The indirect, one-man cause of Charlie Kirk's murder

In law, short of criminal liability in accessory cases is civil liability for proximate cause, which attaches to a defendant when his foreseeable act results in a plaintiff's unforeseeable harm. Or death. And the foreseeable acts of Donald Trump — his yearslong campaign of ginning up far-right hate, vengeance and the brutalization of political opponents — are legion.

In May 2020, ABC News identified 54 court and police-recorded cases of "violent acts, threats of violence or allegations of assault" linked to Trump's instigating rhetoric. "In the majority of cases identified ... it was perpetrators themselves who invoked [Trump] in connection with their case, not anyone else."

The news network found no cases in which "an act of violence or threat was made in the name of President Barack Obama or President George W. Bush." Unrivaled ignorance, exceptional insecurity and volcanic pettiness have for 10 years, as a presidential candidate, nominee and White House occupant, made Trump a sui generis contributor to political violence — and now, the grim death of young Mr. Kirk.

Trump's rhetorical frap sheet is too lengthy to present in full. Thus, a sampling. In 2015, he said of a heckler at a rally, "Maybe he should have been roughed up." He said in 2016 that if he lost the nomination, "I think you'd have riots." 2018, in defense of a Republican congressman who had physically assaulted a journalist, "Any guy that can do a body slam, he is my guy." 2019, "I have the tough people, but they don't play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad."

In 2020, Trump said "When the looting starts, the shooting starts." About protesters, "Can't you just shoot them?" To the Proud Boys, "Stand back and stand by." 2021, "I don't fucking care that they have weapons. They're not here to hurt me." And as Capitol Building insurrectionists were chanting "Hang Mike Pence," Trump posted encouragingly that "[He] didn't have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our country."

2022, "When [a national security reporter] realizes he is going to be the bride of another prisoner very shortly," he'll name the leaker. 2023, "For those who have been wrong and betrayed, I am your retribution." Flagged by prosecutors as witness intimidation, "If you go after me, I'm coming after you." Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley, said Trump, committed "an act so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH." Also, "We will root out the Communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical-left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country."

In 2024, Trump said "If I don't get reelected ... it's going to be a bloodbath for the country." And "Revenge does take time ... and sometimes revenge can be justified." And about mass deportations, "They're taking over sections of [Colorado]. And you know, getting them out will be a bloody story." And "2024 is the final battle. It's going to be the big one." And about police treatment of criminal suspects, "If you had one really violent day..., one rough hour — and I mean real rough — the word will get out, and it will end immediately."

As did Charlie Kirk's life. The proximate cause of his really rough, violent death, Trump's foreseeable acts of rhetorical inspiration; his sick cultural zeitgeist of kill 'em, kill 'em all.

Shocking to one's core would be if Trump were to ever reflect on, and attempt to remedy, at least in some small way, the tragedy of his unexamined life, about which Socrates warned. Had he done so last night, the words he did utter would have been in search of redemption: "This kind of rhetoric" — see above — "is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today."

But, being unreflectively small and tragically irredeemable, Trump went for the jugular of the "radical left" in the wholesale absence of a suspect, a known perpetrator, even so much as the unnamed culprit's motive. Nonetheless it is they, the radicals on the left, he said in his characterological state of chronic high dudgeon and abysmal recklessness, who inspired Kirk's assassination.

Which soon might very well act as the proximate cause and wickedly conceived balancing-of-power assassination of a Democratic politician or activist — the entire lot of them being "Communists, Marxists, fascists, and radical-left thugs" in the psychotic mush of Trump-über-alles minds.

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* This piece is cross-posted at Substack. Subscribe to be notified of new posts.