Phelim McAleer: After Charlie Kirk's assassination, Donald Trump must take on – and win – this war with the radical left

Still, it didn’t matter that Charlie had a pleasant demeanour and politely argued for his conservative beliefs. He was horrifically murdered in America’s first televised and viral assassination. (The infamous video of the Kennedy killing was not seen on national television until 12 years after his death.)

Perhaps even more shocking were the videos and tweets of people celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death. Thousands took real joy and were not afraid to proclaim that joy at the death of a young father of two assassinated in cold blood in front of his wife.

The celebrants were young and old; many – perhaps most – of whom had middle-class lives and comfortable jobs in the “caring professions” such as teaching, medicine, or the diversity industry. Yes, those who spout the "Be Kind" mantra, who claim to care about others, could not stop themselves from proclaiming how much they enjoyed the death of a young man whose only crime seems to have been to want to debate those who disagreed with him.

I have to admit I, too, was initially shocked by their behaviour, but then I remembered growing up in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. We were pretty good at celebrating the death of others during those times. We wrote songs and sang songs glorifying killings and killers. We made jokes. Terrible jokes about the killings of real people. It was before social media, so instead we had graffiti that verbally danced on the graves of the murdered. Graffiti would have been the rougher end of the glorification – but for the more refined, who preferred their murders glorified in colour, murals were commissioned and painted on large gable walls.

I seem to remember this glorification was primarily practised on the nationalist side. It also happened on the loyalist side, of course.

So why were many seemingly good-living people in Northern Ireland not disgusted by this behaviour? Why did they support it tacitly or, in many cases, wholeheartedly?

I realise now it was because, in the Northern Ireland Troubles, many people on both sides believed they were at war – and in a war, you dehumanise the enemy and celebrate their death. In fact, you have to dehumanise the other side in order to get your fighters to go out and kill the enemy.

That explains why so many ‘progressive’ Americans were celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death. They are at war with us, with the majority of people in this country who mourn his death. They dehumanise us and call us Nazis and fascists. They believe it is OK – in fact, for a lot of them, it is a moral imperative – to kill us. We are a threat, we are their enemies.

Most Americans don’t know they are in this war. They have become inured to leftist political violence, which has become commonplace in recent decades. They have noticed an upsurge recently: from the Black Lives Matter riots that killed over 30 people, to the attempted assassinations of President Trump, and the burning and shooting of Jews in the streets in Boulder, Colorado, and Washington, DC. They know it is happening, but the mainstream media doesn't join the dots and instead tries to push the ludicrous idea that right-wing violence is the problem. So most of America doesn't know a significant minority of the country is at war with them.

But some do. After Charlie’s assassination, I was at a conservative dinner party sitting beside a mild-mannered woman in her 20s. A regular churchgoer from the middle of America, she knew little of Ireland's recent troubles but she recognised that the radical left was at war with her and those who believed what she believed. She now expects President Donald Trump to destroy leftist organisations such as Antifa and BLM that she believes have been fomenting hate against conservatives. My dinner companion wants the president to declare these organisations illegal, imprison the leaders, and seize their assets. She wants their destruction before they destroy her. She may get what she wants.

President Donald Trump knows America and Americans. Trump understands his supporters, but he really understands his enemies. They have tried to bankrupt, imprison, and kill him.

Trump knows them too well, and he knows he must end this war before it ends him and all of us.

l Phelim McAleer, originally from Beragh, Co Tyrone, is a journalist/producer based in Los Angeles. @PhelimMcAleer. Tomorrow, he is presenting a play about the Hamas massacre of Israelis on October 7, 2023, at Bowdoin College in Maine.