After Ezra Klein sent a totally misleading tweet yesterday about left vs. right political crime, his better angels prevailed and he wrote a mildly sufficient op-ed.
🚨 Ex-Bernie Sanders Press Secretary Briahna Joy Gray lashes out at Ezra Klein over his NYT piece honoring Charlie Kirk. pic.twitter.com/Nk3bopOv4T
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) September 11, 2025
The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in politics without fear of violence. To lose that is to risk losing everything. Charlie Kirk — and his family — just lost everything. As a country, we came a step closer to losing everything, too.
We’ve been edging closer for some time now. In 2020, a plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, was foiled by the F.B.I. In 2021, a mob stormed the Capitol in an effort to overturn the result of the election and pipe bombs were found at the Democratic and the Republican National Committee headquarters. In 2022, a man broke into the home of Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House at the time, intending to kidnap her. She was absent, but the intruder assaulted her 82-year-old husband, Paul, with a hammer, fracturing his skull. In 2024, President Trump was nearly assassinated. That same year, Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, was murdered.
In 2025, Molotov cocktails were thrown into the home of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania during Passover. Melissa Hortman, the former House speaker of Minnesota, and her husband were murdered, and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were severely injured by a gunman. And on Wednesday, Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was gunned down during a speech at Utah Valley University.
You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.
On social media, I’ve seen mostly decent reactions to Kirk’s murder. There is grief and shock from both the left and the right. But I’ve seen two forms of reaction that are misguided, however comprehensible the rage or horror that provoked them. One is a move on the left to wrap Kirk’s death around his views — after all, he defended the Second Amendment, even admitting it meant accepting innocent deaths. Another is on the right, to turn his murder into a justification for an all-out war, a Reichstag fire for our time.
Recommended
Clearly, Klein continued to overstate and misstate the feelings on the Right after the death of Kirk, but since he didn't totally obliterate Kirk and his followers, Briahna Joy Gray lost her mind. You'll remember her as an ex-Bernie staffer.
The people who spent years excusing horrors done to Jews are out in force for this one too. It's always the same people. https://t.co/ZuDaWXDlPe
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) September 11, 2025
Always the same people. The most miserable people.
Another consistently despicable person keeping up her record of awfulness. https://t.co/DplYBrQTBE
— AG (@AGHamilton29) September 11, 2025
Honestly, I have always been shocked that we didn't find a quote of her applauding the Bernie Sanders supporter who shot up Republicans on the baseball field.
— Pradheep J. Shanker, M.D. (@neoavatara) September 11, 2025
This is, after all, exactly the type of person she is. And Bernie has never denounced her. https://t.co/xkEoJsLadB
She was probably secretly thrilled.
And now you see her as she really is. A hatful, demonic force for evil. This is the face of evil marxism. Time to root it out and bring MAGA to the forefront. https://t.co/Znxcb1En5Q
— Dennis Rutherford (@dercpa) September 11, 2025
Just the press secretary for a democratic candidate for president.
— MacktheKnife (@KnifeMackthe) September 11, 2025
At which point do we count heads and realize it is the entirety of the Democratic Party that believes this stuff https://t.co/5lXMllWQTt
Exactly. She's hardly an extremist compared to the rest of her party. This is just what Democrats believe now. Believe them.
Editor's Note: The mainstream media continues to deflect, gaslight, spin, and lie about President Trump, his administration, and conservatives.
Help us continue to expose their left-wing bias by reading news you can trust. Join Twitchy VIP and use promo code FIGHT to get 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member