President Trump has begun a major escalation in his long-running efforts to stifle political opposition in the United States, using the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk to make the baseless argument that Democratic organizations and protesters are part of a violent conspiracy against conservative values and the American way of life.
In the six days since Mr. Kirk was gunned down in Utah, Mr. Trump and his top officials have promised a broadside against the political left, indicating that they would go after liberal groups like George Soros’s Open Society Foundations and the Ford Foundation; revoke visas for people seen to be “celebrating” Mr. Kirk’s death; begin federal investigations into hate speech; and designate certain groups domestic terrorists.
“We want everything to be fair; it hasn’t been fair, and the radical left has done tremendous damage to the country,” Mr. Trump told reporters on Tuesday, as he continued to play down and excuse violence on the right. “But we’re fixing it.”
The threats come even as the authorities said the suspect in Mr. Kirk’s shooting acted alone and presented no evidence that political violence is coordinated on one side. Political violence is a scourge across the political spectrum, targeting Democrats and Republicans.
The 22-year-old man accused of assassinating Mr. Kirk said in text messages to his romantic partner that he had “had enough” of Mr. Kirk’s “hatred,” according to prosecutors who filed a murder charge against him on Tuesday.
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