This must stop

Violence is not the answer

Many across our nation were shocked and saddened at the assassination of the young, conservative leader Charlie Kirk.

This is only the most recent in a long line of violent attacks with apparent political or ideological motives. It is an epidemic — a cancer on our culture — and it is up to each of us to end it.

Clearly, each senseless act is the fault of the perpetrator, but do our culture, our politics, and our national psyche play a role? Inescapably so.

A culture that devalues human life and denigrates those with whom we disagree to a level of hatred so deep that it motivates murder is sick. It’s a culture in desperate need of a return to the values that characterized America for most of our history.

This violence is not limited to one political party or one point of view. Remember:

The 2017 shooting of Congressman Steve Scalise.
The 2022 attack on the husband of then-Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi.
The 2024 near-assassination of Pres. Donald Trump.
Last year’s murder of Minnesota insurance executive Brian Thompson on the streets of New York City.
The recent killing of two children at a Catholic school in Minneapolis.

When former Minnesota Speaker of the House Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, were killed and her colleague and his wife were shot this summer, it hit close to home for me. I knew Speaker Hortman. We served as Speakers from neighboring states together. Although we disagreed politically, we liked and respected one another.

The tragic news of Charlie Kirk’s murder brought back memories not only of when I welcomed him to North Dakota, as Speaker of the House, but also of when I first met him over dinner in Washington, D.C., several years before. Then a very young man, he shared his vision with a few of us, as he’d just launched a small, fledgling organization focused on engaging young people on cultural, philosophical, and political issues.

Both Hortman and Kirk, sadly, have now joined the other victims of this cancer in our nation — the hatred of those with whom we disagree.

I’m old enough to barely remember the assassinations of Pres. John F. Kennedy, Sen. Robert Kennedy, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. That was also during a time of violent unrest, but we mourned together, regardless of political stripes. We condemned such acts of violence, mourning not only for the families and loved ones of the fallen, but also for our nation.

On the day of Kirk’s death, I wrote, “We must reconsider and reshape our society if we hope for it to survive.”

Whether that will occur remains in question.

The outpouring of outrage and sympathy over Charlie Kirk’s death was evident as tens of thousands packed an Arizona football stadium for his memorial service. In the months since, however, battle lines seem to have been drawn, with conservatives continuing to mourn and liberals bent on criticizing Kirk, what he stood for, and the movement he built. But my sentiment hasn’t changed.

Values like mutual respect, once common, once overcame any impulse to turn our differences into hatred and violence.

Civility meant discussing differences in spirited debate yet striving to understand one another. Often, we believed we could persuade, even a little, through such debates, but only because we first valued and respected one another.

Some now seem to view those with whom they disagree as enemies and, for the least stable, even as enemies deserving of death. Coupled with a mental health crisis, the most deranged carry such attitudes to their tragic conclusion.

The trend is inescapable. Politics and cultural clashes are filled with hatred, and civility is in short supply. That is why I’ve joined the board of the legislative efforts of the National Institute for Civil Discourse, which is committed to attempting to restore civility in legislatures across the nation.

We must ask ourselves: Will we choose to be part of the solution, remain silent, or be part of the problem?

Let’s see one another, again, as fellow human beings and valued fellow Americans.

When we disagree, as we will, let’s commit to doing it with respect and civility, and let’s join together to condemn and put an end to the violence that prevails in America. Only then can we stop the lunacy we’ve witnessed.

Only then can we build the future we should all seek.