Political violence, especially murder, is indefensible, whether the victim is right-winger Charlie Kirk or Minnesota Democrats Melissa and Mark Hortman. But which US politician has advocated, condoned or incited violence more than any other? Donald Trump.
The most indefensible case—though just one of many—was Trump’s incitement of the Jan. 6. 2021 invasion of the US Capitol, designed to help him steal an election he’d lost.
Then he watched it unfold on television for three hours without calling off his supporters, who injured 50 policemen and arguably killed five and were intent on killing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Vice President Mike Pence. When he finally yielded to appeals from White House officials and family members to tell the rioters to desist, he did so saying “we love you, you’re very special.”
He was impeached and should have been convicted by the Senate and banned from ever again holding public office, but 43 Republican Senators voted against conviction and the vote fell ten short of the required two-thirds. Trump was indicted for his 1/6 behavior and should have been convicted, but he and his lawyers managed to delay his trial until he and his supporters branded it (2024) “election interference” and it never took place.
He repeatedly referred to the 378 rioters and organizers sentenced to jail as “patriots” and “political prisoners” and on the day he was inaugurated for his second term, he pardoned or offered clemency to nearly 1,600 riot participants. Then he proceeded to fire prosecutors and FBI agents involved in his prosecution.
Trump’s behavior in connection with Jan. 6 should stand as an historic blight on American history, but it’s scarcely the lone case of his promotion of violence.
In 1989, after five black and Hispanic youths were (mistakenly) arrested for the assault and rape of a jogger in Central Park, Trump took out full-page ads in four New York newspapers headlined “BRING BACK THE DEATH PENALTY, BRING BACK OUR POLICE!” Even after the five were freed from prison (in 2002) following the actual assailant’s arrest on the basis of DNA evidence, Trump refused to apologize and referred to the five as “muggers.”
Immediately after Charlie Cook’s assassination (and before the killer’s identity or political ideology was known) Trump did not try to heal the nation but blamed “radical leftists” (his regular term for Democrats) and their anti-Kirk rhetoric for the atrocity. He said leftists were “vicious” and “horrible” and were the true source of violence in America.
In fact, several non-partisan research groups have found that right-wing extremists have been responsible for more than 60% of violent political attacks and plots between 2015 and 2020. Right-wing extremists have also been responsible for far more mass killings than left-wingers.
Trump pledged that his administration would “find every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after judges, law enforcement officers and everyone else who brings order to our society.”
He also said that “people on the left” are under major investigation,” though he didn’t specify who. He later singled out George Soros and said he would be investigated for possible prosecution.
Evidently, he forgot that it was he who launched an attack on police on Jan. 6, 2021 and that he has vilified dozens of judges and prosecutors handling either his criminal trials or ruling on his policies. He claimed that judges were “puppets” of the Biden administration in a conspiracy to harm his presidential campaign.
He suggested that judges should be arrested or executed for “treason.” His rhetoric led to hundreds of threats to judges and their families, many calling for them to be killed. Trump also attacked 2020 election officials, leading to violent and obscene threats against them. After Trump falsely accused two Georgia election workers of election fraud, they sued Trump and ally Rudy Giuliani for defamation and won a judgment of $148 million.
Trump also has said that protesters at his campaign rallies should be beaten up and that 2024 political opponents should be “prosecuted for their lies, and frankly, treason.” He mocked Liz Cheney, saying “let’s put her with a rifle, with nine barrels shooting at her.”
After the Kirk assassination, Trump made no mention of Democrats victimized by right-wing attackers—besides the Hortmans, Paul Pelosi, who suffered a crushed skull inflicted by an attacker hoping to kill his wife; Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, whose house was set afire as he and his family were sleeping, and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Witmer, target of a failed kidnapping plot.
Trump and aides like Stephen Miller and J.D. Vance, are not just mourning Kirk’s killing, but using it to mount an aggressive campaign against alleged “far left extremist networks.” Some Democrats, like Sen. Chris Murphy are warning that the administration intends to use the Kirk killing as a pretext to stifle dissent and use the FBI and Justice Department to “shut down opposition groups and punish or harass political opponents.”
Kirk definitely was an effective and often polite conservative spokesman who helped Trump capture 57% of young men’s votes in 2024 (vs. 41% in 2020.) In death, he’s being portrayed as a flawless martyr, but he also espoused some inflammatory ideas.
Ideas such as “it’s worth it to have, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have our Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It’s rational.” But the Second Amendment is not absolute and narrowing it (to ban assault rifles and require gun purchasers to undergo gun safety training) might have saved some of the 2,400 persons killed in mass shootings since 2006, or the 50 schoolchildren killed since 2016.
In 2023, Kirk described Martin Luther King as a “bad guy,” a statement he later said was wrong. But on MLK Day this year, he said “a myth has been created and it’s grown totally out of control. Worship God, not a mythological anti-racist creation from the 1960s.” He also has said that the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 and 1965 were “a huge mistake” that’s “turned into an anti-white weapon.” He clearly had not read a word about Jim Crow.
No scientist, Kirk said that “birth control really screws up women’s brains” and that environmental regulations to control climate change were a globalist plot to undermine US sovereignty. He advocated banning all abortions.
The attacks by Trump and his followers—verbal and possibly legal—on liberals are a far cry from Utah Gov. Spencer Cox’s temperate remarks following Kirk’s killing. He’s said that Kirk’s assassin deserves punishment (perhaps even the death penalty) but also has said “our nation is broken… Hatred metastasizes. We can always point a finger at the other side and sometime we have to find an off-ramp or it’s going to get much, much worse.” He also urged Americans to get off social media, which he described as “a cancer.” He urges citizens of differing opinions to talk to one another agreeably and try to solve problems together.
I admit, I point fingers at Trump all the time. I’ll stop when he starts acting like Gov. Cox.
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