An Apology is Overdue

The Right immediately, without evidence, blamed the Left for Charlie Kirk's assassination. When details began to emerge that told a different story, there were no apologies offered.

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The Right immediately, without evidence, blamed the Left for Charlie Kirk's assassination. When details began to emerge that told a different story, there were no apologies offered, even as the threats and bomb scares poured in.

As of right now, authorities have not established Tyler Robinson’s motive. There is no evidence that he was motivated by the right-wing internecine Groyper wars, and there is also no evidence that he was motivated by the left. But that isn’t stopping the Right from blaming the Left.

The far-Right poses the biggest domestic terrorism threat in the United States, and has for many years.

The general public might not know this due to the media carrying so much water for Republicans that they immediately fired anyone (hello, Matthew Dowd) who pointed this out as a potential problem when yet another political voice was targeted with violence. Sure, Dowd could have expressed his thoughts better, but do you know whose rhetoric is radically transforming America?

Donald Trump. The convicted felon who tried to wage a deadly self-coup against the United States. The guy whose presence in our political world has been accompanied with increasing violence, intolerance, division, rage, and misery.

Yet, before any of the facts were in, conservatives had spread abject, reckless, dangerous lies blaming Democrats, people of color, trans people – i.e., their perceived “enemies.” This is a very familiar tale. It happened when then candidate Donald Trump was twice targeted by gunmen, both of whom turned out to be conservatives/Trump supporters at one time.

Here’s a collection of immediate reactions by some of the biggest conservative accounts:

Factcheck.Org both-sided the "political violence” with the below dissertation of violence:

Later on Sept. 10, in a video message, Trump blamed Democrats for Kirk’s death. “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now,” the president said, going on to cite incidents he attributed to “radical left political violence,” including the assassination attempt against him in Pennsylvania last summer and the 2017 shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise at a congressional baseball team practice.

Trump didn’t mention the Hortman killing in those remarks. Lawmakers of both parties have been targeted in a spate of violent acts in recent years, including an arson attack at the home of Democratic Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro earlier this year and the 2022 attack on Paul Pelosi, the husband of then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan was the target of a 2020 kidnapping plot, according to federal law enforcement. Two staffers at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., were shot and killed in May. Trump also cited the killing of United Healthcare’s CEO last year.

OK, so let’s dive into this perilous conflation.

Steve Scalise survived being shot by 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson of Belleville, Ill., who opened fire on a group of Republican members of Congress on June 14, 2017 out of anger about Trump’s election. He was a “leftwing activist with record of domestic violence.”

As I write and say in media appearances, there is an intersection between mass shooters and domestic violence abusers. "If we ask what mass killers have in common, we note that they are almost all men, and that they have a history of controlling and abusing their wives and girlfriends — and sometimes other family members — before 'graduating' to mass killings," said Lisa Fontes, Ph.D. told CBS News.

So if anyone really wanted to reduce crime/mass shootings, they would prosecute domestic violence and stalking more seriously, especially given that on average more than 3 women are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends every day in this country and “the presence of a gun in a domestic violence situation makes it five times more likely the woman will be killed.”

Democrats targeted with violence named by Factcheck started with “the Hortman killing,” which was actually four Democrats who were shot, with two dying and two in critical condition. Two of them were Democratic lawmakers whose spouses and a dog were targeted by a rabid far-right person who had a very long list of Democratic targets he was planning to assassinate. Certainly if we are counting the attempts on Trump’s life, then we should count people who were wounded so much that they ended up in the hospital in critical condition and Mark, the spouse of Melissa Hortman, who also died.

Some elected Republicans mocked the killing of the Minnesota Democrats and blamed Democrats for an act done by (yet another) right-wing man, including Wisconsin GOP U.S. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who mocked Democrats and “falsely characterized the suspected shooter, a right-wing religious fanatic on a mission to murder Democrats and abortion providers, as an anti-Trump protester who ‘decided to murder and attempt to murder some politicians that were not far Left enough for them.’”

Next up on their list is Democratic Governor of Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro, and I’ll add his wife and four kids, who were also at home when their house was set ablaze resulting in them needing to be evacuated on Passover.

The arsonist’s social media feed was “full of posts expressing anti-government sentiment, misogynistic or demeaning messages about women, and memes, according to AFP's review of its activity over the years leading up to the arson attack.”

Balmer was also due in court for domestic violence charges before his firebombing arrest. He had been living with his parents and refusing to take his psychiatric medication according to his mother. He was also carrying a hammer to assault the Governor, mirroring the attack on Paul Pelosi. His available social media posts showed “opposition to former President Joe Biden, President Donald Trump, the GOP and the Democratic Party.”

Immediately, lies were spread blaming critics of Trump for the attack on Shapiro, with an image going viral of arsonist Cody Balmer posting a photo “with an explicit message” criticizing Trump. But this image was false, “the image making the rounds is altered, with the original featuring no such text.”

Want to guess who made that post? A 1/6 convict who was pardoned by Trump. “Philip Anderson, a conservative influencer who was charged in the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol and later pardoned by Trump.”

In 2022, Democrat Paul Pelosi, married to the then Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, was attacked in their home by David DePape, was a believer in far-right conspiracy theories and had targeted Pelosi due to his hatred of his wife, then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi had to have brain surgery and hand surgery as a result of the attack, and he was mocked by high level Republicans and big conservative voices for this attack.

Speaking of “rhetoric”, check out the reactions to Pelosi’s attack:

Donald Trump: The then former president questioned whether the attack might have been staged, telling a crowd in California, "You hear the same things I do". He also sarcastically asked, "How's her husband doing?" at a rally.

Donald Trump Jr.: He retweeted a meme suggesting a "Paul Pelosi Halloween costume," which featured a hammer and a pair of underwear, writing, "The Internet remains undefeated".

Elon Musk: After acquiring Twitter, Musk tweeted and deleted a link to a false story claiming the attack was a dispute between Pelosi and a male prostitute.

Kari Lake: At a campaign event in 2022, the Arizona Republican drew laughter from a crowd when she joked about the attack, saying, "Nancy Pelosi, well, she's got protection when she's in DC. Apparently, her house doesn't have a lot of protection".

Glenn Youngkin: The Virginia governor made a joke at a campaign stop that "we're going to send Nancy Pelosi back to be with him in California," but later issued a written apology.

Charlie Kirk: The conservative talk radio host initially mocked the attack and repeated baseless conspiracy theories. After the September 2025 death of Kirk, some conservatives targeted those who mocked him online, despite the fact that Kirk himself had mocked the Paul Pelosi attack and other victims of political violence.

Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan was targeted with a kidnapping plot by far-Right extremists, including members of the Wolverine Watchmen militia. They plotted to kidnap her in retaliation for COVID-19 restrictions.

They also added the two staffers at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C. who were shot and killed by a man who said he did it for Palestine, shouting “Free, Free Palestine” after the shooting. In 2017, he protested “against the police shooting of a Chicago teen with a branch of the left-wing Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) but has purportedly not been active with the group since that time.”

Interestingly, Republicans were eager to associate rhetoric with those murders, whereas they denounced suggestions that Trump’s rhetoric had contributed to the radicalization of the 2018 Tree of Life mass shooter, who with an AR-15 rifle and several handguns shot and killed 11 people and wounded 6 others at a synagogue in Pittsburgh's Squirrel Hill neighborhood during Shabbat morning services.

That shooter was found to have made hateful postings on the white nationalist “alt-right” alternative to (then pre-Elon) Twitter called Gab that came to prominence by attaching itself to Trump’s 2016 campaign.

When the country tried to discuss the problems with dangerous rhetoric after the Tree of Life mass shooting, Republicans claimed it was “politicizing tragedy.” But when they wrongly assume a killer is on the Left, they jump in to not only politicize it, but actually call for violence and suggest a Civil War.

There is a consistent refusal on the Right to lower the temperature or acknowledge any kind of social responsibility for rhetoric from their party leaders. Democrats quite simply do not have a symmetrical issue with rhetoric by party leaders.

Lastly, there’s the CEO. “Trump also cited the killing of United Healthcare’s CEO last year.” I know this is hard for elites to hear, but the sympathy for Luigi Mangione was bipartisan. Getting screwed by a health insurance company is not Left versus Right, it’s Up versus Down. So, although the Trump administration has labeled it political violence, it was not an act of partisanship fueled by extremist rhetoric, which was supposed to be the issue.

Strawmen and conflations sneak in so quickly.