USA are at a dangerous crossroads after shooting Charlie Kirk

There was a hard week in America, and I am not the only one who is interested in whether the country could pull themselves out of this spiral of hatred and violence.

After one of the most played killings in the US history, the governor of Utah asked the Americans to abandon political temperature.

But it is unlikely who I talked to, from the death of Charlie Kirk thinking it will be the way that will choose the country. Not soon at least.

The last story is full of examples when America decided not to gather after the tragedy. It did not happen 14 years ago after The Democratic Congress was shot dead In Arizona. None eight years ago when The Republican congressman was shot dead during baseball practice.

The Americans did not even gather before the world pandemic. In fact, Covid has worsened the divisions.

The reason is simple but difficult to change. The incentives that feed the American political life are rewarding people and platforms that cause heat, not those who gain tension.

In the whole country, you are likely to be chosen as a political position if you see the policy and rhetoric that turn to your political base rather than the political middle (this is the depression of the Gerrymandering by the Gerrymandering – the initial sin that stands behind the dysfunctional, divided by politics in America).

In addition, in the media people who consider politics are rewarded for being more extreme and causing outrage – this is a way to get more eyeballs and, ultimately, more advertising dollars.

This stimulation structure is what the Governor of Utah Spencer Cox does something American exception.

After Charlie Kirk was killed, he urged Americans “off, turn off, touch the grass, hug the family, go out and do good in society.”

It sounded so prudent, so useful – efforts in the sea of ​​the division when reconciliation.

Section and political violence are not new phenomena in America. About 160 years ago, the country went to war with her and she never stopped.

For five years in the 1960s, the US president was killed and then his brother was killed during campaigning to become president. During the same period, the two most famous civil rights leaders were killed.

In the 1970s, President Gerald Ford was shot twice. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan struck the bullet, going to the limo.

And of course, only last year, Trump fell the victim of the unsuccessful attempt of his life to the militant in Pennsylvania – and the other allegedly attempt the militant in Florida, whose lawsuit began in a week, Kirk was killed.

However, what is disturbing this era is so different from the 1960s and 70s.

While he carefully rejected from saying things that would still be divided by Americans, he was not so gentle with companies on social media that he clearly blames for this tragedy.

“I believe that social media has played a direct role in every attempt to kill and murder we have seen in the last five, six years,” Cox said in an interview on Sunday.

He continued to say that “cancer” was probably too weak the word for what he did for American society.

Most technology companies remained silent in their official capabilities. However, Elon Musk, boss of billionaire X, weighing, claiming that “radical left noted the cold -blooded murder of Charlie Kirk”, and adding: “Unity is impossible with evil fanatics that mark the murder.”

He also said about the influence of social media, arguing: “Although sometimes the X discussion may become negative, it is still good that there is a discussion.”

The pitfalls of this system that combine in social media with politics concerns even those most passionate about politics, no matter who they support.

Earlier this week, Kaitlin Griffiths, a 19-year-old guy who is the president of the head of the State University of Utah, Charlie Kirk, “Turning Point USA”, clearly expressed: “Social media is definitely very difficult for our society.

“You can’t even talk to a person who disagrees with your political beliefs – and I just think it’s honestly tragically.”

Tragically and ironically, since Kirk saw himself a champion of free speech, even if his critics often disagreed with this framing. His death can push the country away from civil discourse.

Within a few days after Kirk’s death, the country’s political camps have already retreated to the opposite stories.

Many on the left seek to study the ways that Kirk’s killer can be radicalized by Internet subculture and group chats. Many things prefer to unpack whether the suspect was part of the left conspiracy.

No group seems to be particularly seeking reconciliation or healing.

The reality is that those who study extremism believe that the left law cannot even be the most useful way to look at the division of this present moment.

“It is better to look at what causes people not to be driving,” says Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior employee of the Carnega International Peace Fund, specializing in polarized democracies.

“Requires the desire to give up the temperature … (and) requires people a little more courage than they show.

“I think it is more useful to focus on how we, as a society, turn the page and open a new chapter because it is like a bad marriage. And like a bad marriage, you can only reproduce, pointing your fingers.”

As for the question of whether America can break the crash algorithms that put the divisions, it will bring a leader of a huge force with equally huge commitment to reconciliation.

“I’m not sure how we get out of this,” David Drucker, a politician, told me. “This will help if both sides – and under the sides I mean” party “not only political figures – agree to stop the elimination and just say” stop “.

“Usually, the president can alleviate this. The absence of both parties has agreed that there are certain lines that cannot be crossed or missing the next president, I am not sure how we get there.”

Trump is not the type of president. It often seems like its strongest, political when he has an opponent to fight.

I understand that Trump believes that people left want to destroy his movement. And after Kirk’s death, he accepted a completely different tone from the governor of Utah.

“I will tell you what will make me in trouble, but I couldn’t care,” he said, when asked how the nation can be fixed. “Radicals to the right of time are radical because they do not want to see crimes … radicals on the left are a problem.”

And he went on in his oval office after Kirk’s murder: “Radical political violence has harmed too many innocent people and took too many lives.”

The framing of the president is not only the act of a twisted man, but also a radical that remains more widely – repeated by other White House officials.

“With God, as my witness, we will use every resource we have … to determine, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks,” said Stephen Miller, Deputy Chief of Staff Trump.

“It will happen and we will do it on behalf of Charlie.”

However a number of studies In politically motivated murder and violence in the US-During the decades, people have been carried out by people with “right” ideologies than with the “left”, although more data are needed to make a firm conclusion.

Some people with whom I said indicates the gloomy times in the US history as a source of comfort.

“Few periods in America were more politically gloomy or cruel than the years (in the 1960s and early 1970s), formed by Vietnam and Watergate,” the former Republican Congress, which turned into influential television presenter, Joe Skardora.

“But the country moved forward, celebrated its two -year -olds and went beyond its tough breaks. It would do it again.”

Also among the optimists I spoke was Democratic Senator Rafael Warnok from Georgia, one of the most high -ranking black officials in the country. He condemned political violence as the most “anti -democratic”, but also reminded me of the progress that America made on issues such as race.

“The story of any family is always more difficult than the stories we talk about the family meeting,” he told me.

“My father had to give up my seat (on the bus), putting on my soldier’s uniform, but I am sitting in the Senate now.”

Their hope is honest – but I still don’t see a clear path.

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about the conversation I spent earlier this year with historian and director Ken Berns when America is preparing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of my foundation.

“People say the story is repeated,” Burns told me. “It never happens.”

Instead, Burns prefers a quote that many attribute to writer Mark Twain: “History is not repeated but often rhyme.” In other words, even if the present looks like the past, everything is never equally twice.

This tension moment feels that it rhymes with so many other periods of disorder in American history, but it does not quite repeat them.

Yes, American history is full of anger and conflicts – but I am not sure that the social and political systems of this country have always been so fast to reward companies and people who force these emotions.

Meanwhile, the US will be weaker, not greater.

Former Defense Minister Bob Gates once told me that the three greatest threats of America’s national security were ascending China, a decrease in Russia and the country’s internal divisions.

America’s opponents certainly know how much its units are damaged by this superpower. They work hard on the Internet to breed people further. And the Americans make them facilitate them.

Credit on Figure: Justin Sullpan/Getti Images and Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images

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