Don’t Let Trump’s Henchmen Rewrite History. They’re the Ones Inciting Violence.

Following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Trump administration lost no time in shaping a martyr narrative: Kirk, the story goes, was a saintly figure; his murder—which, let me be clear, was a cowardly, monstrous, and unjustifiable act—was a consequence of a vast left-wing conspiracy of nonprofits, philanthropists, think tanks, and independent media outlets such as The Nation aimed at undermining the American Dream; and his death can be suitably avenged only by using the full force of the MAGA state to stamp out all remnants of leftist thinking in the country. Any mention of the fact that Kirk was someone who used his public platform to dismiss the violence meted out against others, such as George Floyd, and to denigrate women, gays, Blacks, and others has been declared illegitimate. We are witnessing the creation of a narrative not dissimilar to the one generated by the Nazis around the death, in 1930, of Horst Wessel, the Hitlerian foot soldier murdered by two Communists and subsequently used as a convenient propaganda symbol.

Stephen Miller, Trump’s Goebbels-esque propaganda minister, told the country that the administration would use the Justice Department and Homeland Security to “identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy” these shadowy networks, and would seek to pursue RICO and terrorism charges against progressive organizations. Meanwhile, Vice President JD Vance took over Kirk’s radio show for the week, blamed an “an incredibly destructive movement of left-wing extremism,” including this magazine, for Kirk’s death—and vowed to use the state to go after organizations such as the Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation.

In coordinated tirades, everyone from Trump to Vance to senior FBI figures and Homeland Security officials have let it be known that there is a leftist cabal responsible for the political violence tearing the country apart and that only the iron fist and brass knuckles of ruthless state power can restore the United States to safety and security. Trump even went so far as to hint that right-wing violence is a necessary, and virtuous, corrective to the presence of the criminal element in American public life.

This is all obviously bunkum. Trump and his henchmen are rewriting the past and present in the most Orwellian of manners. So, in the interests of preserving the historical record, and as someone who strongly believes that violence has no place in the political process, I offer you a brief recap of some of MAGA world’s greatest hits.

On January 6, 2021, a defeated and desperate Donald J. Trump told his fanatical followers, “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore.” Shortly afterward, thousands of MAGA diehards marched over to the Capitol, stormed through the defenses erected by the outnumbered Capitol Police, and attempted to find Vice President Mike Pence, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and other leaders they viewed as standing in the way of a Trump second term, so as to dispense lynch-mob justice to them. It was the single worst act of violence against the pillars of American democracy since the Civil War. On day one of his second administration, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 insurrectionists convicted for their violent actions that day.

For Trump, this was just another day in the office. His standard operating procedure has always involved a flirtation with violence and those who perpetrate it. Over the past decade, he has encouraged his supporters to assault journalists, and even made comments that could at least be interpreted as suggesting that he wouldn’t be averse to seeing members of the media killed. He has repeatedly urged police and other law enforcement agents to inflict violence on suspects, and in 2017, made the extraordinary announcement that there were “some very fine people” among the fascist rioters who terrorized the university town of Charlottesville, Virginia. He has time and again advocated using the military against domestic protesters. In 2020, amid the George Floyd uprising, Trump approvingly quoted a Southern police chief from the 1960s who said, “When the looting starts, the shooting starts.” This year, he actually sent the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, DC, to intimidate residents resisting his authoritarian administration and his systematically violent assault against immigrants. And just the other week, he renamed the Defense Department the Department of War, and then posted on social media that Chicago was about to find out why it had been renamed in this way.

Trump has mused that a number of his political opponents should be prosecuted for treason (a capital offense); has suggested that “Second Amendment people” might have to intervene against Hillary Clinton; has publicly stated that Gen. Mark Milley, ex-head of the joint chiefs of staff, should be killed; and has withdrawn the security details from former vice president Kamala Harris and many other opponents against whom his followers have repeatedly threatened violence.

The president and his craven sidekicks such as Pete Hegseth have driven transgender Americans out of jobs, humiliated and ridiculed transgender prisoners, and repeatedly mocked, and declared to be mentally ill, the millions of Americans who identify as trans. Russell Vought, Project 2025’s architect and now head of the Office of Management and Budget, has stated that federal workers should be put “in trauma” and has created a set of policies designed to make their lives a daily misery. Trump surrogates have repeatedly called for violence against public health officials, with Steve Bannon publicly calling for Anthony Fauci to be beheaded and his head stuck on a pike.