Trump Just Went on Fox and Issued an Unnerving Threat Against Liberals

“That statement is basically a permission slip,” said Jared Holt, who tracks extremist activity for the online research group Open Measures. Holt means this in two senses: Trump’s statement offers permission to broader mainstream audiences to write off the importance of radical right-wing violence, and is also aimed at right-wing extremist activity itself.

“It’s very likely that radical right groups that talk about Trump’s statement are going to view it as an indirect endorsement,” Holt added.

Kirk’s murder has ignited the perennial online war over which “side” is more guilty of political violence. Here’s a very partial list of prominent horrors: Aimed at the right we’ve seen the gristly shooting of Representative Steve Scalise, the two assassination attempts on Trump, and now the killing of Kirk. In the other direction, we’ve had numerous mass shootings motivated by “great replacement theory,” the vicious assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, the assassination of a Democratic state legislator in Minnesota, and of course the January 6 insurrection.