When an assassin murdered Charlie Kirk in September 2025, the MAGA movement seized the moment to demand a campaign of repression. Vice President Vance called for an ambitious program to 'go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.' He named the Ford Foundation, Open Society Foundations, and The Nation magazine as examples of candidates for the retaliation he had in mind. The people who faced consequences after the killing almost universally did so for things they had written or said, not for acts of violence. In November, Reuters counted some 600 cases of people who were fired, suspended, or otherwise disciplined for their speech about Kirk's life and death. Now another gunman has attacked political targets. At the White House Correspondents' Association dinner, a man discharged a firearm in the vicinity of hundreds of people from the worlds of politics, media, and business'among them, the president and vice president of the United States. Although...
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