Martyrs, Martyrs Everywhere, But None for the Children
Trump canonizes Charlie Kirk, the right blames “the Left,” Britain sacks Mandelson, and America shrugs off another school shooting while inflation and incompetence pile higher.
Good morning! The only thing worse than another American death by gunfire is the way this country reacts to it. In Colorado, Evergreen High School is shuttered after a sixteen-year-old brought a revolver into class and left one of his classmates in critical condition, another injured, and himself dead by his own hand. The students will return to their lockers and lesson plans eventually, because that’s what American children do: they rehearse lockdowns, they survive, they bury their friends, and then they get back to homework. The cycle is so familiar that it barely cracks the news crawl anymore.
Contrast that silence with the performance in Washington after Charlie Kirk was shot on stage in Utah. Donald Trump, who cannot spare a breath for yet another bloody classroom, delivered a sermon over Kirk’s demise as though he were a fallen head of state, a martyr for truth and freedom. Kirk, in Trump’s telling, was “the best of America,” assassinated not by an unknown gunman but by “the radical left.” “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism we’re seeing in our country,” Trump thundered, turning grief into indictment. Never mind that law enforcement still has no idea who actually pulled the trigger. MAGA world, the Kremlin, and Elon Musk all agreed within minutes: blame the left, call for revenge, and if you’re feeling particularly theatrical, declare “we’re at war.” Former DOGE official Shaun Maguire even wrote, “We’re not supposed to say this. But the truth is we’re at War.” Musk, ever the opportunist, reposted and added: “The Left is the party of murder.” Florida’s Anna Paulina Luna pointed across the aisle on the House floor and shouted, “You all caused this.” It was less a moment of mourning than a chorus line audition for vengeance.
This is how tragedy becomes theater. While families in Evergreen wait for updates from hospital beds, Cash Patel and his social-media-obsessed FBI run a Keystone Cops routine in Utah, arresting the wrong people, announcing suspects on X, and then retracting in embarrassment. It’s the natural consequence of Trump’s loyalty purge: senior counterterror experts fired, women and people of color pushed out, lawsuits piling up from career agents who dared to investigate him. Instead of preventing violence, the bureau is chasing likes. Instead of competence, we get hashtags and tip lines begging the public for help.
Even the judiciary is sounding the alarm. A dozen federal judges, including some appointed by Trump himself, told NBC that the Supreme Court has abandoned them. Ten of the twelve said outright that the justices aren’t standing up for the rule of law or for the lower courts under siege. From granting Trump sweeping immunity to indulging his “Article II powers,” the Court has left judges on the front lines exposed to threats, intimidation, and political violence. Imagine being sworn to uphold the Constitution while the highest court in the land shrugs and hands the keys to the very man who has turned mobs against you. It’s not judicial independence anymore; it’s judicial Russian roulette.
Across the Atlantic, Britain at least remembers how to draw a line. Keir Starmer sacked Peter Mandelson as ambassador to Washington after leaked emails showed him fawning over Jeffrey Epstein, urging the convicted predator to fight for early release and signing his birthday book “my best pal.” Embarrassing doesn’t begin to cover it, and Mandelson is out the door. Here in America, by contrast, Trump’s administration cut Ashli Babbitt’s family a $5 million check and is still toying with the idea of giving full military honors to a woman killed while trying to overturn an election. Starmer dumps an ambassador for sycophantic emails; Trump canonizes a coup-plotter. Civilized countries still grasp the concept of shame.
Meanwhile, the real world keeps intruding. Inflation, cooled for a brief moment, is warming back up thanks to Trump’s tariffs. August prices ran at a 2.9 percent annual pace, tomatoes up 3.3 percent, furniture up nearly one percent, shoes and toys climbing too. Americans are paying the price for Trump’s fantasy that tariffs are “free money.” The Labor Department quietly admitted that 911,000 fewer jobs were created last year than originally reported. Economists are whispering the dreaded word “stagflation.” Jerome Powell is cornered, expected to cut rates even as tariffs drip higher costs through every aisle of the grocery store.
So there you have it: a nation where children are shot in classrooms with barely a mention, where a culture-war provocateur is mourned like a martyred saint, where an insurrectionist’s family gets a payday and perhaps a bugle salute, and where the FBI is too busy curating its social media presence to catch a killer. The UK shows the faint glimmer of accountability, and we show the world that in Trump’s America the reaction is always worse than the crime. North of the border, Canadians boil the whole mess down to four words on a meme: “Gun Control Saves Lives.” Here, we just save the theatrics.
It is really difficult to write the truth, however necessary, about an assassination of a young man and father. Charlie Kirk was a provocateur selling his brand of hate in a bottle, much like the snake oil salesmen of yore, but he wasn't selling a cure was he? He was selling his own tried and true remedy against peace and love: chaos and hatred. I am sad that he got shot like that - in that traumatizing way for all to see - sad for the witnesses. I just read someplace else this morning (might have been you, Mary) that mass shootings have become so common in America that 1 in 15 people have been a witness to one. Is that possible? Since the ILA of the NRA was formed, this country has been sold a load of bullshit - 400 million guns worth of pure manure. those people have destroyed the political careers of many good persons in the name of keeping Americans safe by arming as many people as possible. But 400 million guns later, do you feel safe?
Let us mourn, again, for 9/11. Not heroes, just those of us lost from extremism. Ask not for whom the bell tolls…
And again, ENOUGH. I am certainly not a Kirk apologist. There is a dreadful irony to his assassination. Karma, if you will. Condolences to his family. But the hagiography from Trump and his minion is pathetic, performative. The flag at half mast? A Medal of Freedom, further debased as a political token? Before the gun smoke dissipated, Trump was expounding in divisiveness and the violence of the “radical left.” So, we enter the thoughts & prayers cycle. The Right ignores the school shooting in Evergreen, CO. There was no half-mast for the MN legislature woman, Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, who were shot and killed. There was only a snide comment from Kirk when Paul Pelosi was assaulted.
And we are walking on egg shells. No to violence, most certainly. But for the media to observe Kirk contributed to the divisiveness, a guarded silence. Incredibly MSNBC fired Matthew Dowd for uttering the truth of Kirk. Katy Tur, as I read now, facing calls for her being fired for uttering the simple truth, Kirk was no choirboy.
Enough to violence. Enough to celebrity for those who promote division. For the GOP, some reflection re: this President. The better course, condemn rhetoric like the “radial left,” the “vermin,” and all the other derisive comments from the WH. Focus on victims from the Sandy Hook children to Charlie Kirk as casualties, not causes.