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American cultural imperialism is so powerful that foreigners are expected to lament the death of Charlie Kirk – a man most of us outside the US had never heard of. But as Trump flies into the UK today, the whole world ought to remember how aspiring autocrats exploit violence to seize power.
Hitler did it, Stalin did it, and Putin did it.
Can Trump do it, too?
We will soon discover the real strength of the protections of the US Constitution and the real independence of its judiciary as the Trump administration tests them to destruction.
Overnight J.D. Vance, the US vice president, and Stephen Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff, explained how Trump would follow the dictator’s playbook.
In a macabre moment Vance took over "The Charlie Kirk Show", and used the death of its host to outline a plan to assert control.
No one should have been surprised.
My first instinct on hearing the news of Kirk’s murder was to reach for my history books and look up how the Nazis built their dictatorship by exploiting the crimes of a communist arsonist who set fire to the German Reichstag (parliament) in 1933.
The next year in 1934 Sergei Kirov – the Charlie Kirk of Soviet Communism – was assassinated in St Petersburg. Stalin used his murder to begin a purge of Soviet society of anyone who might conceivably threaten him.
In 1999, Putin came to power by posing as a strongman who could stop terrorist attacks that had killed 300 people in Russian apartment blocks
To this day, there are Russian dissidents who insist it was a false flag operation. They argue, with some plausibility given Putin’s subsequent career, that the security services planted the bombs to create a crisis for Putin to exploit.
It’s an interesting question. But the answer really doesn’t matter, any more than it really matters whether Kirk’s assassin was a committed leftist or some confused loner. What matters is the willingness of dictatorial operators to exploit violence to impose autocracy.
Whatever other crimes you want to lay at his door, Lyndon B. Johnson didn’t use the excuse of the assassination of John F. Kennedy to declare martial law in 1963.
Likewise, I am old enough to have gone on mass demonstrations to oppose Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher.
But when a deranged man tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan in 1981 or the IRA tried to blow up Thatcher in 1984 neither used it as a pretext to intimidate their political opponents. It never occurred to them that they could or should. More to the point, not even their critics thought that they would sink that low either.
Whatever else they were, they were not like Hitler, Stalin, Putin – or, it appears, Trump.
Speaking on the Kirk podcast Vance said that the Trump administration intended to "go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence.”
He didn’t elaborate. But from Putin onwards targeting NGOs has been a tactic of every wannabe autocrat in the 21st century.
Putin led the way. Russian law gave his prosecutors the power to harass pro-democracy NGOs that receive foreign funding. Netanyahu in Israel and Orban in Hungary have followed Putin’s lead.
A Trump version of Putinism would probably link political organisations to violence by saying they opposed Israel. I can easily see it demanding that universities fire left wing academics. Indeed, the late Charlie Kirk compiled hit lists of anti-conservative academics for the right to use.
Stephen Miller said the government planned to target what he said were "the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence," citing people behind doxing campaigns and speech intended to trigger or incite violence.
Once again, you can see how those terms can be stretched to include honourable political opponents. Is backing a Palestinian state inciting violence? Might criticising Trump officials be construed as triggering a person or persons unknown to assault or kill them?
Anyone who knows my work will expect me to be uttering Sir Kingsley Amis’s immortal words – “I told you so you fucking fools.”
Throughout the last decade I and people like me have been warning the left to abandon cancel culture on grounds of self-preservation. All the arguments “progressives” used to restrict speech and drive people from their jobs could one day be used against them, we said.
And so it has come to pass.
Pam Bondi, Trump’s Attorney General, now sounds like a columnist for the New York Times as she vows to prosecute hate speech – the only difference being that it is left- not right-wing “hate” she wants to prosecute.
But serious people can only gloat for so long. If you opposed the trans activists who drove feminists from their jobs, then you must also oppose Vance, Miller and Trump, if your commitment to liberal principles is sincere.
We will soon find out how many on the right who bemoaned the woke were sincere defenders of freedom of speech rather than cynical opportunists. Not many, I fear.
As in the 1930s, moments like this reveal the scoundrels among us. They will be legion for, as we surely know already, we live in scoundrel times.
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Thank you Nick - it's particularly important that young people understand this history. I'm a dual national (with dual anxiety) and have just returned from my home state of Vermont (Bernie Sanders country). Readers might be interested in the following statement from its (Republican) Governor.
Statement from Governor Phil Scott on the Assassination of Charlie Kirk
Press Release
September 10, 2025
The heartbreaking assassination of Charlie Kirk is a painful reminder, to all of us, of why increasing polarization is so dangerous and can lead to political violence. My thoughts are with Charlie’s wife Erika, children, family, colleagues, and friends during this difficult time.
Our country continues to become more fractured, more violent, and more partisan – and we should all feel a sense of a responsibility to change that.
There is no doubt, our nation is broken. But, we’ve experienced difficult situations before and have shown just how powerful our country is when we are united, listen to the perspectives of others, treat each other with respect, and rise above the dangerous rhetoric we’re seeing more often.
We must strive to find common ground, at the most basic human level, so we can engage in the free exchange of conflicting ideas and the open debate that we desperately need to solve problems and help people.
Whilst the US hopefully retains the strength to undo this damage, could I be so bold as to suggest we in the UK need to remain vigilant.
Last Saturdays proto-fascist day out luckily passed off with little violence, but it did show that enough people can be fooled enough of the time to get a big crowd.
We can't be sure that subsequent, well-funded calls for violent overthrow of the UK govt (thanks but no thanks Elon) will pass off without incident. Especially with the rich and powerful pulling the strings