DAVID DESROSIERS: The Parents of Charlie Kirk’s Prodigal Assassin.
Charlie Kirk’s assassin was born and raised in southwestern Utah. Mormon territory. He was the son of a mother and father who raised kids in the Mormon way, which creates exemplary fruits that are missionaries to the world. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints – its formal name – instills family loyalty, stewardship, tolerance, sobriety, hard work, and sharing. They tithe. They contribute. They are impressive people.
Even Matt Stone and Trey Parker, with their “Dumb the Dumb, Dumb” view of the Mormon religion (which is a cutout for all organized religion), recognized that Mormons have strong families and raise very good kids. The whole “Book of Mormon” craze began with a 2003 “South Park” episode featuring an impressive Mormon high school kid. His ending soliloquy put it best:
“Look, maybe us Mormons do believe in crazy stories that make absolutely no sense, and maybe Joseph Smith did make it all up, but I have a great life, and a great family, and I have the Book of Mormon to thank for that,” he says. “The truth is, I don’t care if Joseph Smith made it all up, because what the church teaches now is loving your family, being nice and helping people.”
I don’t know about you, but I admire the old-school way the accused killer’s father brought his son – his own flesh and blood – to face justice.
The family saw the fruit of their loins on video surveillance in a national all-points bulletin. The family reached out to their own. Father and grandfather. They talked him into coming home. Once he was home, they convinced him to turn himself in for the crime – and to stanch the dishonor that he had done to his family’s name.
Would Luigi Mangione’s wealthy and well-connected Maryland family have done the same if they recognized his distinctive eyebrows? “Come home, son,” followed by, “You must turn yourself in to the authorities and be held accountable.” There’s no evidence they did anything of the kind. If they had, would Luigi have complied? I doubt it.
Fathers and mothers of America: Do you think you and yours could do similarly? To ask that question is not to easily answer it.
Read the whole thing.
Related: At City Journal, Martin Gurri charts “The Progressive Left’s Descent Into Barbarism.”
The psycho-political pathologies unleashed by Kirk’s assassination should not have surprised us. The signs were already evident. Polls show that 55 percent of those who identify as “left of center” say that killing President Trump would be justified. We heard the giggles, including from another Democratic White House wannabe, Tim Walz, at rumors of Trump’s death or grave illness—Trump would, with luck, die soon. Two real attempts on the president’s life have failed, to the loud regret of many on the left. We watched progressive women idolize Luigi Mangioni for shooting a health-insurance executive in the back. And in every case, media narratives could be found ready to explain away, even justify, the violence.
And there were other signs. A repeat offender—a black man—slashed a young white woman to death on a Charlotte light rail train, and the city’s enlightened mayor issued an initial statement full of understanding for the attacker and his mental condition, while never once mentioning the victim. The lesson was plain: some groups in our society deserve compassion; others apparently deserve to die.
Charlie Kirk’s murder pushed many of us to a tipping point. We now know where we stand. Kooks and cranks thrive under every dispensation—granted. But most conservatives and Republicans don’t cheer assassinations. Most old-fashioned liberals and Democrats don’t, either. This derangement belongs to the progressive Left.
And alas, some of their most visible politicians: Jay Jones’s Texts Are a Frightening Peek into a Bleak Moral Worldview — And it’s not as uncommon as we’d like to think.
I disagree with one take by Gurri, though:
In a better world, liberals would grasp that the fundamental threat to their ideals comes not from the villainous Trump but from the radical Left—not least because Trump always gains when the public associates liberals with their unhinged progressive allies.
This realization seems unlikely, however. Democrats are too deeply consumed with Trump-phobia—87 percent of the party faithful are positive the president is a fascist. But Trump will not be around forever, and his successors probably won’t inherit his peculiar gift for driving otherwise rational actors insane.
George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Mitt Romney all would like a word here.
