“Political violence has no place in our society.”
We have certainly heard this phrase many times in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination one year ago today. And we have unfortunately heard much of the worst apathy to antipathy that one could possibly imagine from fellow humans, which proves the original phrase woefully incorrect.
While it fundamentally should not, political violence absolutely has a rooted place in today’s society. And too many who repeat this seem to either have little idea of or little respect to admit the unsavory reality: We have already entered an age of morality eroding to a point where narcissistic ideology reigns supreme, and violence is an acceptable form of policing it. Where it is acceptable to commit physical offense for emotional offense taken. To use literal violence for perceived “words of violence.” It is the peak intersection of self-importance and delusion.
Though this is an egregiously grave issue, it is laughable how many who parrot this bare-minimum phrase aren’t remotely willing to acknowledge how we’ve gotten to this depth, or even their own enabling part in digging the hole. Because when it comes down to it, you don’t truly condemn political violence today if you don’t condemn today’s motives behind it.
So let’s be utterly honest: This violence is the inevitable outcome of the worship of the left’s cult of identity politics. Such mental membership forces one to ditch the objective external and focus only on the subjective internal — to forgo collective reality in the preference for and prioritization of personal fantasy. It replaces the ability to form normal social bonds with a bond to authoritarianism instead, and the supposed embrace of diversity and inclusivity are abandoned for only what and who fits in the safety of the echo chamber.
In essence, it is to kill what makes one human.
If such internal reconstruction only relegated those to basements, electronically screaming at dissenters online, or field trips outside to bang on pots and pans and hold signs that couldn’t pass for refrigerator art, that would be one thing. But totalitarian wiring must spill over into requiring the same wiring for everyone else. Fundamental identity politics don’t just demand compliance but demand that noncompliance be punished — up to the point of feeling entitled to someone else’s life for the crime of daring to live his or her own way.
The problem is that none of this ideological horror show can be examined too deeply, or it would risk cracking the very foundation of such ideology itself, and this vital avoidance reveals an even larger problem of the left than the unhinged themselves:
It’s the ones who would normally salivate at the chance to condemn gun violence, but can’t be found when it’s discovered that the culprit of such is on their side.
It’s the ones who say they had no idea this was such a problem, yet had no problem suggesting it was for the other side.
It’s the ones who diminish this as a fringe issue, but have laid the framework for such ideology to grow, and allowed it to spread from the edges to the core of their party.
All glaring predispositions to violence must be denied and hidden at all costs, as their existence is an absolute liability to the left. To have such faults be publicly aired would not just tear apart the strived-for reputation of a timeless beacon of benevolence and fatally tarnish its credibility in agenda. For its dedicated followers, to admit a fall of liberalism would risk shattering the crucial identity of one always being safely on the right side of everything. And for Western society, such a dark acknowledgment would be a crashing down of a much-needed worldview that uplifts a pure ideological ideal and hides the fact that it is truly possible for moral rot to infect supposed progressiveness as well.
But burying the politics of these continuing episodes buries reason. Falsely assigning blame to one’s favorite villain, whether human or object, only ensures continuation. And sinking to the lowest possible depth of gleeful justification, from kids to the teachers and parents who raise them, sinks all of society into an abyss of inhumanity.
WHEN POLITICS BECOMES YOUR IDENTITY, DISAGREEMENT BECOMES WAR
So, yes, a lot of words have been said against this violence, but only genuine reckoning and action matter. An entire population needs to wrestle with the fatal intolerance for tolerance that has been permitted to infect the world and come to accept that no one is entitled to life without the offense of opposition. Most of all, it’s time for those who live to kill fascism to take some much-forbidden ownership of the true fascism which they’ve unleashed themselves.
Feel free to disagree, of course. As Kirk himself always used to offer, “If you disagree with me, move to the front of the line.” This is the conviction that must prevail for society to prevail. Because when this becomes disposable, so do all of us.
Sarah Kendis is an oboist and writer in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A proud Jew and radical feminist, she writes and speaks about antisemitism and women’s issues in the world today. Her work has been published in sp!ked, Skeptic, the American Spectator, and the Federalist.