I’ve debated writing this at all, but here we go.
In recent years, I have tended to roll my eyes whenever someone laments the imminent fall of our country or civilization. As a student of history, I understand that by many measures, this is objectively the best time to be alive. And however turbulent and crazy things might feel, that is largely the product of social media amplifying division and news organizations that care nothing about accuracy but only about clicks driving us all insane with their push notification-based news cycle.
But in the past few months, some of these stories have hit particularly close to home in a way that reminds me that they are not just news stories. There were the Israeli embassy staffers who were murdered in cold blood outside a DC Jewish museum—I didn’t know them, but it could have been my friends. Or the shooting into a school Mass on the first day of a Catholic school in Minneapolis—the day before I sent my daughter off to start Catholic school. Or the murder of a young woman, a new immigrant from Ukraine who had arrived in this country to make a new life only a month earlier before she was brutally slain on a train by someone who should have been in jail.
Then there’s the murder of Charlie Kirk, a husband and father with children the same age as my own. I knew who he was, but to be honest I wasn’t too familiar with him or his organization before. I’m big on history, but not so much on contemporary politics. What I do know is that, by accounts of those who knew him, including those who disagreed with his views, he was a kind and decent man.
As I write this, many questions remain unanswered, but it seems pretty clear that he was murdered for expressing his views. And far too many people are comfortable celebrating his death because they didn’t agree with those views.
This is abhorrent. How far we have fallen.
Freedom of expression is for everyone, not just those you agree with. Political violence is disgraceful and has absolutely zero place in our society and must not be tolerated, normalized, or celebrated. Words are not violence. Violence is violence, and perhaps now is a good time to recall that calls to “globalize the intifada” are precisely calls for violence.
It is up to all of us to dial things down before we fracture beyond repair. Reports of the Republic’s demise have been premature, but I have come to believe that we can get there if we continue down the road of grievance and demonization. I am by no means trying to “both sides” this issue, but all of us, whomever we may have voted for or support, need to play a part in putting our society back together. We have to find a way forward together, or we may not have a country at all.
What might that look like?
Spend less time on social media, or get rid of it entirely. Stay away from media organizations that profit by sowing division and anger. Stop viewing “the other side” as your enemy and give people the benefit of the doubt. Spend less time scrolling and more time reading. Go outside. Get involved in something in your local community with other people. Go to church or synagogue. Spend time with your family and friends. Pray.