Although some have taken a conciliatory tone following the horrific assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, others have done everything they can to raise the temperature to a feverish boil that’s unlike anything we’ve seen in over 50 years. Too many people are using the term “war” and evoking the American Civil War that got his humble spirit killed back in 1863. It’s hard to know if there was an alternative back then; the country had been at odds with itself over slavery since its inception and finally reached the breaking point. As Abraham Lincoln said, “A house divided cannot stand.” But today we can still avoid a similar calamity.
“There is an ideology that has steadily been growing in this country which hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved. It is an ideology at war with family and nature. It is envious, malicious, and soulless. It is an ideology that looks upon the perfect family with bitter rage while embracing the serial criminal with tender warmth. Its adherents organize constantly to tear down and destroy every mark of grace and beauty while lifting up everything monstrous and foul. It is an ideology that leads, always, inevitably and willfully, to violence—violence against those [who] uphold order, who uphold faith, who uphold family, who uphold all that is noble and virtuous in this world. It is an ideology whose one unifying thread is the insatiable thirst for destruction.”
-Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff
Well, a charming sentiment from the ever-charming Mr. Miller. Was it really necessary for some on the right to call the Democratic Party “a domestic terror organization” and go so far as to declare “WAR”? Who knows what such hyperbole will inspire among their throngs of radicalized followers. There have already been bomb threats against Democratic politicians, especially Black politicians, as well as Black colleges and universities. It’s no accident that Blacks and other minorities are the MAGA right’s first targets, just as they were often Kirk’s targets, I’m sorry to say.
The Way Trump and the MAGA-Right Talk About Political Violence, You’d Think January 6th Never Happened.
Not surprisingly, no one bears more responsibility for turning up the heat than President Trump. “The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy,” he declared on Fox News, his favorite platform. He vowed to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity, and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.” (Lately, of course, judges seem preoccupied with overturning Trump’s illegal executive orders, not bringing order to the country.) Needless to say, the president’s contention that the perpetrators of violence are entirely on the left is a preposterous falsehood.
Don’t You Think Leaders Schumer and Jeffries Should Be Defending the Democratic Party a Tad More Vigorously?
The president also claimed that right-wing violence was motivated solely by crime and criminal illegal aliens and that solving those problems would eliminate the threat. It’s as if he’s desperate to promote his own drubbed up anti-crime agenda that caters to the rabid xenophobia and paranoia of his MAGA base. No, Mr. President, the right is spurred to violence by a multitude of Trump-fed grievances that seem to center on the “Great Replacement Theory,” which was rigorously championed by Charlie Kirk. Kirk should be commended for supporting free speech and open dialogue, but we shouldn’t forget that he also supported some pretty awful ideas along the way.
So, getting back to that turbulent and fateful year of 1860, when I was a first classman at West Point. I prided myself on always being diplomatic and getting along with both Northerners and Southerners alike; it’s even been said I was the most well-liked cadet in the corps. I hated the Cotton Kingdom and knew firsthand that slavery was evil, but I mistakenly thought the war would be over almost as soon as it started, and like most of the Southern cadets, I resigned from the corps before getting my diploma and went off to fight, thus beginning what I like to call “my picaresque journey to destruction.” So hey, people, I urge you to think long and hard before you follow a similar course.