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Dangerous Rhetoric

Gen Z cam make bipartisan progress on political violence. Watch Us.

By: Sara Pequeno
and Dace Potas
USA Today

..... On September 10, [2025] conservative activist Charlie Kirk was fatally shot during an event at Utah Valley University. since then, we have been asking ourselves where the country goes from here.
..... It was yet another act of political violence, one that came just months after the shooting deaths of Minnesota lawmakers Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark. This violence is becoming too commonplace, and that is troubling.
..... Kirk was undeniably a divisive figure. It's also underiable that he believed in the First Amendment and the importance of political dialogue. It is that spirit that the two of us - columnists form opposite sides of the aisle - find ourselves discussing our points of view and seeking common ground.
..... We disagree with how this event should shape policy. Yet we are untied in our concerns over the state of political violence in this country and the way we react to it. We are particularly worried about what this means for our generations and the example being set for us by politicians and pundits.

Social Media is desensitizing us to violence - and propelling it

..... The video of the shooting was nothing short of horrific; it was also inescapable. It quickly made the rounds on social media, particularly on X, as people found out about the event.
..... This video isn't the first time we have witnessed someone's death proliferating Online. This occurred in 2020, when George Floyd was killed by police officers in Minneapolis. It has happened regularly for the past two years, as both the Israel-Hamas war and the war in Ukraine have taken thousands of lives. At a certain point, we are becoming desensitized to suffering.
..... While one could argue hat these videos and images are important for understanding the gravity of these situations, it's also worth considering what ti does to us mentally to be inundated with the trauma of others. When we share these videos, we reduce a person's life to the act of dying, denying them recognition of their full humanity. We allow them to become talking points in our never-ending discourse, instead of seeing them as individuals with the capacity to love and be loved.
..... Individually, we must ask ourselves what good comes from sharing these videos. Continuous exposure to the worst parts of human nature cannot be good far our mental health. Social media companies also need to do their part by at least providing a warning label to keep videos like the ones of Kirk's death form automatically playing.
..... We believe that the moist effective short-term reaction so one of both unity and of cooling temperatures.
..... Our leaders need to make clear that violence is not a counter to open debate, and that violence cannot be a response to this tragedy. Elected officials should be more careful about treating every political issue as a mater of life and death, because a lunatic with a gun might believe you. You cannot prevent every coward with a gun form acting upon their extremism, but the rise in targeted political assassinations should be a warning that temperatures are too hot.
..... The fact that Democrats have put on a united front in condemning the vile attack on Kirk is commendable, but they still have an ongoing responsibility not to fan the fires of their most extreme supporters. in response to the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson in 20 condemnations from progressive elected officials came with an asterisk. Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts said, "People can be pushed only so far," while condemning the killing. Others had similar asterisks on their condemnation. Such rhetoric only serves to rationalize violence, allowing it to become within the range of acceptable behavior among the most extreme of your supporters.
..... Republicans should also be careful about falling victim to a reactionary response. Jesse Waters, Alex Jones, Steve Bannon and many others all used the rhetoric of conservative being "at war" to describe Kirk's assassination. War implies that there is violence on both sides, in the name of a competing vision. Declaring war in persons to such an assassination cannot possibly lead to productive change.

Elected officials must be careful of rising extremism on both sides

..... Thankfully, some elected Republicans have called this behavior out, namely Senator Thom Tillis, R-North Carolina, who said he was "really disgusted" by such comments.
..... Conservatives should be careful about spurring reactionary violence over Kirk's death as well.
..... We do not believe that our elected officials have Kirk's blood on their hands; the actions of a killer are their actions alone. But our elected officials still have a responsibility to do what they can to combat rising extremism within the ranks of their supporters. Our generation deserves to see a unified response to the rise in political violence and its proliferation on the Internet. you do not have to agree politically to understand that this is a threat to the democracy we hold dear.
..... In the wake of this act of violence and the ones that came before it, was hope that the people leading our country can do what we have done and find space to have though conversation about how to move forward.

..... Follow USA Today columnist Sara Pequeno on X @sara_pequeno, Dace Potus is an opinion columnist for USA Today and a graduate of DePaul University with a degree in political science.

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