Yesterday, as I was scrolling through my X feed, a retweet from political commentator Ani O’Brien caught my eye. It was an old clip from Breakfast on TVNZ showing the presenters laughing as they shot an action figure of Donald Trump on live television. The video has resurfaced online in the wake of the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk.
I hadn’t planned on writing anything about Kirk’s death. Social media feeds are already saturated with the news. Seeing that clip again, especially knowing how close Trump himself came to being killed not long ago, really drove home a troubling reality - parts of the political left have normalised violence.
My feed is now a steady stream of so-called “progressives” gleefully celebrating the murder of a husband, a father, and a devout Christian. Whatever one thinks of Kirk’s politics, this is grotesque. I’ve been openly critical of Jacinda Ardern and the damage I believe she inflicted on this country during her time as Prime Minister. However, I would never celebrate her death if it happened. She is a mother and a wife. Disagreement is not a licence for dehumanisation.
What’s even more disturbing is how quickly some academics and media figures jumped to justify the celebration. Mohan Dutta wasted no time labelling Kirk a “white supremacist” and “far-right” villain, sprinkling in all the usual buzzwords. He fails to realise the evil one is not the man who held conservative views. It’s the man who murdered him, and those cheering him on.
It is not just Mohan J. Dutta who has spoken so candidly and even appeared almost pleased about Charlie Kirk’s death here in New Zealand. Others have also seemed to express or imply support for his passing, including Emily Rakete, a Marxist bloke from University of Auckland who thinks he is a woman, Ginette McDonald, a well-known New Zealand actress, television producer and director, and Patrrick O'Connor from New Zealand Parliament. Each of these figures, in their own way, have contributed to the unsettling chorus of voices seeming to almost celebrate Kirk’s death.
Not every left-leaning person is celebrating, but I’ve seen hundreds who are. There are even T-shirts for sale depicting Kirk being shot in the neck, with the words “Debate this” underneath.
Meanwhile, real tragedies that don’t fit the fashionable narrative are met with silence. On August 22, Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska was brutally murdered on a train by a man who attacked her without provocation. She had just texted her boyfriend to say she’d be home soon. Media coverage was minimal. However, when George Floyd died during an arrest while high on meth and fentanyl, it became a global spectacle.
This week has left me thoroughly disillusioned with the internet and the state of public discourse. If I could, I’d take a couple of weeks off work, fly down to the wild West Coast of the South Island, sit by a river whitebaiting with no phone or laptop, a case of rum and a pile of great books, and just reset.
Because right now, the world feels like it has lost its moral compass.
Subscriber-Only: The double standard
When Breakfast on TVNZ shot an action figure of Donald Trump live on air, there were no complaints upheld, no investigations, no outrage. Yet Nathan Symington, a Christchurch man, was sentenced to over two years in prison for shooting at printed pictures of politicians, including then–Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern...