Standback and Standby
By Richard W. Wise Copyright 2025
The assassination of Charlie Kirk was a tragic and regrettable example of our violent culture. No less tragic is the Trump administration's obvious plan—straight out of the authoritarian playbook—to create a martyr and us his unfortunate death to attack free speech and his political enemies--a broad section of our citizens. Before the killer was even identified, Trump's attack began.
It was left wing radicals, Trump screamed though as usual he cited no evidence. "A lot of the people that you would traditionally say are on the left [are] already under investigation", he said four days after the shooting. Somehow forgotten by Mr. Trump was the death of Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman, a former state House speaker. She and her husband, Mark, were shot and killed at their home in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota on June 13th.
Earlier that same morning, in a separate incident, a few miles away, Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were shot and wounded at their home. Later recovered from the shooter, Vance Luther Boelter, a hit list with the names of 70 prominent Democrats.
At the time, Trump called those shootings "horrific" but the other day, when asked by a reporter why U. S. flags were not lowered to half-mast after those murders, Trump, at first, didn't seem to recall that particular slaughter. He would have, he said, if the governor of the state had asked him.
Cults need martyrs and MAGA has now got one. Hitler had sixteen—the men who died in his abortive 1923 Beer Hall Putsch. Once he assumed power in 1935, Hitler dug them up and had them reburied in a temple created in their honor. As for those in the Bavarian government and police who put down the putsch, they were "investigated" then murdered, exiled or sent to concentration camps. Sound familiar? Trump's January 6th investigation of the investigators has already begun.
The late Charlie Kirk was an outstanding debater and a fierce free speech advocate. At a recent speech at the OxfordUnion, he said: "You should be allowed to say outrageous things. You should be allowed to say contrarian things…regardless of who is in power…" It will be a supreme irony and an insult to the Mr. Kirk's memory, if Donald Trump gets away with using his death to suppress the very freedoms, he held dear.