How democracy dies
Last Wednesday was a day of grieving for America and Americans.
The political assassination of a renowned conservative activist on a university campus in Utah.
Another school shooting, this one is Colorado, which left two teens injured — one critically — and the 16-year-old shooter dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Reaction was immediate.
Charlie Kirk, who had a large and nationwide following, is the founder and president of Turning Point USA, a student movement “dedicated to identifying, organizing, and empowering young people to promote the principles of free markets and limited government.”
He was shot at a “The American Comeback Tour” rally attended by thousands of students at Utah Valley University, according to reporting by our sister paper, the Daily Herald, in Utah.
Family photos of the 31-year-old husband and father of two with his smiling wife and young daughter and son at their side brought the issue home to most of us.
“This is a dark day for our state; it’s a tragic day for our nation,” said Utah Gov. Spencer Cox. “I want to be very clear that this is a political assassination.”
The shooting at Evergreen High School outside of Denver garnered similar expressions of horror from officials.
Colorado Public Radio covered a press conference called by the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office Wednesday afternoon and quoted the agency’s public information officer:
“This is the scariest thing you could ever think could happen. Honestly, I don’t know if our suspect is old enough to even drive,” said PIO Jacki Kelley.
These occurrences — and ones before them, and the ones before that and before that — are our country’s shame.
Many of us who “cover the news” have never come to terms with that.
Nor will we ever come to terms with the ugliness that followed Wednesday’s horrific acts of violence.
In Evergreen, a church called a vigil.
In our nation’s capitol, members of our governing body allowed a moment of silence for Mr. Kirk which devolved into a politicized shouting match after a Republic member asked for a spoken prayer.
The Hill quoted House Speaker Mike Johnson’s call back to order.
“This is detestable what’s happened. Political violence has become all too common in American society, and this is not who we are. It violates core principles of our country, our Judeo-Christian heritage, our civil society, our American way of life, and it must stop,” Rep. Johnson told reporters.
“We need every political figure, we need everyone who has a platform to say this loudly and clearly. We can settle disagreements and disputes in a civil manner, and political violence must be called out and has to stop,” he said.
It gets worse, much worse, as across social media, across various platforms and sites, “influencers” and would-be pundits gave rally calls for civil war, the criminalization of our two-party system and more.
We write this on the day that has come to be known as 9/11.
We write this on the day that Americans put aside politics to unite, to come together not only as a country but as the greatest and most enduring democratic republic the world has seen.
Is this — the cry and rally to divisiveness — what we have become?
Is this the country our sons, our husbands, our brothers and sisters, daughters and wives have fought for through the near 250 years we have striven to maintain the unique principles upon which our nation was founded?
We say no.
We, and the majority of Americans, say no.
Rep. Johnson speaks for us.
For if the answer is yes, this is how democracy dies.