Charlie Kirk And The Politics Of Rhetoric And Division

(MENAFN- The Conversation) Republican political activist Charlie Kirk was killed as he spoke at a Utah Valley University event on September 10. Just three months earlier, Minnesotan House Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot and killed by a masked gunman.

According to a thinktank, the Institute of Strategic and International Studies, violence against those in US political life in the four years to 2024 was nearly triple the number of incidents in the previous 25 years combined.

Historically the killings of significant political figures has sometimes been the precursor to dramatic repression or further violence. The killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in 1914 led precipitously to the beginning of the first world war. The murder of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by a Jewish refugee was used as a pretext for the slaying of Jews in Berlin and the justification for unleashing a wave of violence and destruction across Nazi Germany in what became known as Kristallnacht.

There are, of course, alternative lessons from historic moments. When British MP Jo Cox was slain on the streets of Birstall, near Leeds, in 2016, politicians from across the divide condemned it. Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and Conservative prime minister David Cameron visited the town where Cox was murdered together: a symbol of political unity against violence.

Violent speech

Political violence is defined by the United Nations as that which is intended to achieve political goals or intimidate opponents through the use of physical force or threats to influence a political outcome or silence dissent. Katie Pruszynski, who researches political violence at the University of Sheffield, finds that the use of polarising and extreme language in debate has stoked up something she calls“hyperpartisanship”, where opponents have become“enemies” and those with different worldviews have become“traitors”. This tension stokes distrust and radicalisation, she warns. So then, this fits within the framework of the US president's immediate reaction. In a video published on X, Trump vowed to root out“the radical left” whose rhetoric is“directly responsible” for Kirk's killing .

Read more: Charlie Kirk shooting: another grim milestone in America's long and increasingly dangerous story of political violence

Melissa Butcher, a professor emeritus at Royal Holloway, University of London, researches political polarisation, and its causes. She also spent time listening to Kirk's speeches at the conservative rally AmericaFest in 2021.

As part of her work on the political and ideological divides in the US, Butcher has listened to conversations in all sorts of locations, from social clubs to shooting ranges and offices. Those discussions suggest a widespread feeling that community is breaking down. She has talked to Americans who believe that the promise of an affluent future is disappearing in the face of environmental collapse and successive financial crises.

News breaks of the killing of US political activist Charlie Kirk.

Her research suggests that some Americans now see the world as scary and unsafe. And these emotions can provoke rage as well as despair. But more hopefully, she found, that many people want hope, safety and to live in a caring community.

Read more: Charlie Kirk was emblematic of a country polarised and imploding

Religion and debate

To outsiders the significant role of religion in US politics can come as a shock. Quotes from the Bible regularly make an appearance in speeches and questions about church attendance are thrown at candidates. Gordon Lynch, a professor of religion at the University of Edinburgh, has studied Kirk's leadership in the white Christian nationalist movement within the US.

For Christian nationalists, the idea of the separation of church and state acknowledges not having an official state church. But the complete separation of Christianity from public institutions is anathema and secular institutions such as public schools and universities are often regarded as hostile ground, says Lynch.

Lynch notes the role of Kirk's organisation, Turning Point USA, in calling on students to name and shame professors who they judged to have problematic or socialist views, and creating a watchlist. But he also feels that a different part of Kirk's legacy could be acknowledging the activist's commitment to debate with, and listen to, those whose views he disagreed with. And this could be extremely valuable in the current climate, if stressed by Republican leaders.

Read more: Charlie Kirk: why the battle over his legacy will divide even his most ardent admirers

On the borders of Europe, an emergency

Meanwhile, another crisis which needs the US president's attention is unravelling on the other side of the Atlantic, on the Polish border with Russia. Putin's drones ventured into Polish airspace and were shot down by Nato fighter jets. Many see this as Russian president, Vladimir Putin, testing the mettle of the Nato allies to find out the level of their response.

Poland immediately invoked article 4 of the Nato treaty. The alliance's members met to discuss the threat and the UN security council are due to meet on September 12 about the incident. Stern words have been issued and troops dispatched to Nato's eastern border. But Stefan Wolff from the University of Birmingham, believes that Putin will not be worried by the west's response. As Wolff observes, the Russian leader will be buoyed by his military's recent advances on the battlefield. He'll also be basking in the warmth of recent talks with Xi Jinping of China, Narendra Modi of India and Kim Jong-un of North Korea. So Nato's response is hardly likely to have him rattled.

Read more: Russian drones over Poland is a serious escalation – here's why the west's response won't worry Putin

Russia's future plans to add more territory (not just areas that it currently controls within Ukraine) were laid out in detail by the University of Aberystwyth's Jenny Mathers, who researches the war in Ukraine, this week. At a briefing given by Russia's chief of the general staff, Valery Gerasimov, that has now come to light, a map was shown in the background suggesting Russia's intention to claim the areas around Odesa and Mykolaiv along the coast of the Black Sea. These would give Moscow important economic and strategic control of sea routes but also potential to create a land corridor to Transnistria, a pro-Russia breakaway region within Moldova that seeks independence.

Read more: Russia has provided fresh evidence of its territorial ambitions in Ukraine

The upcoming Moldovan election on September 28 must be recognised as another struggle to maintain European security in the face of Russian aggression , says Amy Eagleston, a political scientist at Leiden University. Eagleston points to Russian cyber interference in a past Moldovan election as evidence for worries about what could happen this time. She stresses Moldova's strategic position as a support for Ukraine, under its current government. Things could change fast, she warns.

Read more: Why Moldova's election is important for the whole of Europe

Israel's unprecedented strike

Another strike that shook the world this week was Israel's unprecedented airstrike on the Qatari capital of Doha where Hamas officials were discussing a peace deal. This was the first time that Israel had directly attacked a Gulf state.

Scott Lucas, an international politics professor at University College Dublin and an expert on the Israel/Gaza crisis, argues that this showed the current Israeli government was not willing to engage in any kind of peace negotiation . It was, he said, clearly ready to level parts of Gaza City, kill Hamas's leadership and completely break up the organisation. Lucas believes there will be no more talk of a ceasefire with Hamas, only capitulation.

Read more: Middle East leaders condemn Israel's attack on Qatar as Netanyahu ends all talk of Gaza ceasefire – expert Q&A

Long arm of the law?

In a week when international law was being tested to its outer limits , James Sweeney, a professor of law at Lancaster University, spoke up for its long-term relevance and his belief that it would outlast political careers.

History shows that leaders who once seemed untouchable have eventually faced justice in one form or another, said Sweeney, pointing to the Nuremberg trials of Nazis and how former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet died awaiting trial for human rights abuses to house arrest. Pinochet may well have believed that would never happen to him. It did.

Something for today's leaders to contemplate carefully.

Read more: International law isn't dead. But the impunity seen in Gaza urgently needs to be addressed

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