President Trump spoke for nearly an hour, in person Friday, on Fox & Friends where he spoke out against political violence following last Wednesday’s assassination of right-wing influencer, absolute free-speech advocate and Turning Point USA CEO Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University. 

However.

“The radicals on the right are often radicals because they don’t want to see crime,” Trump said. “The radicals on the left are the problem.”

By Saturday evening on All Things Considered, analysis by NPR reporters had counted more than 30 people across the US who have been “fired, put on leave, investigated or faced calls to resign because of social media posts criticizing Charlie Kirk, or expressing schadenfreude” about his assassination. 

MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd, for one, was fired last Wednesday night for saying of Kirk, “He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures, in this, who’s constantly pushing this hate speech aimed at certain groups. I always go back to hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which lead to hateful actions.” [Transcript via Entertainment Weekly.]

Dowd went on to say, “that’s the environment we’re in.”

Social media, The Hustings believes, is largely to blame for the environment we are in, with anger from the left and right heating up the echo chambers to compound hate for the other side.

We believe civil media is the antidote. We use traditional good journalism standards to assure that comments on both sides of the center column are civil and respectful and based on facts. Think of a traditional newspaper’s letters to the editor column. As in a good newspaper, reader comments from across the political spectrum are all on one page for all readers to see. 

To become a citizen pundit and join in this fight against social media blight, submit your COMMENTS to editors@thehustings.news and please indicate your political leanings (left or right, liberal or conservative, etc.) in the subject line. –Editors