The assassination of Charlie Kirk should have been a moment of silence, reflection, and unity.
A husband, father, and one of the most influential young conservative leaders in America was gunned down by a sniper while speaking to students at Utah Valley University. Instead of focusing on the horror of the act, or the need to bring the killer to justice, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker saw an opportunity to score political points — and he took it.
Standing at a microphone, Pritzker briefly offered sympathy to Kirk’s family before pivoting into familiar partisan talking points. He insisted he didn’t know whether this was “political violence,” even though investigators have already described it as a targeted attack.
Then, almost reflexively, he shifted the blame onto Donald Trump and the January 6th rioters, suggesting that their actions somehow created the environment that led to Kirk’s assassination.
“I think the president’s rhetoric often foments it,” Pritzker said. “We’ve seen the January 6 rioters who clearly have tripped a new era of political violence. And the president? What did he do? Pardoned them. I mean what kind of signal does that send to people who want to perpetrate political violence?”
This is the same tired formula we’ve heard for years: ignore the Left’s own history of inflammatory rhetoric, ignore the countless times conservative voices have been dehumanized, and pin every act of violence on Trump. Convenient, yes. Honest? Not even close.
Because if we’re going to talk about signals, let’s be clear. The same Democratic Party Pritzker represents has tolerated, even encouraged, rhetoric that paints Republicans as Nazis, fascists, and existential threats to democracy. Senators have threatened Supreme Court justices by name.
Representatives have called for mobs to harass Trump officials in public. Former President Biden himself has indulged in language about putting Trump “in the bull’s-eye.” And all of this is somehow supposed to be excused as “passion” while every conservative word is framed as incitement?
Charlie Kirk wasn’t storming a barricade. He wasn’t hurling bricks through a window. He was standing in front of students, answering their questions in a campus quad — doing what he had done hundreds of times before. And for that, he was shot from 200 yards away.
