Like many of you, I spent a good deal of time on Sunday watching the Charlie Kirk Memorial. The sheer number of people who came — well over the 70,000-seat capacity, by many accounts — was nothing short of shocking, even for Kirk’s supporters. What we all saw yesterday was a unifying force in action, and one his detractors will never be able to overcome. I found myself encouraged in a way I haven’t been for many years. At the same time, however, we’ve seen a lot of leftist responses to that event, which can, I think, easily be traced back to an underlying fear. They saw clearly that they have a problem, and that it’s bigger than they had dreamed.
As one example, over at College Fix, Jen Kabbany wrote on Friday:
The University of Florida has removed the emeritus status of a retired law professor after he reportedly published a negative social media post about both assassinated conservative leader Charlie Kirk and President Donald Trump.
“The University of Florida has been made aware of a retired faculty member who issued a post on social media that is raising concerns. In accordance with the university’s policies and regulations, UF has rescinded this individual’s emeritus status,” the university posted on X on Friday.
The Professor’s name is Jeffery Harrison. He retired back in 2020, according to reports. He commented:
There is a lot of commentary about Charlie Kirk. It’s not that complicated. He was an evil person, spouting all kinds of hateful messages. I did not want him to die. I reserve that wish for Donald Trump. But let’s face it, even members of the Gestapo and guards at the concentration camps had children. That does not make them heroes, nor does it make Charlie Kirk someone to be admired.
This is the crowd we’re paying large amounts of money to teach our kids? Is there any wonder “higher education is not thought very highly of, anymore?
In response, UF has taken his Bio page down and has also removed the emeritus status. Rather than back off, Harrison has doubled down on his original statements, with another hate-filled diatribe. I won’t repost that here. Instead, I’ll leave that to your imagination.
(Heavy sigh)
As I wrote a few days ago, “Again, I’ll defend to the death anyone’s right to say such things, but I’ll also be on the front lines exercising my free speech rights, loudly denouncing such statements and actions.”
So he makes hateful statements while complaining about what he sees as someone else’s hate. Let’s examine this closely: He is attempting to draw a value link between one of the worst regimes in history and a guy who was engaging in honest and open debate with no trace of hatred involved. The hypocrisy is nothing short of staggering, not that it is at all unique. We’ve been seeing several such hateful posts over the last several days, in fact, too many to list here. Harrison’s is merely the latest to come over my desk. Based on those postings, it would appear that the feeling of rank-and-file Democrats (and those further left) is that the wrong guy got assassinated. That assessment is only made stronger by the attempts on Trump’s life.
I’ll say this again: Such speech is considered protected under the First Amendment, but that only limits governmental action. That protection does not mean that people like this should be able to retain their private sector jobs or their community standing. Nor should they be immune to public commentary, which, it should be noted, is not running in Harrison’s favor right now, though the balance is not the slam dunk I would prefer. Let’s recall that during the Obama years, the left was saying exactly that; it was all about societal consequences to anyone committing the heinous crime of publicly disagreeing with the left. As one commentator at Instapundit put it, “I guarantee you that if my work had seen me saying I want to kill Hillary, Obama, or Biden I would have lost my job.” And justifiably so.
What is truly alarming to me is the number of people who responded and continue to respond positively to Harrison’s hate-filled rants. I find it fascinating that so many people who claim the party of love, the party that uses as a slogan “Hate has no home here” as their political home, are willing to not only put up with such displays, but to stoutly and publicly agree with them. Compare this with the leftist claim of MAGA-inspired violence. Have we actually seen any right-wing violence in response to Charlie’s murder? Any at all?
But where is all this hate coming from? It’s a learned and acquired line of non-thought. It’s taken decades for us to get here.
That is not an exaggeration. With the exception of Gerald Ford, every Republican president since Eisenhower has suffered under a fevered impeachment attempt by the Democrats. Every single Republican president since then has also been labeled as Hitler’s second coming. Everything the left doesn’t like is Hitler. We are “The Deplorables,” “The uneducated.” We need to be “put into re-education centers.” (As an aside, please note that such comparisons are never linked to Che, Castro, Stalin, or Mao, despite the death tolls from those dictators being higher on an order of scale. There’s a clue there, somewhere!)
I pass along the situation with Robinson today because it puts all of this in strong relief. The evidence suggests that we’re finally getting a handle on this hate after many decades. The first step is its identification, and getting the folks I spoke of yesterday who have been staying out of the fight, and keeping their proverbial heads down, to understand what they’re up against, and getting them into the fight.
I am encouraged by the fact that recent events have brought this into focus for Americans in a way that we’ve not seen in decades. That said, alas, my thought is that this hate is never going to go away completely. I fear that vigilance will need to be a permanent fixture in our lives if we are to keep this from getting out of hand again. Not that they won’t be complaining about that vigilance, too.
Editor’s Note: Do you enjoy PJ Media’s conservative reporting that takes on the radical left and woke media? Support our work so that we can continue to bring you the truth. Join PJ Media VIP and use the promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your VIP membership!
