How to Stop the Cycle of Recriminations
I finally offer my readers some practical advice
What are “they” giving themselves permission to do?
I’ve posed that question before, without the quote marks around they. (I’ll explain below why I opted to use them here.) One of the two hosts of the excellent “Know Your Enemy” podcast, Matthew Sitman, deserves credit for first asking it about the right in the wake of the events of January 6, 2021: What are they giving themselves permission to do with their constant talk of stolen elections, emergencies, and existential threats posed by the left?
The answer back then was: Launch a self-coup to remain in power after losing an election.
What are they giving themselves permission to do in the days since the assassination of Charlie Kirk, by relentlessly searching online for new incitements to violence or just expressions of hostility to Kirk’s style of politics emanating from someone/anyone on the left so they can promote it and point to it as indisputable proof that they (all of the left, or most of the left, or enough of the left to be a dangerous threat to every law-abiding and patriotic American) are evil and must be stopped by any available means?
Here's how one right-wing personality, the Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh (3.8 million followers on Twitter/X), has formulated the indictment:
Charlie tried to have conversations with you on the left, and you killed him for it. You’re killing us in our churches, you tried to kill our president, you killed one of our greatest advocates in Charlie Kirk. You have been openly cheering for and celebrating and encouraging and committing political violence for years…. It’s too late to turn the temperature down. This is not a time to hold hands. It’s a time for justice. This is a time for good to fight back against evil. It is time for the righteous to prevail.
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