{"id":69191,"date":"2025-09-17T07:46:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T07:46:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/69191\/"},"modified":"2025-09-17T07:46:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T07:46:08","slug":"america-fails-to-find-reconciliation-tone-in-wake-of-charlie-kirk-shooting-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/69191\/","title":{"rendered":"America fails to find reconciliation tone in wake of Charlie Kirk shooting \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Tuesday morning, Stephen Miller, the White House<\/a> deputy chief of staff for policy, shared a post reflecting his vision for how the administration and the movement should move forward from a week in which discourse has been strained and stretched by the murder of Charlie Kirk<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe path forward is not to mimic the ACLU [American Civil Liberties Union] of the mid-90s. It is to take all rational steps to save Western Civilisation.\u201d The first to comment was Elon Musk<\/a>, owner of the platform on which Miller was posting. \u201cYes\u201d, Musk responded.<\/p>\n

In the fretful days since Kirk was shot dead in the midst of his \u2018American Comeback\u2019 college campus tour in Utah, one of the most prominent voices has belonged to Miller. Even in the best of times, his speaking style is one of belligerent anger. After the killing of his friend and Maga colleague, the wrath remained but the voice was quieter. On Monday, he appeared on the latest episode of Charlie Kirk\u2019s podcast, which was guest-hosted by vice-president JD Vance<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n

The path forward is not to mimic the ACLU of the mid 90\u2019s.<\/p>\n

It is to take all necessary and rational steps to save Western Civilization.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Stephen Miller (@StephenM) September 16, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It was in itself an extraordinary spectacle as a succession of the White House administration\u2019s leading figures, from press secretary Karoline Leavitt to chief of staff Susie Wiles, passed through to reflect on Kirk\u2019s legacy. At one stage, Vance and health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr reflected on Kirk\u2019s facility as what Kennedy termed as \u201can impresario strategist\u201d who not only ushered Vance into the Trump family orbit but also brokered the alliance of Kennedy and Trump during last year\u2019s election. <\/p>\n

Vance even struck the kind of conciliatory note which many millions of Americans have been waiting to hear over the past week when he remembered a conversation he had with Kirk last September, the day after he had met Tim Walz in the vice-presidential candidates\u2019 debate in New York. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe asked what I thought of Tim. Honestly, you know, you get in this bunker mentality in the campaign, it\u2019s us against them. And I said, honestly, even though I am glad I did well and certainly I don\u2019t want to this guy to become vice-president, I actually kind of liked him afterwards, after 90 minutes of talking with him. And Charlie said: \u2018that\u2019s why I do all these debates. You can disagree vehemently with someone but if you are communicating with them you can appreciate them a little as a human being.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

But it was Miller who provided the strongest and most ominous message of the podcast, allowing that he was speaking from a place of \u201cincredible sadness\u201d but also \u201cincredible anger\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the thing about anger is that unfocused anger or blind rage is not a productive emotion. But focused anger, righteous anger, directed for a just cause, is one of the most important agents of change in human history. And we are going to channel all of the anger that we have over the organised campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks. The organised doxxing campaigns, the organised street violence, the organised campaigns of dehumanisation and vilification, posting people\u2019s addresses and combining that with messaging designed to trigger and incite violence, and the actual organised cells that carried out and facilitated the violence: it is a vast domestic terror movement. And as God is my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice and Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie\u2019s name.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vow raised a series of simultaneously ringing alarms as to whom it was directed. Gavin Newsom, the governor of California and one of the few leading Democratic figures to meet and publicly engage with Kirk, was clear in his interpretation. \u201cWake Up America. Stephen Miller has already publicly labeled the Democratic Party as a terrorist organisation. This isn\u2019t about crime and safety. It\u2019s about dismantling our democratic institutions. We cannot allow acts of political violence to be weaponized and used to threaten tens of millions of Americans,\u201d he posted on X.<\/p>\n

Shortly before he left for a two-day visit to England on Tuesday morning, where he will be hosted by king Charles and, on Thursday, by prime minister Starmer, president Trump stopped to speak at the White House lawn. ABC reporter Jonathan Karl wanted to know what Trump thought about Pam Bondi targeting purveyors of \u201chate speech\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech,\u201d Karl hinted.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019ll probably go after people like you, because you treat me unfairly,\u201d Trump replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hate. You\u2019ve a lot of hate in your heart. ABC paid me $16 million for a form of hate speech.\u201d<\/p>\n

As with many of Trump\u2019s engagements with the pool of reporters who cover him on a daily basis, the exchange could be interpreted as another example of his off-the-cuff trolling and sparring \u2013 or as direct intimidation of a respected reporter by a sitting president.<\/p>\n

\"PresidentPresident Donald Trump speaks to reporters as he departed the White House, bound for a trip to Britain. Photograph: Kenny Holston\/The New York Times<\/p>\n

In the same huddle, he castigated an Australian reporter who asked him about the personal wealth he had accumulated since he was sworn in. \u201cYou\u2019re hurting Australia very much right now. They want to get along with me. Your leader is coming over to see me soon \u2013 I\u2019m going to tell him about you. You set a very bad tone.\u201d <\/p>\n

In a separate development, it emerged that president Trump is to sue the New York Times for $16 billion on a claim of defamatory coverage during the 2024 election campaign.<\/p>\n

The publisher of the Times, A.G. Sulzberger, dismissed the lawsuit as \u201cfrivolous\u201d in a note to staff while a statement was issued declaring that \u201cthe New York Times will not be deterred by intimidation tactics. We will continue to pursue the facts without fear or favour and stand up for journalists\u2019 First Amendment right to ask questions on behalf of the American people.\u201d<\/p>\n

The note to staff on Tuesday added that \u201ceveryone, regardless of their politics, should be troubled by the growing anti-press campaign led by President Trump and his administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the long interlude between Kirk\u2019s assassination and the memorial service that will take place in Arizona on Sunday, both sides of the political spectrum continue to drift farther apart. In Utah on Tuesday, prosecutors filed a notice to seek the death penalty for Tyler Robinson, the 22-year-old charged with a series of offences, including aggravated murder. In laying out the sequence of events before and after the shooting, Utah county attorney Jeff Gray revealed that when Robinson\u2019s parents asked their son why he committed the crime, he had replied that \u201cthere is too much evil and this guy spreads too much hate.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kirk\u2019s vast following continues to mourn and remember him as what Vance described as a \u201cjoyful warrior\u201d of free speech while fragmented Democratic voices warn against a mounting persecution against the First Amendment right to free speech. Mainstream Democrats continue to walk the fine line between natural empathy for the victim of an appalling act of political violence without whitewashing the extremist views that victim had advocated, views which entire swathes of Americans found deeply objectionable. <\/p>\n

Nobody has yet managed to emulate the tone of reconciliation that Utah\u2019s Republican governor Spencer Cox struck in his call for a national pause and coming together in the days after the killing. And after all of the countless words and arguments spoken by Charlie Kirk and sent into the social media orbit, coming into the sharpest focus of all is his personal view on the subject of \u201chate speech\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cHate speech does not exist legally in America,\u201d Kirk wrote in a social media post last year. \u201cThere\u2019s ugly speech. There\u2019s gross speech. There\u2019s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.\u201d<\/p>\n