The immediate response of many “mainstream” liberal journalists to the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk demonstrates why so many Americans loathe the corporate media.
Many of the responses to Kirk’s killing on social websites like TikTok and Bluesky have been celebratory and downright evil.
It’s ironic in a certain way that Bluesky had become such a concentrated den of hate and outrage given that the platform was allegedly created because X had backed away from content moderation.
The truth is what they really wanted was just a safe space for libs. They wanted a world carefully cultivated like a college campus where opinions range from the Left to Left-er and anyone who challenges their views with logic, like Charlie Kirk, is silenced when basic liberal assumptions are questioned.
But as vicious as the hordes of hateful, random leftists have been on social media, it’s the mainstream outlets that behaved most shamefully when news of Kirk’s shooting broke.
They revealed how much contempt they truly have for their fellow citizens who disagree with them.
As news broke about the shooting, MSNBC political analyst Matthew Down appeared on Katy Tur’s program and said that Kirk was perhaps shot by one of his own supporters in “celebration.” Dowd, a Never Trump former Republican who was the chief strategist on President George W. Bush’s 2004 election campaign, insinuated that it was Kirk’s fault that he got shot because of his “hate speech.”
“You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have, and then saying these awful words, and then not expect awful actions to take place,” Dowd said.
I think it’s worth noting that this man was once a leading apparatchik in the Republican Party who clearly has a pathological contempt for conservatives.
Dowd was rightly fired for his comments by MSNBC.
“During our breaking news coverage of the shooting of Charlie Kirk, Matthew Dowd made comments that were inappropriate, insensitive, and unacceptable. We apologize for his statements, as has he. There is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise,” MSNBC President Rebecca Kutler said in a statement on MSNBC’s PR X account.
I guess that’s good, but it should be noted that while Dowd made those comments, Tur did nothing to push back as she should have, being the host of the show.
As her network showed video of people running from the gunshot that killed Kirk, Kur said that the conservative commentator was a “divisive” and polarizing” figure.” She also said that the Trump administration would use the shooting “as a justification for something.”
Shawn Fleetwood at the Federalist said it well: “If anything, Tur’s rhetoric represents a perfect encapsulation of what America’s media have become: a propaganda arm of the Democrat Party whose concern for basic decency pales in comparison to their addiction to the leftist pagan religion they follow.”
Kur wasn’t alone in using the moment of Kirk’s shooting and death to insist that he was “divisive.”
Here’s how The New York Times first reported Kirk’s assassination.
“Charlie Kirk, Right-Wing Provocateur and Close Ally of Trump, Dies at 31.”
Ah yes, he “died.”
Here’s how the Times reporter wrote about a man who had just been killed in cold blood: “[Kirk] quickly became a fixture in the Trumpian media sphere. He tweeted relentlessly with a brash right-wing spin, unencumbered by inconvenient facts.”
Not to be outdone, the New Republic went with the headline “MAGA Troll Charlie Kirk Shot During Speaking Event at University.”
They later deleted their X post with that headline and later changed it to say “MAGA Pundit,” but I got the receipt.
CNN anchor and chief legal strategist Laura Coates said on her network that if the shooting was “in fact tied to [Kirk’s] political ideology, given the fact that he is quite the lightning rod in many communities and has been accessible, and yet controversial, you‘ve got a very terrifying prospect for so many people who share his similar qualities.”
ABC News’ Kyra Phillips said that Kirk “has said a number of controversial things over the years,” against a litany of groups.
The Democratic Party promotes extremist, “divisive” policies that are disliked by most Americans. Does that mean it’s open game now of liberal political figures? It’s striking how much the mainstream Left has internalized the idea that words are violence, and that violence in response is perhaps imprudent, but ultimately justified.
When these liberal outlets had time to reset and reflect a bit, virtually all of them condemned political violence, but then with the narrative that this was a problem caused by both sides.
Some went a step further and claimed that it was Democrats who are the real victims in all this and that conservatives and Republicans need to “tone down their rhetoric.”
That’s what CBS analyst Nate Burleson said on Thursday calling for Republicans to “reflect on political violence.”
As NewsNation host Batya Ungar-Sargon noted, this line of reasoning flows from the Left’s notions of justice and inversion of perpetrators and victims.
As these esteemed members of the fourth estate talk about “division” in America and about lowering the temperature, remember this moment. Some liberal outlets are seemingly making a reversal on their immediate hot takes now that the dust is settling on this assassination. But from their initial reactions, it certainly sounds like many truly believe that those who oppose the Left’s political project deserve to be punished or maybe even die for their views.