Charlie Kirk’s murder shocked the nation. So did some of his eulogies — particularly the contrast between the message from Kirk’s widow, Erika Lane Kirk, and that of President Trump.

“That man. That young man,” Mrs. Kirk said, referring to her husband’s alleged killer. “I forgive him. ... The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the Gospel is love and always love."

Trump disagreed.

“I hate my opponent,” he said, “and I don’t want the best for them. ... That’s where I disagreed with Charlie.” Asked about this later, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump was “authentically himself” in saying this.

Leavitt was correct, and that is profoundly disturbing. The leaders we elect should bring out the best in us. Instead, Trump uses his bully pulpit to encourage hatred, intolerance and violence. He has done this on the national stage since entering politics in 2015, and none of the guardrails that have served us in the past — the Constitution, tradition or common decency — have stopped him.

The FBI defines a hate crime as a “criminal offense against a person or property motivated in whole or in part by an offender's bias against race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity.” Last year, 14,243 Americans were victims in 11,679 hate crimes. Between Trump’s trip down the escalator in 2015 and the end of last year, the number of reported hate crimes has doubled.

We can’t blame any single person for this perverse trend, of course, but we also can’t deny that Trump has fanned the flames. His words over the last decade, and his actions now,........

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