And that may have pushed Tyler Robinson, Kirk’s assassin, over the edge. But his motive was hatred of Kirk’s socially conservative politics. It has come to light that Robinson’s lover was a man who is in the middle of transitioning into a woman. The conservative values that Kirk promoted were surely opposed to that kind of sexual relationship as well as to changing one’s sex. Kirk was a devout Christian who took the Bible’s admonitions against such things seriously.
There was a time when America took biblical prohibitions like that seriously, too. A relationship like Robinson’s would never have been openly acknowledged. If it happened at all, it would probably have generated guilt and shame in the hearts of both participants. Their sexual relationship would have been kept secret. And there surely would not have been any kind of sex change. Today, both gay sex and sex change have been given society’s imprimatur. That Kirk advocated turning back the clock may very well have been the motivation behind Robinson’s assassination of Kirk.
What this ‘defining deviancy down’ has wrought is a sense that this new ‘morality’ has become entrenched. Its promotion in the entertainment industry and the mainstream media as the norm and moral, has created a culture that - in the minds of far too many people justifies the kind of deadly violence that Kirk - who fought that notion - experienced last week.
Lest anyone deny that sane, everyday people could justify killing an individual with strong influence against these new values, they might be surprised to know that there were many comments on social media expressing joy over Kirk’s death. To their credit, employers fired employees who made such comments online.
On the other hand, it is not only the left that is guilty of such violence. One might remember what happened to Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi, who was attacked by a right-wing fanatic whose real target was Nancy herself. As the Democratic Speaker of the House, she was responsible for legislation that clashed with the conservative ideals animating that would-be assassin.
Perhaps the worst instance of political violence, though, was January 6th, when MAGA supporters held a rally outside the Capitol building, and some of the radical right broke into the building with threats of death to the vice president. That many of the protesters followed them into the building shows that they at least approved of what was happening, even if they weren’t the ones who actually broke in.
These radical right-wing conservatives feared that the left was ruining their country and that their candidate - who had been working to restore a culture based on biblical values - had been cheated out of a second term by a ‘rigged’ election. That this belief was proven false didn’t matter to them. They didn’t believe it. They wanted to ‘save the country’ and thus believed their actions that day were justified.
So, in both cases, the right and the left felt justified in using deadly violence to achieve their political aims, both believing that not doing so would ruin the country.
Exacerbating and accelerating the resort to violence is social media, which has become the most influential source of extremist political division. Even after a violent assassination, social media has shown us how far we are willing to go to advance our agenda. As in the way Kirk’s assassination was celebrated by so many people, and as in the way the president’s pardon of even the most violent protesters on January 6th was celebrated by many of his MAGA supporters.
Thing is, I don’t see things getting any better. I wish I could. But as the divisions in this country increase, so will the willingness to thwart inroads by the opposition by any means necessary. Calls for calmer heads to prevail on both sides of the political aisle will fall on deaf ears. Even those who mean it will soon fall prey to their own instincts to vilify their political opponents as a necessary component to save America from the danger of destroying the moral fabric required for what they want America to be in the future.
Will there be a civil war at some point? I don’t think so. We will not have armies shooting at each other the way we did in the actual Civil War. But in many ways, the civil war has already begun. Who fired the first shot? The answer will depend on whom you ask.
In my view, even though my values are far more compatible with one side over the other, both sides are guilty—and will continue to be.
Comments to this post can be made at Emes Ve-Emunah II where it is cross-posted
