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Politicians on both sides of the aisle have rightly decried political violence, specifically the senseless murder of an exceptional young man: Charlie Kirk.
Kirk was one of the most prominent and forceful advocates of the Trump administration’s MAGA policies. He was also, in large part, a key contributor to President Donald Trump’s election victory in 2024.
Violence – whether directed at Trump, Charlie Kirk, CEOs, Gov. Josh Shapiro, or state legislators in Minnesota – must stop.
It must stop now.
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As a country, we need to do more to end the rising tide of political violence gripping the nation.
Let me be very clear: I have argued for as long as I have been in political and public life that we need to lower our volume, lower our temperature and unite.
We must do more to achieve our common purpose as a nation.
Never is that truer than it is today.
To be sure, it is misguided to blame the opposite political party for violence when it occurs. Doing so is destructive, divisive and weakens our social fabric at home as well as our standing globally.
But it does more than that.
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As a nation, we have always prided ourselves on our ability to cooperate – to disagree, yes, but to have a loyal opposition and free debate, not wholesale attacks that may or may not lead to violence.
Moreover, whether certain rhetoric translates into violence or not, it has inevitably contributed to a toxic and divisive political culture we can no longer accept.
Frankly, when I hear my party, the Democrats, say that they need to get more aggressive and more hostile against the Republicans, I take great issue with that – on both rhetorical and substantive grounds.
The last thing we need now is a government shutdown. Notwithstanding what some like Ezra Klein have said in The New York Times, we do not need to fight the Trump administration simply for the sake of fighting.
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We need to advocate constructively for protecting the social safety net – Medicare, Medicaid, food programs and other social welfare initiatives – and make every effort not to close the government but rather to keep it open.
Similarly, I would say to my Republican friends that it is wrong to demonize the left, even when rhetoric is inappropriate and extreme.
I decry it and hope that they will lower their voices, but I believe the country needs – particularly as I write this on 9/11 – a period of reconciliation.
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We need to avoid entering an era like the one we faced during Vietnam in the 1960s, when within a roughly two-month period two of our most important leaders, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, were gunned down senselessly and brutally.
Allow me to be very clear about what I’m not doing here. I’m not trying to blame the left, nor am I trying to blame the right.
While scant details have emerged, I do not know for certain the ideology of the shooter who killed Charlie Kirk. But to me, it is important to use this not as a vehicle for attack or revenge, but as a tool for political reconciliation.
Both Democrats and Republicans can cooperate on things like tighter borders, even if we disagree on overall immigration policy.
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We can agree that Ukraine needs support, even if we disagree on the precise nature and scope of it. We can agree that we must protect the social safety net, even if Republicans disagree on which programs should and should not be protected.
And above all, we can agree that while both sides may have different opinions on what is best for the United States of America, at our core, Democrats and Republicans all want the country to succeed and prosper.
But what we cannot disagree on is our essential purpose as a nation: a free-market, capitalist society that works to improve the greater good for all Americans in a constructive and safe environment.
Hopefully, the legacy of Charlie Kirk – a proud American, a zealous advocate and a fighter for what he believed in – will lead to a period of greater cooperation and consensus, the kind President Trump spoke about so movingly during his speech at the Republican National Convention in 2024 after his own assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania.
I say this in the hope that people will take it not as a homily, but as a call to action. Our country has never required more unity, a centrality of purpose, and a greater willingness on both sides to cooperate and reconcile.
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