One might think that the shooting of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk last month would have prompted more Americans to urge a lowering of the temperature in our public discourse — and to be the change they want to see in our town squares.
Admittedly, many have and they deserve credit for pushing back against the deadly tide of political violence in our country. Others, however, have yet to get the message — and it’s one that should be echoed and amplified loudly, clearly and consistently by officials, law enforcement and members of the public.
Kirk’s killing at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10 should have been a wake-up call to this nation about the overheated tenor of rhetoric dominating our public spaces. The 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA, a youth-oriented political advocacy and media organization that claims 250,000 members, was fatally shot while speaking at an open-air campus forum.
The same could be said about the June shooting deaths of former Minnesota state House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband at their home in Minneapolis. The accused gunman shot state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife that evening and traveled to the homes of at least two other Democratic state lawmakers before carrying out the shootings.
And two months before that, a man tried to kill Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro by setting the Governor’s Residence in Harrisonburg, Pennsylvania, on fire. Shapiro, his wife and their two daughters were sleeping at the time of the attack, and the accused told authorities he would have struck the governor with a hammer had they encountered one another in the home that night.
While political violence is an ugly and too-common stain appearing throughout the nation’s history, the climate these days seems more volatile and fraught. There are plenty of potential reasons — including social media and the internet, as well as those who make lucrative careers framing political opponents as the “enemy” — but the common threat is a lack of humanity and empathy.
Perhaps it’s easy to forget that Kirk, while a prominent political personality, was also a father and husband. Or that Hortman was also a wife and a mother in addition to a lawmaker. It’s bad enough when an unhinged, violent individual lunges out at a public figure and all the uglier when families are involved.
Virginia is not immune to this crisis as we were reminded last week.
The Dinwiddie County Sheriff’s Office announced it had arrested a 33-year-old on Thursday and charged him with sending a politically motivated death threat to Del. Kim Taylor, a Republican from Petersburg.
Taylor has served in the House since 2022 and represents the 82nd District, which includes Petersburg, Surry County and parts of Dinwiddie and Prince George counties. She is running for reelection against Democrat Kimberly Pope Adams; the two faced off in 2023 as well.
Taylor praised the quick work authorities for making the arrest, and news of the threat drew the sort of bipartisan condemnation and notes of concern from throughout the commonwealth that residents should want to see from their elected officials and those seeking office. But the fact that she, her staff or local law enforcement were faced with something so detestable and wrong defies understanding.
Taylor — like the other 99 members of the Virginia House, the 40 members of the state Senate, our state and local officials and everyone who stands for elected office — deserves our gratitude for being a public servant. It is often a thankless task but we should appreciate the central role they play in government.
By all means, disagree with any of them — nothing is more American than voicing one’s displeasure about the policies pursued by elected officials — but that must be done within the confines of the law, through elections, town halls, campaign events or by contacting a lawmaker’s office.
Nobody deserves to be threatened for participating in the public discourse or serving in the public trust. We simply cannot continue like this.
