This is not a moment for dishonesty. Contrary to the hurried efforts of some Democratic leaders to eulogize Charlie Kirk, we don’t need to pretend the far-right activist engaged in earnest politics “across ideology, through spirited debate” as California Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a post on X paying tribute to Kirk.

Kirk, the founder of the far-right movement Turning Points USA, was committed to organizing America’s white young men, from college campus to college campus and beyond, into a politics of revanchist, resentment-fueled, patriarchal white nationalism.

However harmful Kirk’s project has been to our collective flourishing, though, the response to his assassination could put this nation, and especially those on the left, in a position of greater peril than at any previous moment of Donald Trump’s authoritarian second term.

At the time of writing, the person responsible for shooting Kirk has not been apprehended or identified. That didn’t stop Trump from delivering an official address unequivocally blaming the “radical left” for Kirk’s death in the broadest terms possible.

The Trump administration is a weaponization machine; it will transform all manner of things into an ideological arsenal to use against its opposition. Anti-genocide activism is antisemitism; immigrant workers are “the worst” criminals; addressing white supremacy is discrimination; war crimes are peace – all of these fascistic transmutations have........

© The Intercept