It has been like this before

Hey Bub,

Earlier this month, Charlie Kirk was murdered while speaking at a university. Whatever else you thought of him, he was a man with a wife and two young children. That is sad. And he was there to talk politics: showing up on campuses and inviting argument. That’s the work.

What followed disturbed me even more than the assassination. Some allies declared war, said “normal politics has failed,” and talked about cleansing the country. Some critics mocked his death, rolled tape of his worst moments, and implied he had it coming. Both responses reek of rot and are wholly unacceptable.

I admit this isn’t most people. But online algorithms amplify the worst, so the loudest voices set the temperature. And right now the temperature is breaking through the top of the thermometer.

It isn’t the first time the country has run this hot. In the 1850s, congressmen literally bludgeoned each other with canes on the Senate floor. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, leaders were assassinated in quick succession: King, Kennedys, Wallace was nearly killed, bombs going off in cities. After the Vietnam War, Watergate, and race riots, many wondered if the union would hold. We’ve been here before: angry, frightened, and half-convinced the whole thing was coming apart.

What’s different now is how violence spreads in real time, egged on by social media. A man tried to burn Josh Shapiro’s family alive. Nancy Pelosi’s husband was beaten with a hammer. A former Minnesota speaker and her husband were murdered. And pieces of the public actually lauded each of these horrible incidents. Violence is viral. A small fire can turn into a firestorm with just a few keystrokes.

So what do we do?

·         First, refuse to make the act into an excuse for abandoning ordinary politics.

·         Second, insist, with clarity and force, that violence is never a legitimate political tool.

·         Third, look for what binds us even while we keep fighting.

That’s hard. You can hate Kirk’s politics and still see his murder for what it was: an attack on the civic ground rules. If bullets decide disputes, we have no rules left. That’s why the dialectic here isn’t about sainthood or agreement—it’s about the recognition that the same shot could have been aimed at any of us, for what we say, think, or believe.

Politics is ugly, yes. The stakes feel existential. But if all we are to each other is enemies, we’re finished. The test now is whether we keep fighting within the lines, or give the unhinged a veto over whether we still have a country.

What then are the really important stories of the past few weeks?

·         If you’re in need of a laugh, a good comedy is a great place to start.

·         Robert Redford, you were one of a kind.

·         New York City is full of natural life if you know where to look.

Enjoying the crisp beginning of the fall.

Dwight

P.S. In law, as in politics, the rules are what keep disputes from devolving into chaos. At our firm, we help clients navigate conflict (whether it’s corporate battles, real estate fights, or high-stakes litigation) by keeping the fight inside the system, not outside of it.

If you’re facing a dispute that feels combustible, don’t wait until it erupts. Reach out. We’ll help you find a path forward that protects your interests, enforces your rights, and keeps the fight where it belongs: in court, not in the streets with bullets.