You Can't Win if You're Not on the Field

It’s fairly early Sunday morning as I write this, and at this point, we’ve had several days to absorb and react to Charlie Kirk’s murder. I see his memorial is to be held this afternoon. I also see they’ve already had security issues. 

I usually focus on current political and social events in my writings and so between here at PJM and my own place, I’ve posted around 20 articles on points surrounding the Kirk murder. That’s a figure that surprises even me. To be fair to myself, a lot of these were shorter pieces, focused on the case as it developed, while many others were emotional responses based on what we knew at the time in which I attempted to draw some logical conclusions. Yes, I think that number is justified; this is that important an event. 

Now, however, it’s Sunday, and Sundays are always a time for reflection for me, a time for mentally examining the deeper implications of the previous week’s events. It is within that context that my former Conservative Reader stablemate, Art Smith, passed along a William Bennett piece posted on Fox News this morning. It fits that mood perfectly. 

Let me advance an unconventional thesis: Charlie Kirk died because we have forgotten how to hate properly. G.K. Chesterton observed that "the true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind [or next to] him." We fight not for hatred of our enemies but love of our fellow soldiers and the ideals of our country. We have inverted this wisdom.

Oh, indeed. 

It’s often been observed that many of the people who approve of such political assassinations (we heard from many of them the last few days) are about changing the ideas and ideals of this country to fit their mindset. So, that’s for openers. But now, think:

When is the last time you’ve seen anyone in such discussions touting the virtues of the Democrat party, or of the socialism so many now embrace? For all the complaints about Donald Trump, how many people have we noticed touting the virtues of Joe Biden? Not nearly as many.

I’ve seen this question pop up in the various political rooms I frequent, and nobody seems willing to offer an answer to the question, beyond a negative (and often as not, vile) comment about anyone who dares to question the left. Bennett says:

We teach our young people to hate their opponents rather than love their own principles. We have made politics a blood sport precisely because we have drained it of transcendent meaning. When you believe in nothing greater than your own righteousness, the only thing left is to destroy those who challenge your certainty.

That’s likely because they do not understand or else have never even identified their own principles. More simply: You cannot love something you don’t have. The left in this country has been telling us since the '60s that morality doesn’t matter. In more recent times, it has focused on calling us immoral because we won’t willingly adopt THEIR morality.

Bennett goes on to identify what is, to my mind, the central issue exposed with Charlie’s death: 

This is what we have done to our young people. We have made the cost of conviction so high that capable, principled people retreat from public engagement entirely. We have created a world where it is safer to be silent than to speak, safer to conform than to question, safer to hide than to stand. There is a certain relief in that. But it does not come without a cost. 

The question before us is not whether we will have more Charlie Kirks—young people willing to brave hostility for their beliefs. We will. The question is whether we will have more like my son—capable people who retreat from public engagement because the cost has become too high. 

With my experience of writing political commentary since the early '80s, I can tell you that there’s nothing like that activity for putting a large orange circle on your back. Even Charlie himself knew this, commenting on it many times. 

I will suggest further that it’s not just a matter of withdrawing from making public comments on the issues of the day; it’s withdrawal from even hearing such commentary from others because it’s too stressful. I personally know several folks, including close friends, who are of that mindset. They’re keeping their heads down, fearing that should they speak up, they’ll be a target. That’s why, by extension, the polling data we’ve gotten in the last few election cycles has been so questionable. In the current environment, many just don’t believe it’s worth it to speak out and stand up for your own beliefs, even anonymously. 

Bennett makes a key point here:

If we cannot make America safe for argument again—not just civil argument, but vigorous, passionate, even angry argument—then we should stop pretending we live in a democracy. In its literal etymological sense, democracy means "power of the people"—today it feels more like power of the perpetually aggrieved. If you are not consumed with rage, you are at home raising your family and going to work. So radical political movements naturally attract the angriest among us, not necessarily the wisest. 

That’s why the left is so powerful today, well beyond their numbers. The old saying about the louder squeak getting the most grease comes to mind. They’re perpetually aggrieved, as Bennett puts it, because, from the standpoint of advancing their political interests, it works. It gives them leverage. That’s why I have often found the left calling everyone else Nazis tragically humorous, because the tactic is right out of Joseph Goebbels' playbook. Historians point out that the vast majority of Germans were unwilling participants in the Nazi movement. And yet the left compares their opposition to Nazis.

And not just the Nazis of course. Like every totalitarian government of old, their tactics allow them to push Joe and Jane average out of the sphere of political opinion, which in turn allows the left to overwhelm an otherwise empty field, to win in absentia. They win because the other team isn’t showing up. That, I believe, is the true threat to democracy (note the small D). 

The bright spot surrounding Charlie’s murder is that it has brought millions out of their protective shells. they’re now in the game, which is an outcome I think is crucial to saving our country. 

The challenge before us now is keeping that momentum going.