"American politics has sides... But both sides are meant to be on the same side of a larger project"
Friday, September 26, 2025
After the murder of Charlie Kirk, the US has entered a dangerous new era for political violence. We’ve seen January 6th, attempts on Trump, the assassinations of Melissa Hortman and her husband, and attempted murder of State Senator John Hoffman and his wife, the firebombing of Governor Josh Shapiro’s home, and the hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband over the past 4 years. This is unhealthy.
Ezra Klein wrote a column the day after Kirk’s assassination that received a lot of pushback. The title alone rankled many, including me: “Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way.” Kirk left a troubling legacy of bigotry and lies behind - Ta Nahesi Coates has a good rundown (paywall) of the many horrible things he said in the pursuit of his politics.
At the core of what Ezra Klein wrote, though, is this idea that we must decide if we want to be a country. If so, we must have more than zero tolerance for those that disagree with us:
American politics has sides. There is no use pretending it doesn’t. But both sides are meant to be on the same side of a larger project — we are all, or most of us, anyway, trying to maintain the viability of the American experiment. We can live with losing an election because we believe in the promise of the next election; we can live with losing an argument because we believe that there will be another argument. Political violence imperils that.
Commitment to the American project is everything.
Ezra Klein joined Tim Miller on the Bulwark Podcast recently. I found the conversation hit upon a few ideas I’ve had trouble articulating for myself. It’s a good conversation.