the keys to social media have refused to recognize the danger within their own creations.

Unrestricted freedom is not the same as true liberty. Take driving a car as an example: A car is a wonderful tool — but only because there are rules of the road. Social media has handed millions of people a car without any streets, signs, or stoplights. The result is chaos, extremism, and, in this case, tragedy.

We now face an army of disaffected, angry, and powerless young people who are being cynically exploited. That pipeline of radicalization must end — before more lives are destroyed.

We’ll hear plenty of pundits lecture about “extremism on both sides.” The interesting thing about people is they have almost an evolutionary desire to make things fall into symmetrical neat boxes. The dirty little secret is that that is rarely ever how the world works. There is no equivalence here. Yes, there are fringe voices on the right, and yes they are dangerous and scary, but they are not the ones driving the national conversation, whereas mainstream democrats and media do engage in this type of rhetoric nonstop.  No one ever accused Joe Biden of being like Stalin or Pol Pot, Meanwhile, the mainstream left has normalized the demonization of anyone who challenges its narrative. Mr. Kirk was called a fascist and a Nazi regularly.  Look no further than what people are posting right now, in this moment, on TikTok and on other platforms.   It is therefore logical that a well-intentioned person who believes the rhetoric and has the ability to do something about it would act in that type of way.  Ask yourself, if you had the ability to kill Hitler in 1939 (knowing what the Nazis would do), would you kill him?

Instead of taking a measure of responsibility in order to truly calm things down, leaders engage in the blame game.  Governor Pritzker of Illinois recently commented: “I will say that political violence unfortunately has been ratcheting up in this country … And I would just say, it’s got to stop, and I think there are people who are fomenting it in this country. I think the president’s rhetoric often foments it. We’ve seen the January 6th rioters who clearly have tripped a new era of political violence, and the president, what did he do? He pardoned them. I mea,n what kind of signal does that send to people who want to perpetrate political violence? Not a good one.” This type of shirking of responsibility is not only irresponsible but virtually guarantees that this violence will continue on both sides.

Charlie Kirk’s death will go down as a stain on America’s history. This is a nightmare that nobody can wake up from. As long as media and political leaders refuse to take responsibility for poisoning the well of public debate, there is no chance of realizing a silver lining in this tragedy. Until they stop portraying half the country as monsters, we are on a dangerous path toward even darker days.

Charlie Kirk was one of the good guys. He fought not with hatred but with respect and integrity. There is no doubt that America is worse off without him.