Victor Davis Hanson, with his typical excellence, has written a comparison between the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s murder and the death of George Floyd.
Here is how it begins:
Just days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the left is working overtime to hide the truth and create fantasies about his death.
Specifically, leftists alleged that conservatives were going to “pounce” on the death to wage protests and boost radical agendas in the manner of what followed George Floyd’s death.
Here are some of the lies that such a ridiculous narrative entails.
Here is the first lie and Mr. Hanson’s take-down of it:
One, Charlie Kirk is not conservatives’ George Floyd. There were no mass riots after his death of the sort that followed Floyd’s demise.
Floyd’s death was used by the left to justify five months of rioting, arson, murder, looting, and attacking police officers.
The postmortem respect for Kirk’s singular life was not characterized by $2 billion in property damage, the torching of a police precinct, a federal courthouse, and an iconic church, 35 deaths, and 1,500 injured law-enforcement officers.
Instead, thousands of people peacefully joined his Turning Point USA organization and promised to redirect their lives toward peaceful political engagement.
And here is how it ends:
Why is the left fabricating the circumstances surrounding and following Kirk’s murder?
In its signature projective style, the left is terrified that the right might follow its own example—by manipulating facts, ginning up street violence, and issuing non-negotiable demands to achieve its agenda.
But the chief difference between the Kirk assassination and the death of Floyd is that the post-Floyd agenda had no majority support and so had to be rammed through in hysterical times by implied threats of unending violence beyond five months of continued mayhem.
The post-Kirk agenda eschewed violence because it was both morally wrong and politically counterproductive—since most Americans naturally favored most of what Kirk championed.
Do yourself a major favor and use the link (here it is again) to read all the rest.
There is no better columnist than Victor Davis Hanson. The reason is that he just plain makes sense. Every time. Very much including this time.
His commentaries are an ongoing remedial course on common sense analysis for columnists/editorialists on both sides of the political spectrum, but particularly on the left side. Too bad most of them will learn nothing from him.
