Donald Trump is using Charlie Kirk’s assassination not to heal a divided nation, but to inflame it — turning tragedy into political fuel, writes Dr Norm Sanders.
RIGHT-WING INFLUENCER Charlie Kirk's assassination may be the marker for the death of democracy in America.
President Donald Trump is playing it for all it is worth, even ordering flags on federal buildings all over the country to be flown at half-mast. As if this wasn't enough, he has posthumously awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
And instead of calling for calm like a normal president, Trump is blaming the “radical Left” for Kirk's death and ignoring the political polarisation which he encourages so enthusiastically. The U.S. desperately needs a leader who will try to unite the country at this time. But Trump has only added to the sense of anger, rather than trying to de-escalate it.
In an address from the Oval Office, the President told Americans:
“...radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”
Trump doubled down on the assumption that the assassin was someone from “the radical Left”.
The President said:
“For years, those on the radical Left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.”
As reported in ABC News:
The comments were ironic coming from a president who uses his Truth Social website to launch almost-daily attacks on his political opponents, regularly branding them corrupt or part of "a witch-hunt" to destroy him.
Trump's deployment of National Guard in Los Angeles and, in recent weeks, Washington DC has only further turned up the temperature.
In the wake of Kirk's assassination, social media has been filled with people on the right of U.S. politics calling for “revenge” and others on the Left celebrating the killing.
In one video, a university student, asked her reaction to the killing of Kirk replied with a smile: “Someone had to do it.” Another, when asked how she felt, replied: “Happy.”
On the other side of this divide were supporters of Kirk. One woman posted: “Americans are ready for war.” Another man says to camera: “This video is for the f***ing liberals. It's war mother*****s. We're coming for you. We're coming for you.”
In the hours after Trump announced to Americans that Kirk had died, the President's son, Eric, appeared on Fox to blame two media outlets – MSNBC and NBC – for the climate that led to the killing of Kirk.
All that these two outlets have been doing is responsibly reporting on the President’s wrecking ball approach to democracy, unlike Trump’s Fox News cheering squad.
An unlikely actor in the Charlie Kirk drama is the animated political cartoon South Park.
From The Hollywood Reporter:
In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, some conservatives are pointing fingers at South Park for mocking the conservative thought leader in a recent episode. While Comedy Central pulled the same episode from a scheduled repeat Wednesday night and sources say the channel will not be airing the episode for the immediate future (though as of Thursday morning, the episode was still currently available on streaming).
The second episode of the current 27th season of Comedy Central’s satirical hit – titled “Got a Nut” – had Eric Cartman becoming a right-wing podcaster and spouting tropes used by Kirk, who tours college campuses debating progressive students. “Who wants to debate the master debater?” demanded Cartman, who also took on Kirk’s hairstyle and later attended a ceremony giving out “The Charlie Kirk Award for Young Masterdebaters.”
MAGA conservatives are blasting the show.
According to the New York Post, one Turning Point USA staffer posted on Telegram, “Comedy has consequences. Charlie was targeted in the culture before he was targeted in real life” and right-wing radio host Jesse Kelly told his listeners: “South Park thought it was funny to turn Charlie into a cartoon joke. Now his wife is planning a funeral.”
The Daily Beast spotted some other comments on social media: “Let’s blame South Park. Blame the media. Blame leftist rhetoric. These people hate you and want to see you dead.” And: “South Park certainly fomented the hatred necessary to get Kirk assassinated.” And: “South Park creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone are responsible for this.” A popular account called Johnny MAGA dubbed South Park “monsters” for the episode.
MAGA supporters were not so unflattering when South Park actually had a segment on Charlie Kirk a week before he was shot. The show mocked his style, but Kirk himself was a fan of the episode after it aired, saying he could tell South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker had been watching some episodes of his show.
Kirk went public with a reaction via TikTok:
“Our ‘Prove Me Wrongs’, our viral, cultural domination on prime time on Comedy Central. So important, so impactful that South Park is highlighting it.”
Kirk went on to refer to a Bible verse, of which he said the show “gets this right” and showed a clip in which Cartman, with a haircut to resemble Kirk’s own, becomes a “master debater” and fires back at a weepy college student — all while he’s sitting on the toilet with his laptop.
Kirk continued:
There’s going to be a lot said about this, but we need to have a good spirit about being made fun of. This is all a success; this is all a win. We, as conservatives, we have thick skin, not thin skin, and you can make fun of us and it doesn’t matter.
And until next time, I hope all of you also become master debaters for truth.
Kirk made sure he clearly pronounced each of those separate words in “master debaters”.
The episode also showcased “The Charlie Kirk Awards”, celebrating young people who have been “furiously master debating” and are using “master debation” to save America. The episode shows Cartman effectively becoming Kirk after he realises another kid at school, Clyde, is very casually getting a huge following doing simple ‘Prove Me Wrong’ videos.
In the wake of the assassination, Comedy Central has elected not to re-air the episode, but it might still be available on Paramount+.
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was the co-founder and CEO of Turning Point USA. Turning Point is a non-profit organisation Kirk founded in 2012, whose mission is ‘to identify, educate, train and organise students to promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government’.
‘Kirk launched Turning Point out of his parents’ garage as an 18-year-old with no money, no name recognition, only a dream,’ the company’s website reads in a homepage pop-up honouring its founder.
Kirk shaped Gen Z conservatism on college campuses, utilising rhetoric about “liberal rot” in education and “cultural marxism” to gather a young generation of Trump supporters.
The Turning Point philosophy proved successful, at least for Kirk, as he was worth some US$12 million (AU$18 million) at the time of his death and was drawing an annual salary of US$407,000 (AU$611,000) by 2021.
Trump is crying crocodile tears over Kirk’s death while at the same time enthusiastically using the situation to further his authoritarian agenda.
Trump said:
“I'm really concerned for our country. We have a great country. We have a radical left group of lunatics out there, just absolute lunatics, and we're going to get that problem solved.”
The Kirk assassination is a tragedy that Donald Trump is cynically using in his continuing attack on American democracy.
Dr Norm Sanders is a former commercial pilot, flight instructor, university professor, Tasmanian State MP and Federal Senator.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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