If you are of my vintage—mid-century modern—you may recall an Irish folk singer from back in the day named Donovan. If you cannot quite place him, he often sat on a prayer rug (or was it a sheepskin?), without shoes (at least in my memory), wearing flowy hippie attire, as he strummed his guitar and sang. One of his songs was called “Happiness Runs,” the first line of which was, “Happiness runs in a circular motion.” Like many of his songs, it was catchy, new-agey, and a little inane.
While it may be possible that happiness runs in a circular motion—whatever that means—it is much more likely that violence, particularly political violence, runs in a circular motion, too. Much like gang violence, political violence never ends. Tit-for-tat only leads to more tit-for-tat. Long after the antagonists have forgotten the contours of the original dispute, the retribution and payback loop continues ad infinitum.
It is therefore not terribly surprising that the only quote from the Bible with which Donald Trump is familiar is, “An eye for an eye.” After all, by his own admission, he is the “revenge” and “retribution” president.
And the revenge and retribution always seem to center on a redress of fake grievances. The political violence of January 6, 2020, conducted by his MAGA militia, was predicated on the lie that “deep state” Democrats had “rigged” the election, forgetting, perhaps, that the inflation which began to skyrocket under his watch long before the COVID crisis; the world-wide pandemic that was intentionally underplayed and minimized by a man who was—and still is—incapable of ever telling the truth; his failure to protect the reproductive rights of American women; paying hush money to porn stars; unleashing the United States military on Black Lives Matter protesters following the murder of George Floyd; and shooting off his mouth on TV all day, every day led to his defeat.
Trump lost the 2020 election for one reason, and one reason only: A majority of Americans were sick of his lies, his incompetence, his complete lack of character, and his sheer stupidity. And then came the Big Lie that resulted in a violent insurrection fomented by none other than… him.
So, with all of the above as a backdrop, let’s talk about the murder of Charlie Kirk who, frankly, I had never heard of until I saw a video clip from his “Turning Point USA” conference a year or two ago. Mr. Kirk was a MAGA gadfly on the far right, hosting debate throwdowns on college campuses across America. Fans and critics alike credited him with MAGAfying the youth vote that propelled a man labeled by historians as “the worst president in American history” back to the White House.
The wit and wisdom of Charlie Kirk has been well documented, since the guy was nothing if not a grandstander, trotting across stages all over the country to make the following assertions:
Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’
MLK was awful … We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.
Stoning gay people is God’s perfect law.
There’s a direct connection to inflation and the trans issue.
Birth control really screws up female brains … it creates very angry and bitter young ladies and young women.
It should be legal to burn a rainbow or BLM [Black Lives Matter] flag in public. [Writer’s note: it is legal, already, to burn flags in public, since flag burning is characterized as “free speech.” It is disrespectful and distressing, but so far, not illegal.]
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor.
Gun control, like vaccines and masks, is focused on making people feel ‘safe’ by taking freedoms away from others.
We need to be very clear that you’re not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment.
One wonders if Charlie Kirk ever imagined that he would be one of the justifiable gun deaths that were necessary to protect the Second Amendment rights of American citizens. I do not personally share that perspective. I believe that it is a mistake to give guns to crazy people, and Charlie Kirk’s killer was crazy.
Right now, there is a lot of conjecture about what the killer’s motives, political affiliations, and social relationships were. Evidently, his parents were staunch Trump Republicans, and Utah can hardly be conceived of as a hotbed of liberalism. He was registered as an unaffiliated voter but never actually voted in any election. He was attending a technical college to become an electrician. He may be gay, and he had a roommate who is alleged to have been transitioning.
In the aftermath of the shooting, the rage and revenge cycle kicked into high gear. Somehow, Donald Trump, Steven Miller, Pam Bondi, J.D. Vance, Kash Patel, and every other member of the Trump administration found a way to blame the murder on “radical lunatic leftists” and Democrats and threatened to shut down organizations that they deem too liberal.
Trump’s MAGA muse, Laura Loomer, asserted the following:
It’s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund & prosecute every single leftist organization. We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all. The left is a national security threat. [Emphasis added.]
Stephen Miller, Trump’s own version of Hitler’s Heinrich Himmler, added:
The fate of our children, our society, our civilization hinges on…. [shutting down this] wicked ideology.
And the Big Cheese himself says, “… radical Left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”
The person who murdered Charlie Kirk was not a radical leftist Democrat—he was an unaffiliated, non-voting 22-year-old who was sick of being inundated by Charlie Kirk’s hate speech, a sizable portion of which was directed at gay and trans individuals. While that in no way justifies or excuses the killer’s behavior, he clearly snapped. And in a country that values the right of crazy people to buy firearms, he climbed onto a rooftop and killed Charlie Kirk.
The person who shot at Donald Trump in Butler, Pa., during the summer of 2024 was not a Democrat—he was a mentally ill registered Republican who had a rifle and an opportunity.
The person who killed a Minnesota legislator and her husband this past June was not a Democrat—he was a registered Republican and a doomsday-level nut job who had a gripe and a gun.
The dude who tried to kill Paul Pelosi with a hammer was a far-right Trump supporter.
Sense a theme developing here? The fact of the matter is that almost every act of political violence committed in America within the past 10 years has been perpetrated either by unaffiliated voters or by right-wing MAGA Republicans.
I used to be a Democrat, and I know this with absolute certainty: I cannot identify a single Democrat at present who endorses violence as a tool for social or political change. Democrats are good at protesting peacefully and nonviolently. Democrats believe in sensible gun control—like not placing rifles in the hands of crazy people.
Democrats believe in voting rights, human rights, women’s rights, and civil rights. Democrats believe that no group of Americans should have fewer rights than any other group. Democrats believe in the social contract—that our behaviors should not endanger our neighbors, even those with whom we deeply disagree.
Those sentiments are not radical, they are not dangerous, and they are not delusional. They are not the sentiments of a “lunatic left.” Those are the exact values that most parents hope to instill in their children.
Democrats believe in the Constitution and the rule of law, even as Donald Trump, abetted by the conservative justices of the Supreme Court, places himself not just above it, but beyond it.
Democrats believe in helping the less fortunate, whether the less fortunate live in the United States or elsewhere. Democrats believe in the American experiment. Democrats value the presence of hardworking immigrants, because all of us, apart from indigenous Americans, are descended from hardworking immigrants who came to these shores from somewhere else to forge better lives in a free country.
Exactly which of those sentiments constitute hate speech? Exactly which of those sentiments are radical, or lunatic, or “left”? The last time I checked, those are just basic human—and, formerly, American—values.
I used to believe that most Republicans shared those sentiments, as well. I did not know that Trumpian conservatism would eventually devolve into the vicious persecution of folks who just are not white enough, just not male enough, just not straight enough, or just not subservient enough. I used to think that Republicans cared about truth and facts and history and academic freedom and free trade. I thought they cared about small government and balancing the budget and the Constitution. And I am confident that there is an entire cadre of Republicans who still do, but they are also being savaged and strangled by the Trump Retribution Machine.
We are stewing in a cauldron of lies, distortions, and government-sponsored violence against its own citizens. The only hate speech that I have noted for quite some time has come directly from Donald Trump and the MAGA wing of the Republican Party. Feel free to peruse the social media feeds of Donald Trump and his advisors. That, my friends, is hate speech, designed to foment violence.
Every other Saturday, I join a group of like-minded seniors who meet to protest what we perceive as state-sanctioned cruelty and systematic violations of the Constitution. We do not engage in hate speech; we engage in free speech. We hold signs that say, “Seniors for Sanity,” and “Make America Kind Again,” and “No Kings in America,” and “Dump Trump,” and “Defend Democracy,” and “Stop Fascism Now,” and “Defend Those Without Your Privilege.”
My beloved friend Tony simply holds a sign that says, “1933.”
We eat cookies and kibbitz and wave to passersby. Often, we receive honks of approval from the cars driving past, and occasionally we receive jeers and middle fingers. We understand that jeers and middle fingers are also protected forms of free speech. Do we like being flipped off? No. Do we defend their right to disagree with us, no matter how crudely? Yes.
The Saturday following the murder of Charlie Kirk happened to be one of our scheduled Saturday protest events. It was a little damp from an early morning rain, but otherwise a temperate, late-summer day. We gathered at our usual spot, brought out our posters, and passed the cookies.
But driver responses to this particular event were startlingly different than they had been at previous Saturday morning meetups. The level of hostility directed at a bunch of grandmas and grandpas holding protest signs was of an order of magnitude not experienced previously. One driver screamed that we were a bunch of pedophiles; another fellow shouted things so foul that I am incapable of repeating them here; and one fellow slowed his car to a crawl, rolled down his passenger window, and screamed, as he pointed individually at each and every one of us, “F— you! F— you! F— you! F— you!”
The rage was palpable, and frightening. We were flummoxed—why had the hostility so clearly increased?
It was then that a younger person who had joined us mentioned that Charlie Kirk had been killed. Suddenly, we understood: The rage and revenge loop had been activated yet again.
Violence runs in a circular motion. It feeds on its own rage. It is white-hot and self-sustaining. The “lunatics” are not on the left—they are, sadly, on the right. They are the Project 2025 MAGA Republicans in the White House, at the Pentagon, at the FBI, in the Office of the Attorney General, on the Supreme Court, and at the Department of Homeland Security. They represent the new Trumpified States of America.
And some of the lunatics, the deranged young men with easy access to firearms, are waiting patiently on rooftops all over America with their weapons loaded, ready to take their best shots.
Evidently, that is the price we all have to pay for the Second Amendment.
Just like Charlie Kirk said.
