Charlie Kirk — a generational voice of the conservative movement — was assassinated Wednesday while hosting one of his famous campus discussion events.
We still don’t know the identity of the shooter, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know who is responsible. Radical leftists bear great blame for engaging in inflammatory rhetoric that can only be described as assassination prep. And Republicans bear responsibility, too, for letting it come to this.
Before Kirk died at the hands of an assassin, leftist radicals tried to kill Rep. Steve Scalise, President Donald Trump (twice), and Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Statements of condemnation and condolence were issued, but that was it.
Mike Cernovich put it this way on X: “The weakness of the GOP led us to this moment. A mass shooter attempted to murder dozens of Republican congress members. Few people even know this happened. Republicans ‘just took it,’ as they always do. And now Charlie Kirk is dead. Recognize what time it is or resign.”
The leftists who support this violence — from elected Democrats to talking heads to the foot soldiers who cheer when someone like Kirk is murdered — have been conditioned to know their camp will suffer no real consequences when their violent worldview creates assassins who target conservatives. They’ve watched Republicans cave on every front, from culture to speech, elections, and even physical violence.
Go back to August of 2012, when 29-year-old Floyd Lee Corkins shot a security guard at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.. According to the Department of Justice, Corkins targeted the Family Research Council because it recognized that marriage is between a man and a woman.
After being subdued, Corkins said: “I don’t like these people, and I don’t like what they stand for.”
Republicans blamed the shooting on “reckless rhetoric” but did nothing else to deter such rhetoric.
Five years later, Republican Rep. Steve Scalise was nearly assassinated by a deranged Bernie Sanders supporter.
Five years after that, a radical leftist tried to kill Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Two years after that, leftists tried to murder Trump during a campaign rally on July 13, 2024.
Two months later, authorities foiled a second assassination attempt against the president.
Republicans condemned each of these attacks, but failed to go after the poisonous root of such violence. Each assassin was emboldened by a leftist culture that dehumanizes conservatives and openly fantasizes about silencing us by any means necessary.
Wednesday night, Trump recorded an address from the Oval Office in which he promised, “My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it.” The decisiveness of that pledge is striking in comparison to the typical platitudes that are put out by GOP comms shops.
The entire network that subsidizes this violence must be confronted — Antifa, the Soros-funded NGOs, the media mouthpieces who justify leftist terror, and the politicians who normalize hatred of Republicans. It’s the only way to stop the murderous left from doing it again.
Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2