Mourn for Charlie Kirk. Mourn for America.

Pray we step back from the brink.

Charlie Kirk is dead.

The conservative pundit and spokesman for Turning Point USA was shot and killed at a speaking event at Utah Vally University on Wednesday. As I write this, the shooter has reportedly been arrested, but not identified

Let me say this: Every American should categorically condemn the shooting. As I have said before, there should be no place for violence in our political discourse.

photo credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia

I was not a fan of Charlie Kirk, but I still condemn his murder. I didn’t listen to Kirk, and most of what I know of him came from Twitter posts where he seemed like a rabble rouser and provacateur. In America, we should be able to disagree without resorting to violence, and as much I may have disagreed with Kirk, I believe in his First Amendment right to voice his opinions.

I am also going to criticize those on the left who will be laughing and celebrating Kirk’s death. Murder is wrong. Full stop. Whatever differences people may have had with Kirk, he was a human being and did not deserve to have his life cut short. The people who believe that Kirk had it coming are just as bad as whoever pulled the trigger.

I’m going to take this opportunity to once again call on both sides to tone down their political rhetoric and turn down the temperature on our political discourse. People will accuse me of playing the Both Sides card. That’s fine, because it is a Both Sides problem.

One of the big problems with the American political landscape these days is that neither side believes its own members can do wrong and neither remembers nor acknowledges its own faults. Republicans will bring up the recent Minneapolis mass shooting and the attempts on Donald Trump’s life and point fingers at Democrats while forgetting the attempt on Nancy Pelosi’s life that nearly killed her husband, the anti-immigrant mass shooting in El Paso, and the racist spree killer in Buffalo who targeted blacks, not to mention January 6. It was just a few months ago that a right-wing activist murdered two Democratic members of the Minnesota legislature.

Charlie Kirk was the first high-profile casualty of our recent political strife, but it could have just as easily been Nancy Pelosi, Brett Kavanaugh, or any number of members of Congress.

My point is not to say that one side is worse than the other. My point is that there are horrible people on both sides – too many - and our public discourse is driven by the lowest common denominator. The coarseness of our politics has become such that we assume the worst of the other side. We can do this because many of us never even talk to anybody on the other side except when we argue through a keyboard.

Whoever killed Charlie Kirk should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. That should happen quickly.

What should not happen is stereotyping every Democrat as a radical terrorist. The Trump Administration should also not use this crime as an excuse to crack down on political opponents or send troops into American cities. Let the record show that the murder occurred in Utah, not Chicago.

I’ll add that criminally bad behavior on the part of the left (I assume since we don’t have a confirmed motive at this point) does not justify the Trump Administration’s bad behavior.

Most of our parents probably taught that two wrongs don’t make a right. That’s true in politics as well.

It makes no sense to tally up each side’s crimes and point fingers because, in your estimation, your tribe kills fewer people than the other. As I’ve said before, both extremes are awful, and that kind of thinking leads to a downward spiral. A race to the bottom.

I am afraid for America right now. Both sides are becoming more violent, and we are getting closer to the brink, a point of no return. Neither side seems to want to take its foot off the gas pedal.

If we are going to avoid more widespread bloodshed and the possible destruction of the American Republic, it is going to take both sides owning up to the bad apples in their midst and getting them under control to stop our decline. The Young Republicans and Young Democrats of Connecticut set an example for the rest of the country with their joint statement after Kirk’s murder rejecting “all forms of political violence.”

I mourn Charlie Kirk’s death because he was a fellow American who was murdered, but I also mourn for what it means for America. Kirk was not the first person to die for politics in the last few years, and I’m afraid he won’t be the last.