Leading Democrats Are Condemning Charlie Kirk’s Murder

From the moment an assassin shot Charlie Kirk, my social-media feed began filling up with people decrying the attack. The sentiment of horror—both at the murder itself and at what it portended for American political culture—was overwhelming and cross-ideological.

From the pro–Donald Trump conservatives in my timeline, however, I detected another sort of response. Although most expressed genuine grief at the tragedy befalling a figure many of them admired or knew, some others seemed preoccupied with proving that “the left” was celebrating the attack.

The challenge, for this cohort, is that Democratic Party leaders were united in condemnation of the attack on Kirk and political violence generally. California Governor Gavin Newsom, a gleeful pugilist who has made a brand out of aping the pr