By Freedom Road Socialist Organization
The temperature is rising by the day and the air is thick with a dangerous new electricity. The magnified polarization of this country points to the unraveling of a system built on inequality, repression and an empire whose decline is accelerating. Flashpoint events like Kirk’s killing are not isolated incidents, they’re symptoms of a terminal illness.
Figures like Charlie Kirk and his machine, Turning Point USA, were once fringe commentators. But they seeped into mainstream politics during Trump’s first and second terms and have been systematically forging a political atmosphere of reactionary hatred.
The playbook is clear: poison the well of public opinion and debate with the raw sewage of white supremacist conspiracy theories like the “Great Replacement,” dehumanize immigrants as predators, LGBTQ people as “groomers” and resistance as terror and crime. In the wake of the police killing of George Floyd, Kirk called him a “scumbag.” He claimed that the millions who flooded the streets after Floyd’s extra-judicial execution had simply “misinterpreted” the situation.
This is the kind of bald-faced reaction Kirk stood for and propagated. It is the deliberate drumming up of moral panic to justify a crackdown.
Political violence comes with this climate – a climate his movement has meticulously cultivated. Now they wield the event of Kirk’s going into that good night as both a national tragedy to be mourned and as a weapon to brand all progressive movements and dissent as terrorism. Declaring states of emergency and deploying National Guard troops in Black cities is another weapon they’ve been wielding. They are going to use this killing as justification for another wave of repression and reaction. We’re going to oppose every attack, and we will be in the streets, with as many people joining us as possible.
But their weakness is our opportunity. A system this desperate and openly corrosive can’t stand. Through the cracks, and the incredible energy of the masses fighting back, we can see a glimpse of a different future.
The call is to build something real. Joining together in a revolutionary group means moving from just being a target of reaction to being architects of our own liberation. We are building a movement that has enough power and enough bounce-back to weather attacks, to tear down the rotting structure of the current system, and to lay down the foundation for what comes next: a society based on justice, equality and real freedom.
The question is not if this system will fall, but what will rise in its place. We’re not going to let them drag us into their dark age. This is a historic moment of crisis and transformation that we have to seize. Now is not the time to hide or slow down. It’s the time to organize, unite and fight for the world we know is possible: socialism.
The future is not something we wait for; it is something we build together starting today. Join FRSO.
