It's tough to write this. When I first saw tweets about the attack on Charlie Kirk Wednesday afternoon, I was waiting for 5th period to start and students—mainly sophomores—to make their way into the classroom where I was substitute teaching. After taking roll, passing out worksheets and offering a few minutes of instruction into how to complete the work, I walked around the classroom, offering assistance, answering questions and was more than a little surprised to hear students asking me if I'd heard about "that guy who got shot." I didn't expect that this would pop up as news for these kids, but I realize that they were much more his audience than I was.

I'm not of Charlie Kirk's generation. I'd see him on Facebook reels and occasionally watch them. Same with YouTube. Longtime readers will know I'm not a MAGA fan, so Kirk's praise of, and political alliance with President Trump, tempered my enthusiasm for him. I've often said something along the lines of: "There's only one person who's 100% correct on every political question, and I shave his face every morning." But I suspect that Kirk and I would've agreed on 95% of the political, moral and social issues facing our country today.

There's no doubt that he had talent, compassion, and tolerance that I envy. My heart breaks for his wife and two young children; the youngest of which will likely have no memories of his father.

I've long recognized that my greatest personal failing is that I don't suffer fools gladly. As much as I aspire to be a happy warrior, I too often fail. Having recognized this fact about myself, I nonetheless have the good sense to SHUT THE **** UP when encountering situations that I know play into my particular character weakness. I appear to be part of a small minority.

Let's state what should be obvious: No one should be physically attacked—let alone murdered—because of their political, social or moral views. In the 24 hours since Kirk's death we've seen some of the worst from our politicians, pundits, the mainstream media and social media.

Mainstream media and talking heads

Matthew Dowd was once George W. Bush's chief campaign strategist. Like many successful political operatives of both parties, he parlayed his campaign experience into a second life as a political analyst; first for ABC News, and most recently for MSNBC. Like far too many Democrats and Republicans, he was broken by Trump and on-air displayed his moral brokenness to the world.

Dowd first opined that the shot that killed Kirk might have been a stray bullet, fired by one of his supporters in celebration.

This conjecture probably ranks in the Top 10 dumbest statements ever aired on cable TV—and there's some tough competition. Dowd followed that up with a suggestion that women who wear short skirts deserve to be raped, saying that Kirk was "one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions."

MSNBC would announce Dowd's firing several hours later on the X/Twitter account for public relations which has just over 24,000 followers. MSNBC's primary account, with more than 5 million followers made no mention of it.

Dowd apologized over on the left-wing cesspool known as BlueSky, but if there is any doubt that a lot of the political left in this country approved of Kirk's assassination, reading the responses to Dowd's apology should make short work of that.

The New Republic, the magazine once touted as the in-flight magazine of the Clinton administration, announced the news of Kirk's shooting this way (since deleted):

Only to complain a short time later that many on the "far right" were blaming the political left.

Thursday morning, The Wall Street Journal reported that the suspected murder weapon had been found and that ammunition loaded in that gun (a bolt-action hunting rifle), was "Engraved With Transgender, Antifascist Ideology."

On CNN, that news was translated into something different.

"Scrawled with cultural phrases." Once upon a time the news media sought to inform the public. Now, they do just the opposite to protect their political allies.

This morning, on "CBS Mornings" show, host Nate Burleson blamed GOP guests for Kirk's death.

Speaking of this tragedy, is this a moment for your party [the GOP] to reflect on political violence, is it a moment for us to think about the responsibility of our political leaders and their voices and what it does to the masses as they get lost in misinformation or disinformation that turns in and spills into political violence?

Chris Murphy's bad week and the hypocrisy of others

I shouldn't be surprised that political foes of Kirk would be quick to distance themselves from anything having to do with his murder. And much of the chatter from politicians on the left side of the aisle is substantively better than the "violence is wrong, but..." formulations that the likes of Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez used in the wake of the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

But for many of them, it would be better if they'd just shut their traps for a week or two.

The day before Kirk's assassination, Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy sat down for an interview and provided the following insight:

Republicans aren't going to save us. The mainstream media isn't going to save us. The Supreme Court isn't going to save us.

We will not stop Trump from destroying our democracy through de-escalatory politics. We need to fight fire with fire. pic.twitter.com/rxtxMetV9G

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) September 10, 2025

"We're in a war right now to save this country," says Murphy. Well, if we're in a war, then assassinating the other side's leaders is definitely on the table.

Yesterday, like too many on Twitter/X, Murphy again decided to wade into the fray.

Pay attention. Something dark might be coming.

The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent.

1/ Here's what's happening. https://t.co/UI8X9EabBR

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) September 14, 2025

This is a little hard to swallow when you were talking about being in a war five days earlier.

My governor, the odious Gavin Newsom, too tried to appear as a norm-following politician, referring to Kirk's murder as "disgusting, vile, and reprehensible" and that "we must reject political violence in EVERY form." [All caps in original.]

Problem: This was Newsom on a podcast 30 days earlier.

Newsom was just on a podcast making an open call for violence against the right
pic.twitter.com/97VfA2SAek https://t.co/n6RAkj4Nu0

— The Dank Knight 🦇 (@capeandcowell) September 10, 2025

I'm sure he meant that rhetorically, because I've got a feeling that Newsom hasn't actually thrown a punch in his life.

Russian expatriate and chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov reposted lefty reporter Julia Ioffe's concern that there might be some clapback against the left ("purges") and noting that "An arsonist will never let good kindling go to waste."

Charlie Kirk's assassination and who's committing political violence

I don't disagree that Trump uses incendiary rhetoric designed to rile up his base as well, but the both-sidesing here is a little tough to take. Over at The New York Times, lefty columnist Ezra Klein had an article that was, on balance, reasonably good. But his recitation of recent politically spurred violence was a bit of a mush.

• The plot to kidnap Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer was likely largely ginned up by the FBI. A few were convicted in the plot, some others were acquitted after juries decided the FBI entrapped them, and there were so many FBI informants that they could've fielded a baseball team.
• There's Jan. 6. Everything's Jan. 6, but it should be noted that the only person killed there was a protestor/rioter.
• The attack on Nancy Pelosi's husband was done by a nutjob—not a hyperpolitical Republican.
• The two attempted Trump assassinations appear to have been committed by hyperpolitical Democrats.
• The aforementioned murder of Brian Thompson was done by a guy who apparently had a unique smorgasbord of political views, but he's been lionized by the political left.
• Klein fails to mention the attempted assassination of Justice Brett Kavanaugh and his family at all, perpetrated by a pro-abortion extremist.
• Also not included was the attack by a Bernie Sanders campaign volunteer on the GOP's congressional baseball team that nearly resulted in Steve Scalise's death.
• The molotov cocktail attack on Gov. Josh Shapiro's home was committed by a pro-palestinian anti-Semite. Anti-Semitism is its own category of crime that is evidence of the horseshoe theory of political extremism.
• The attack on two young people in Washington, D.C., outside the Jewish Museum there doesn't make Klein's list. This one too falls under the anti-Semitism rubric, but that killer was also a member of the left-wing Party for Socialism and Liberation.
• Finally, Klein points to the murders of former Minnesota House speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband—and the attempted murders of two others. This was another case of a murder by a mentally ill nut; he believed he was acting on orders from the state's Democratic Gov. Tim Walz.

But the biggest difference between the amount of violence on the political left and political right isn't in these discrete, small-scale attacks. Unlike the orgasm of violence that followed in the wake of George Floyd's death, you didn't have riots across the country this past weekend. You didn't have riots destroying major cities. You didn't have businesses boarding up their storefronts in anticipation of widespread looting.

You're not getting your norms back anytime soon

I suspect one reason Joe Biden won the 2020 election was he promised a return to something that looked like our pre-Trump political norms. (For the record, those norms were not as polite and respectful of political differences that many might have remembered. Google "Joe Biden chains," "Romney cancer death," or "Paul Ryan wheelchair.") Biden didn't deliver. Throughout his presidency, he never reached out to other side. He never tried to compromise on anything to get bipartisan legislation passed. Instead, it was four years of warning of imminent totalitarianism, fascism and the end of our democracy if Democrats were not elected.

You can't tell your political allies that the other side are a bunch of Nazis who are going to go door-to-door jailing or executing you and not expect some mentally unstable acolytes to take matters into their own hands. That's what happened last Wednesday, and no one appears to be taking any concrete steps to lower the temperature—and that's something that can probably best be done simply by shutting up. If you know you can't help yourself and you must denounce Republicans as fascists and Nazis, then just shut your trap for a week.

Bob Newhart said it best: