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As this column is being written late Wednesday afternoon, much more is unknown than known about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old conservative commentator who was shot while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
But this much is known, and universal: As I wrote on behalf of the Minnesota Star Tribune Editorial Board in the wake of the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in 2024, political violence is never justified, ever. Those things that unite us are far more profound than those things that divide us. Now is a time for unity, for all to express their sorrow, their hopes and, if they are people of faith, their prayers for Kirk, his wife, two young children, friends and extended family, and by extension the broader family of America.
Minnesotans in particular know all too well and all too recently the personal and societal tragedy of politically inspired violence after the assassination of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, and the attempted assassination of state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, allegedly by an extremist — a condition plaguing the nation from multiple perspectives right now. While the identity and motive of the Utah assassin is yet to be known, Kirk, although not an elected official, was clearly an incredibly influential political figure on the national stage and his killing is yet another attack on not just an individual but our democracy.
Of course, it’s not just politically motivated violence that understandably still has this state reeling; the horrific attack on Annunciation Church and school, which killed 8-year-old Fletcher Merkel and 10-year-old Harper Moyski and wounded at least 21 other children and adults, as well as the scores killed in recent weeks and months from other acts of unacceptable, unimaginable violence is wracking, if not wrecking, our sense of safety and order. It’s a feeling many nationwide feel, especially after heinous, high-profile incidents of unprovoked, unconscionable violence, like the killing of Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian woman on a Charlotte light-rail car.
Sadly, this era is not the first to experience a surge in political violence. Other turbulent times in American history saw waves of it, too, including presidential assassinations. One of them claimed the life of John F. Kennedy, and just a half decade hence claimed the life of Martin Luther King Jr.
On the night of King’s killing in April 1968, JFK’s brother, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, amid his own presidential campaign, spontaneously took to the back of a flatbed truck in Indianapolis to offer off-the-cuff, heart-on-his-sleeve comments. Included in his extraordinary, extemporaneous rhetoric were these wise words:
