Let’s first make it clear who the perpetrators of violence are. In the first half of September:
The U.S.-armed Israelis killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians daily, adding to the total of tens of thousands of children murdered during 23 months of genocide. Warplanes bomb civilians and Israeli snipers execute children with single shots to the head, abdomen or heart. Washington supplies political and diplomatic support and weapons.
Trump sent seven U.S. warships with 4,500 personnel, including 2,200 Marines, to the Caribbean with a license to kill. And to threaten Venezuela. Trump showed a video of these ships blowing up a small boat, killing 11 crew members, and boasting of his action — which is illegal under international and U.S. law. Without evidence, he labeled the victims as drug dealers.
Trump sent masked and armed Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to occupy cities and round up workers they decide don’t look or sound like they were born in the United States. ICE agents shot and killed a Mexican man near Chicago.
The events show that the source of violence is the U.S. imperialist state apparatus. That’s true whoever is in the White House. Trump’s boasts and bluster and his slander of its targets heightens the toxic atmosphere that state violence creates.
We in Workers World Party mourn the Palestinian children and all Palestinians who the U.S.-Israeli actions have massacred. We mourn the Mexican father killed by ICE agents. We protest the terror imposed on Venezuelan fishers. We mourn the loss of workers and oppressed peoples everywhere who are martyred.
But we don’t mourn fascists. We don’t mourn propagandists for racist ideology. We don’t mourn mouthpieces for misogyny. We don’t mourn those who attack the rights of LGBTQIA2S+ people and then slander and insult those they attack. We don’t mourn those who slander migrants and other people of color.
We don’t know for sure who killed Trump’s agent Charlie Kirk or what the motive was. The police authorities have a young suspect in custody, Tyler Robinson, and have control of the information. The media keep changing their stories about the suspect. Up to Sept. 15, no one has found any connection between the suspect and any organization left of the Republican Party.
We do know, however, about Kirk, what he said, wrote and was preparing to do, as he was a very public figure. So far it’s easy enough to find his statements online if you can stomach reading them. We find his quotes toxic and so would our readers. Those who wish to can check out his comments hostile to women’s rights, Black people, the trans community and people born outside the United States. It is no stretch to say that Kirk aggressively pushed Christian white nationalism.
Trump’s cabal has threatened to punish journalists or analysts who speak or publish anything critical about what Kirk has said so often, including his goals. Some journalists and officials have already been fired or punished for simply telling the truth about what Kirk has said and done.
The MAGA administration is exploiting this killing to open a broad attack on the “left,” by which it means anyone who refuses to submit to its reactionary rule. That there’s no shown tie of the suspect to any left organization is no obstacle to Trump’s promoting lies or attacking enemies and rivals.
It’s up to all those who think of themselves as opponents of Trump’s reactionary rule to stick together and defend anyone who speaks out against the Trump program, which Kirk spoke for. Defend all who tell the truth about what was said and who organize against MAGA.
Defend all who refuse to mourn. To paraphrase labor organizer and martyr Joe Hill’s statement for a new context, those who “don’t mourn” must “organize.”