An Ohio State University professor said the increase in violent political rhetoric is normalizing political violence as a tool.
Political commentator Charlie Kirk's murder in Utah on Wednesday is the latest in a series of attacks on high profile political figures. OSU professor Dominik Stecula, who studies political rhetoric and polarization, calls the discussion on social media over Kirk's death "disturbing."
Some are celebrating the right-wing media figure's death, while many call for retribution while assigning blame to Democratic politicians. The suspect in Kirk's shooting is still at-large as of Thursday afternoon.
Stecula said he sees a link to the increasing normalization of violent political rhetoric and actual violence against political figures like Kirk.
"It's new in a sense that the way in which we talk about each other, the way in which the general temperature of our political discourse has been dialed up so much that it's normalized some of these violent threats and it's made certain things just so prevalent," Stecula said.
Kirk, a right-wing political commentator, was a close ally of President Donald Trump and the founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA.
Kirk's death comes less than one year after President Donald Trump, then a candidate, was shot and injured on the campaign trail. A Democratic Minnesota lawmaker and her husband were gunned down earlier this year.
Stecula said it's difficult to see how America goes back to normal political discourse. He said there's a potent fertile ground for social media companies and politicians for motivating people to do and say bad things, because ultimately people on the other side are not seen as fellow Americans with whom you disagree with on some issue.
"This is all kind of taking us down a very, very dark path. And I think that's a really troubling thing where we're seeing this, just the temperature keeps getting dialed up and it's just not heading in the right direction at all," Stecula said.
Stecula said these attitudes aren't isolated to one side of the political spectrum.
Kirk himself shared his own divisive political opinions while visiting college campuses and attending political events on LGBTQ+ rights and gun rights. In 2023, he said in an interview that “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."
Stecula said both the far left and the far right are stuck in echo chambers and only recognize an issue when it's politically convenient to their beliefs. He places part of the blame on these echo chambers that social media platforms are perpetuating.
Stecula said something was lost as people stopped consuming mainstream media and turned to social media to get news and information.
"The era of the way in which we're able to kind of get like a truly national audience for news is gone and people just kind of consume the news that they mostly already agree with, especially the people who are the most partisan," Stecula said.
Stecula said universities like Ohio State need to take security of events like this seriously. He said universities have a duty to facilitate difficult conversations.
"We are supposed to be uncomfortable and encounter all kinds of ideas in the university setting. And really part of what it means to be a healthy democracy is knowing that we can disagree. And then at the end of the day that's fine, right?" Stecula said.
Ohio State said in a statement it won't discuss its security protocols. University officials said OSU police regularly communicate with event organizers when notified in advance.
