Charlie Kirk’s assassination last month has sparked an increasingly partisan debate about acceptable rhetoric as political parties maneuver for the moral high ground on the nature of political discourse in the United States.
After Kirk’s murder, Republicans pointed the finger at Democrats, asking them to take accountability for polarizing rhetoric they argued has fueled political violence.
Right-wing figures have blamed the Left for increasing the political temperature and resulting in Kirk’s assassination by weaponizing accusations of fascism, Nazism, and various kinds of bigotry.
In the weeks since, text messages, statements from years past, or other speech from those active in the political arena that likely would have flown under the radar before Kirk’s death have metastasized into a broader national debate, as both parties cast each other as the driver of rhetoric fueling hate and violence.
“I will tell you this: the violence on the left is far more prevalent than the violence on the right,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Tuesday. “Don’t make me go through the list, you all know it.”
The intense scrutiny has led to speech being analyzed at increasingly microscopic levels, with an array of messaging scandals and other controversies pointing to a secondary debate about where to draw the line between engaging in censorious cancel culture and seeking accountability for discourse viewed as truly disqualifying for political service.
“The reality is, we often have disagreed vehemently with each other throughout our history. We’ve often disagreed about what the facts are and what the correct opinions are, or the acceptable views are, and what are unacceptable,” David Inserra, a fellow for free expression at the Cato Institute, told the Washington Examiner.
“I think we’re in the midst of some moment where we are seeing both sides to a certain extent to say, you know, we think that our opinions are right, and in some cases, and increasingly, both sides are willing to say, and we should use the powers that we have to somehow enforce that viewpoint,” he added.
The consequences are playing out in real time, as political candidates, appointees, and activists have witnessed campaigns affected, nominations derailed, and futures transformed.
Some incidents have spurred widespread condemnation, with nuances forming only about whether candidates should withdraw from the political arena altogether. Jay Jones, the North Carolina attorney general candidate who attracted sweeping condemnation for sending violent text messages calling for a leading North Carolina Republican to be killed, falls into that category.
But the lines are becoming increasingly blurred in numerous other controversies that have fomented since Kirk’s death.
Whether certain speech warrants ejection or allows for redemption has become the thread tying together cases such as Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate facing scrutiny over old Reddit posts calling himself a communist and criticizing police and white people, Paul Ingrassia, President Donald Trump’s fallen nominee to lead the Office of Special Counsel who was accused of sending racist and antisemitic messages, and a Young Republicans group chat in which offensive private messages sparked backlash.
The politicization of such matters has only served to muddy the waters, as those affected by controversy argue that political foes have often abandoned nuance in favor of weaponizing scandals to further a partisan agenda. That dynamic, Inserra suggested, is driven by tribalism inherent in politics.
“Both sides want to blame the other,” he said. “Just that same tribal dynamic of you said something that offends my group’s sensibilities, and so therefore we’re going to use that same instrument of cancel culture against you, and we’re going to argue about who’s worse. I think your opinions are worse. You think my opinions are worse.”
The descent into tribalism is far from a novel fixture in American politics, Inserra said. But the digital age has changed the landscape, allowing political rivals to weaponize “offensive” statements made by opponents more easily.
“The reality is that more of our life is online. There’s more content for people to find,” he said. “Similar dynamics that exist in the past, it’s just that now, there’s a lot more ways that’s a lot more online. It’s a lot more in some cases when it gets out; it’s just very explosive, and there’s more communication. So we can see with our own eyes those words that are being spoken, those texts that are being sent.”
Platner is one such case. His digital footprint became the object of scrutiny earlier this month, threatening to derail his Senate campaign. Platner has apologized for offensive comments the Marine said he made in the past during struggles with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder upon coming back from combat tours to civilian life. At the same time, Platner has suggested that opponents, both Republican and Democrat, have deliberately bypassed the possibility of individual evolution and human transformation in an attempt to destroy his campaign.
“We are up against the machine. We were told not to run this race,” he said Monday during a Pod Save America interview. “We were sent messages saying we were not supposed to do this. We had to wait our turn. We didn’t have permission, and that if we did it, they were going to try to just destroy my life, and that is what they’re trying to do.”
“I believe in that kind of Democratic Party [that “show up and fight for big, courageous change”], and that’s what we’re trying to build,” Platner added. “And yet the leadership of the party sees that across the country, sees candidates across the country that represent that, and its only response is to crush them.”
STATE DEPT REVOKES VISAS OF FOREIGNERS WHO CELEBRATED CHARLIE KIRK ASSASSINATION
In the Ingrassia case, the Trump nominee’s lawyer, Edward Andrew Paltzik, made similar arguments this week, suggesting that his client’s political opponents are exploiting the controversy to advance the party line.
“There are individuals who cloak themselves in anonymity while executing their underhanded personal agendas to harm Mr. Ingrassia at all costs,” he said.
