Mary Katharine Ham observes that one week after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, “the only follow-on crimes/arrests are a lefty who pretended to be the shooter to save the shooter, an assault (TX) and a vandalism charge (AZ) for two people attacking Kirk mourners, and 2 would-be bombers of a Fox truck.”
I had a similar thought, but almost feared publicly expressing it, lest it tempt the fates. But one good development since the awful outrage of a week ago is that we haven’t seen any nutjob who identifies with the right decide to do something stupid and violent in the name of vengeance, and we haven’t had any other nutjob identifying with the left pick up a gun to perpetuate a copycat attack. That’s as of this writing; may God and law-enforcement investigators protect us.
There’s another positive bit of news in the past week. Yes, we’ve seen plenty of examples of people on the left — rarely elected officials, usually just ordinary progressive activists — celebrating Kirk’s death or saying obnoxious, hateful things in response to the murder. But you can also find people who strongly disagreed with Kirk who found his assassination horrifying, and are reacting with genuine sympathy.
I was struck by these comments by the actress Jamie Lee Curtis:
Acknowledging that she had nothing politically in common with Kirk and “disagreed with him on almost every point,” Curtis was fighting back tears when she spoke of his spirituality.
“I believe he was a man of faith, and I hope in that moment when he died that he felt connected to his faith,” the “Freaky Friday” actress said.
“Even though I find what his ideas were abhorrent to me, I still believe he’s a father and a husband and a man of faith, and I hope whatever ‘connection to God’ means, that he felt it.”
Curtis noted that society is constantly “bombarded” with imagery, making it unclear what the long-term impact might be of repeatedly watching traumatic events — including videos of the 9/11 terrorist attacks or the footage of Charlie Kirk’s “execution” being viewed “over and over and over again.”
“That kind of — I don’t ever want to see this footage of this man being shot,” she said while choking up.
No one’s demanding that anybody on the left mourn Charlie Kirk, and no one has to agree with what Kirk said and supported. But hoping for statements along the lines of, “This is awful and terrifying, no one deserves to get shot over their political beliefs” seems like a really, really low bar to clear.
So, thank you, Jamie Lee Curtis, for your empathy and demonstrating that we don’t have to agree politically to hope that everyone gets to live a long, happy life.