Trump's Abuse of Charlie Kirk's Demise
Trump is not failing to lower the temperature; he is deliberately raising it
Donald Trump has once again revealed that no tragedy is too sacred, no grief too raw, to be twisted into fuel for his endless theater of self-interest. In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, his Oval Office address should have been a moment of unity and comfort for a shaken nation. Instead, it was a grotesque display of narcissism masquerading as leadership.
What Trump delivered was not a eulogy but a tirade.
Kirk’s death became a prop as Trump lashed out at the “radical left,” claiming critics had compared “wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers.” In this framing, dissent becomes culpability—a poisonous lie meant to gag criticism.
Charlie Kirk should not have been murdered. But his assassination does not sanctify his life’s work. He spent his career attacking pluralism, vilifying the press, mocking democratic safeguards, and promoting an exclusionary Christian nationalism that sought to suffocate liberty. Two truths can coexist: Kirk had the right to his views, and those views were corrosive to the American experiment.
Trump’s address was a calculated ploy: to turn grief into propaganda, to brand opponents as complicit in terrorism, to distract from his failures, and demand loyalty from a weakened Congress.
The historical echo is unmistakable.
When the Reichstag burned in 1933, Hitler seized the moment not to call for a fair investigation but to demand sweeping powers under the Enabling Act, which he then used to treat opposition as domestic terrorists.
Trump is attempting the same maneuver—stoking fear to consolidate control, wittingly or unwittingly.
Contrast this with President Joe Biden’s response after the attempt on Trump’s own life: a call to “lower the temperature,” to reject political violence, to remember neighbors and shared citizenship.
Biden’s address was presidential. Trump was predatory.
The assassin must be brought to justice. But the greater danger lies in Trump’s exploitation of the crime—his attempt to weaponize tragedy and silence dissent. The Reichstag fire destroyed one democracy. America must not hand over the match.
Trump is not defending American values; he is betraying them. At a moment that called for unity, he chose division. At a moment that called for humility, he chose spectacle. At a moment when the republic most needed leadership, he offered only his bottomless hunger for power.
We have seen where this path leads. America must peacefully, democratically, and lawfully resist it.