Mere hours after the killing of Charlie Kirk, President Donald Trump blamed the “radical left” and signaled a crackdown was coming — despite the killer’s identity and motives remaining unknown.

In an Oval Office statement on Wednesday, Trump said his administration would “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it.”

What exactly he might mean, and what it will look like in practice, remains to be seen. But several prominent right-wing commentators called for taking action against progressive donors and nonprofit groups that they asserted (with zero evidence) were somehow responsible for the killing. Others called for action against the Democratic Party itself.

It’s a dangerous moment, similar to those many other countries — including the United States — have faced in the past. An awful act of violence like Kirk’s killing can become the justification for a government campaign of repression against political opponents who had nothing to do with that killing.

One dark way situations like this often play out is that, as outrage is peaking, the ruling party passes “emergency laws” stripping civil liberties protections or giving the government new legal powers to go after its perceived internal enemies.

But, in the US right now, there’s a huge obstacle to something like that: the Senate filibuster.

The filibuster — a procedural maneuver with which a bill that lacks the support of 60 senators can be blocked — means Trump and the GOP’s 53-seat Senate majority can’t pass whatever they want into law. Either they have to abide by the complex and restrictive budget reconciliation process (which is exempt from the filibuster), or else they need to win over some Senate Democrats.

So, as long as the Senate filibuster sticks around, any repression campaign from Trump would have to rely on existing law or executive authority — or get Democratic votes.

Which is why it’s ironic that, in the days before the shooting, Democrats were in the midst of psyching themselves up for a confrontation that could very........

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