When a conservative leader was gunned down while speaking on a college campus, the House did what a decent republic should do: it condemned the political violence and moved to honor the victim’s life. The bipartisan resolution formally deploring the assassination and expressing condolences passed the House, a rare moment of clarity amid the usual Washington chaos.
So imagine the national outrage when, on the same weekend Americans were mourning, a sitting congresswoman went on cable television and turned the moment into a political gripe session. Rep. Jasmine Crockett told CNN she was pained that “only two caucasians” among Democrats voted against the resolution and compared honoring Charlie Kirk to propping up “new age relics,” saying she would not celebrate someone she claimed targeted people of color. Her comments were captured on the network and replayed across the beltway, infuriating both families and fair-minded voters watching in disbelief.
That is exactly the kind of performative outrage that fuels the very division we are all supposed to reject after a tragedy. Fox’s Greg Gutfeld and his panel rightly asked what CNN was thinking to platform that line of attack on the day of a memorial, and conservatives across the spectrum saw the clip as a cold, partisan swipe delivered while a family mourned. When the media refuses to call out political theater masquerading as moral clarity, it reveals whose side it really serves.
Critics on the right didn’t mince words. CNN’s own on-air exchanges made the backlash plain: commentators countered Crockett’s narrative, with some calling her claim a flat lie and warning that smearing a man on the day of his funeral crosses a line. This was not mere disagreement; it was a demonstration of how the left’s reflex to weaponize race and grievance can look utterly merciless when deployed against a grieving family.
Let’s be honest — Americans of all backgrounds deserve better than this spectacle. Conservatives who cheered Kirk’s message of civic engagement and young people’s participation watched a man who tried to reach campuses with debate and persuasion be reduced to a partisan prop in the very media and political circles that should be calling for calm and unity. Instead of lowering the temperature, too many in the establishment turned the tragedy into a chance to score cheap points.
This isn’t just about one caller on one show; it’s about a pattern. For years the left-leaning press and many in Democratic leadership have offered excuses for raw rhetoric while attacking conservative figures for lesser sins. Now that rhetoric has produced real-world violence, and rather than a sober reckoning some would rather double down on the same divisive playbook. If America is to heal, the media and political class must stop indulging in hypocrisy and start demanding accountability across the board.
Patriots who love this country see the difference between mourning and maneuvering, and they’re not going to forget who stood up for decency when it counted. We should demand that lawmakers, pundits, and networks show the same respect to victims of political violence regardless of their politics, and stop using tragedy as an opportunity to smear, score, or retreat into tribal comfort. The pursuit of justice for Charlie Kirk and the defense of free speech require nothing less than common decency and equal-handedness from those who claim to lead public discourse.
