The tragedies of Charlie Kirk

OPINION:

The assassination of Charlie Kirk was a tragedy for his family and the nation. His family lost a husband and father, and nothing can be done to heal their wounds.

Our nation lost a powerful and brilliant conservative thinker. Mr. Kirk was a leader and a political motivator. In a very few years, he could have been a leading conservative candidate for the presidency. He was popular with both younger and older voters. There was an honesty about him, spoken in his challenge to debaters to prove him wrong. He was right about pretty much everything important, including Islam.

He was unafraid of controversy. At one point, Mr. Kirk posted on social media, “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”

There isn’t much to say about the alleged assassin. Tyler Robinson was turned in by his father, to whom he admitted the murder. The alleged assassin had a “partner” who was a man “transitioning” to a woman. Mr. Kirk was beginning to answer a question about transgender shooters killing people, as occurred in a Minnesota Catholic school, when he was shot.

As reported by Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, messages were inscribed on ammunition consistent with antifa (“Hey fascist! Catch!”) as well as messages referring to video games and the “furry” subculture, in which some believers think they are anthropomorphic animals. The alleged assassin will certainly plead insanity.

Domestically, we have seen praise for the murder flow from Rep. Ilhan Omar, academia and some in the media. House Speaker Mike Johnson held a moment of silence in honor of Mr. Kirk. When Rep. Lauren Boebert asked for a moment of silent prayer, Democrats shouted her down.

The State Department warned foreign visa holders in the U.S. that they may forfeit their visas over praise for Mr. Kirk’s assassination.

Many in America believe, correctly, that Mr. Kirk was literally a martyr to the conservative cause. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of new Turning Point USA chapters are being formed across the country. Meanwhile, reactions to Mr. Kirk’s assassination spread quickly around the world.

Hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated in support of his message in London on Saturday.

Conservative leaders in many nations have praised Mr. Kirk and condemned his assassin. The Wall Street Journal reported that Alice Weidel, leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative for Germany party, said, “He was shot by a fanatic who hates our way of life.” According to that WSJ report, similar remarks were heard from leaders of parties in Japan, Chile, Colombia and Hungary.

Mr. Kirk’s message has, for a time, united conservatives around the world. His wife, Erika Kirk, has pledged that his message won’t die with him, but that remains to be seen. Meanwhile, members of Congress are pleading for more protection against assassinations.

There has been far too much political violence in this country. The two attempts on President Trump’s life are awful examples. Are we descending into anarchy?

W.B. Yeats described this in a poem about a century ago. He wrote, in part: “Things fall apart; the center cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed everywhere. The ceremony of innocence is drowned.”

There is no “center” now. The Democrats and Republicans have nothing in common. Crazy people, as demonstrated by the August murder of Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte, North Carolina, subway, are loose to commit murders of innocent people.

The fact that crazy people, such as Decarlos Brown Jr., the alleged murderer of Zarutska, are loose on the streets only proves that such people should be confined to do no harm. Mr. Brown had been arrested 14 times but, because of cashless bail and the extreme difficulty of involuntarily committing the insane, was released each time.

Mr. Brown allegedly stabbed Zarutska to death. She was a Ukrainian refugee who sought a better life in America, apparently returning home after her shift at a pizza joint. A friend insisted that I watch the video of the murder taken by a “security” camera. The uncomprehending look on her face while she was being stabbed said it all.

In another case, an illegal immigrant, Yordanis Cobos-Martinez, is being held on the charge of beheading a Dallas motel manager, Chandra Nagamallaiah. He allegedly used the head as a soccer ball, kicking it around the room.

A Brazilian congressman, Nikolas Ferreira, said of Mr. Kirk’s assassination, “They wanted to silence us, but what they achieved was to awaken us.” But have we really awakened?

America doesn’t seem anarchic. Most of us sleep safely in our beds. Still, there is a sense that the American dream is slipping away. Has Mr. Kirk’s assassination awakened us, or are we too complacent to demand that left-wing judges and prosecutors do their jobs? It must. We will see if it has.

• Jed Babbin is a national security and foreign affairs columnist for The Washington Times and a contributing editor for The American Spectator.