In a recent opinion column, former Univision anchor Jorge Ramos attempted to make sense of Charlie Kirk’s senseless murder. In the process of failing to do so, Ramos fell back on familiar tropes.
The Substack column, titled Charlie Kirk, Guns and the Internet, danced around the actual motive behind Kirk’s assassination. Instead, Ramos ascribed the murder to ideologically vague “extreme polarization” and “disinformation on social networks”, while also lashing out against the right to keep and bear arms.
To his credit, he did these things after unambiguously condemning the murder of Kirk. Such is the state of our political discourse that this even warrants mentioning, as opposed to being a normal thing that everyone assumes:
Let's begin with the most basic: Political violence is unjustifiable. And it must be denounced, regardless of where it comes from.
The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a Utah university should have never happened. But it came at a time of deep divisions in the United States, with an extreme polarization of political positions, with a lot of disinformation on social networks, with algorithms pushing us into ideological trenches, and with more guns than people.
“Disinformation on social networks” is how Ramos attempts to disguise the actual motive behind the shooting: extremely violent transgender ideology. This much is known from what has been released into the public since the shooting: the text messages between the shooter and his trans-womaning boyfriend, testimony about the shooter’s family relationships, and potential evidence emerging from other servers. All of this information was made public well in advance of this column being written. Consider this paragraph:
What's more, the Internet is eating us up. It is drowning in lies, disinformation and bots. With artificial intelligence, it is difficult to know what is true and what is a lie. We all doubt constantly what we read online and on social networks. Especially because the already famous algorithms feed us content in line with our ideas and keep us away from different points of view. We live in bubbles.
We can’t have an honest exchange of ideas if you sweep the motive of this shooting under the “disinformation” rug. That, in and of itself, is disinformation in service of obscuring the role of transgender ideology in this shooting, which Ramos hints at near the top of this editorial:
Many did not agree with Kirk's ideas – from his rejection of abortion and restrictions on gun sales to his criticism of immigrants and transgender people. But this conservative activist had all the right to say whatever he wished. And he did. Until he was silenced in a completely cowardly and cruel act.
Why would Ramos call out Kirk’s so-called “criticism of…transgender people” and then not address it? Because although he is gone from behind an anchor desk, he still feels entitled to act as an informational dome over his audience.
Ramos then goes into his tired calls for gun control and laments that the Second Amendment is here to stay:
In a country with more handguns, rifles and machine guns than people, it is very easy to kill. Any conflict, grudge or mental problem can become a tragedy when a gun is within reach. You don't need science to argue that fewer guns would lead to fewer deaths. But that debate is closed in the United States and almost no one dares to touch the Second Amendment. And so the shootings will continue in schools, universities, churches and public places.
Ramos then denounces political polarization. This is hilarious, given Ramos’s own role in creating this polarized environment. In separate columns, he called Marco Rubio and Ted Druz race-traitors over their stances on immigration, and then rejoiced at their eliminations from the 2016 GOP presidential primary. The physician needs to heal himself before diagnosing the discourse.
Because the column does not properly diagnose and describe the underlying causes of the shooting, it is unable to offer anything remotely close to a solution.