EDITORIAL: Political violence won’t end with those you despise

There is a story told about the immediate aftermath of the 1981 assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan.

The president was lying on a gurney, bleeding from the gunshot wound just an inch from his heart. He is reported to have joked to the doctors about to perform surgery on him: “Please tell me you’re Republicans”.

Joseph Giordano, the hospital’s lead trauma surgeon and a staunch Democrat answered: “Today, Mr President, we’re all Republicans.”

Whether apocryphal or not, it’s a story which says a lot about the horror with which the American public reacted to the plot to kill their president.

It’s in stark contrast to the response to the murder of conservative influencer and activist Charlie Kirk.

Mr Kirk, 31 and a father of two, found fame — and infamy — online among those either delighted or appalled by his brash, take-all-comers approach to spreading the MAGA message.

The only product of hatred is more hatred

Those same admirers and opponents — and many more — are now either taking to social media to either mourn or celebrate his death.

Sadly, Mr Kirk’s murder is not an aberration. America has a long and blood-soaked tradition of political violence.

Four American presidents have been assassinated across the nation’s history, making it a job with a mortality rate of close to 10 per cent.

There were two attempts on the life of Donald Trump during his presidential campaign last year.

And despite Mr Trump’s insistence that extreme violence is the sole domain of the left, recent history shows it is a bipartisan affliction.

Mr Kirk’s death came less than two months after the alleged murders of Democrat Melissa Hortman and her husband in their Minnesota home.

In 2022, Paul Pelosi was beaten with a hammer during an unsuccessful plot to kidnap his wife, then-Democratic House speaker Nancy Pelosi.

And of course there was the tragic chaos of January 6, 2021, in which supporters of Mr Trump ransacked the US Capitol with the aim of preventing the certification of Joe Biden’s presidency.

On the other side of the political divide, there was an attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh in 2022 and the 2024 alleged murder of health insurance CEO Brian Thompson. His accused killer Luigi Mangione has since been lionised by the far left as an anti-capitalist hero.

In contrast, politically-motivated killings in Australia have been rare. But even here, public life is becoming more dangerous.

Last year, Jewish Labor MP Josh Burns’ office was set alight and windows smashed in. Death threats were made against both Anthony Albanese and former opposition leader Peter Dutton in the lead-up to the May election.

Home-grown ghouls have taken to social media to express their delight or the view that Mr Kirk’s death at the end of a sniper’s bullet was karmic retribution for his controversial opinions.

But what those people don’t understand is that political violence won’t end with those with whom they disagree. Violence only begets more violence.

And the only product of hatred is more hatred.

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.