Three hours. That is how long Charlie Kirk had been dead before a Republican commentator was calling for civil war.
“They are at war with us,” said Fox News’s Jesse Watters on national television shortly after Kirk’s assassination Sept. 10. “Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate?”
Watters, Fox’s flagship opinion “news” personality, hosts both of the two most-watched news programs on cable television. Which is to say: his words carry significant weight in American politics — both on the right and in the broader national conversation (a fact of which Watters himself is quite clearly, and obnoxiously, well aware.) Watters’ inflammatory statements, in other words, should not be scrutinized in a vacuum.
After all, he wasn’t the only right-winger spouting outrageously bloodthirsty rhetoric in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s horrific assassination. And it was horrific — let there be no two ways about it. For her part, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) wasted no time joining in on the drumbeat as she exited a hearing at the U.S. Capitol Sept. 10.
“Democrats own what happened today,” Mace said as she charged a gaggle of reporters on the Capitol steps, barely containing her excitement. The congresswoman studiously refrained, of course, from offering any evidence to back up such an explosive charge — but by now this is to be expected.
Sadly, Mace and Watters are far from the only ones in their party using this kind of invective. To be sure, some Republican officials, to their credit, have tried treating this moment of national fragility with the even-temperedness it demands. Still, many others in their party, including the President of the United States, appear utterly uninterested in following suit.
It’s all just a little rich: this talk of civil war, blaming an entire political party for the actions of one deranged man (whose motivations and politics are still far from clear), especially since this cadre of political hacks is nothing if not selective in their condemnation of political violence. For instance, many of the same prominent Republicans who are now crowing about the horrors of political violence were eerily silent — and, in at least one case, abjectly flippant — about the targeted midnight assassination of State House Speaker Melissa Hortman (D-Minn.) and her husband June 14. And lest we forget: back in 2022, many Republicans openly mocked and lied about an attack in which a right-wing conspiracy theorist broke into the home of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and bludgeoned her husband with a hammer. So, forgive me if I do not find Republicans’ newfound disdain for political violence especially convincing.
Here’s the cold, hard truth: there is only one major political party in America today that can correctly and confidently say that, after each act of political violence in the recent scourge, every one of its prominent surrogates and elected officials has offered no less than the utmost condolences and condemnation, irrespective of the victim’s politics. That party is the Democratic Party.
Somehow, we still have yet to broach the most glaring hypocrisy of all: almost immediately after Kirk’s death, the Trump administration began a full-court press to cancel and silence anyone they deemed insufficiently mournful. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened federal prosecutions against those engaging in “hate speech.” In the State Department, Secretary Marco Rubio began revoking visas from those he thinks are “celebrating” Kirk’s assassination. Perhaps most notably, though, FCC Chairman Brendan Carr threatened to cancel the broadcast licenses of any news outlets that air messaging about Kirk’s death that the administration does not approve. In response to these remarks, ABC announced on Sept. 18 that it would no longer air Jimmy Kimmel’s (often Trump-critical) late-night talk show — a decision that the network and its syndication partners almost immediately reversed following a wave of public backlash. In short, the Trump administration wasted no time weaponizing Kirk’s death to silence their critics. Thankfully, the American people pushed back: boycotting Disney — which is ABC’s parent company — and forcing Kimmel back on the air.
Of course, celebrating another person’s death is always in poor taste. At least, that’s what I think. But it should go without saying that a joke made in poor taste does not constitute a federal criminal charge — as any remotely literate person could tell you after skimming the First Amendment. This crackdown, furthermore, is especially outrageous because these Republicans have lauded Kirk as a martyr to the cause of free speech. This glaring irony is (as usual) utterly lost on them.
Although maybe this kind of grotesque irony is a hallmark of the Republican brand: after all, their “tough-on-crime” President has 34 felony convictions and their “small-government” policies include dictating whether, when and how you can get pregnant. In a sense, it’s irony and hypocrisy down to the marrow. I know I shouldn’t be surprised. But it’s still sad to know that — for today’s GOP — even violence and bloodshed don’t provide a reprieve from politics as usual.
Contact Bea Neilson at neilson@oxy.edu
