Sept. 13, 2025

"FROM LINCOLN TO KIRK: America's Blood-Soaked History of Political Murder"

Show Notes
Transcript

Reid Carter examines 160 years of American political assassinations, from John Wilkes Booth shooting Lincoln in 1865 to this week's murder of Charlie Kirk. Four presidents, countless political figures, and one consistent pattern: grievance plus gun equals murder. Lincoln died for winning a war. Garfield for getting a job. McKinley for empire. JFK for being JFK. Martin Luther King for having a dream. Bobby Kennedy for having a last name. And now Charlie Kirk for speaking at colleges. Saturday's special proves America has always settled political differences with bullets, and we're getting better at it.

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WEBVTT

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Caalarogu Shark Media. Good morning, I'm Reed Carter. Saturday, September thirteenth,

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twenty twenty five. Charlie Kirk was assassinated last week, thirty

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one years old. Two kids without a father, another American

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political figure murdered for their beliefs. But here's what nobody

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wants to admit. This is who we are. This is

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who we've always been. We're not a nation that debates.

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We're a nation that shoots. Been that way for one

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hundred and sixty years. Today and tomorrow we're examining American

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political assassination. Today, the ones who succeeded, tomorrow, the ones

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who failed, and what their failures cost us. From Lincoln

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to Kirk, from Ford's Theater to Utah Valley University. This

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is the blood soaked history we keep repeating. This is

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celebrity trials, American assassinations. April fourteenth, eighteen sixty five. Good Friday.

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The Civil War has been over for five days. Abraham

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Lincoln decides to catch a play our American cousin at

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Ford's Theater, a comedy. Lincoln needed a laugh after four

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years of watching Americans slaughter each other. He got a

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bullet instead John Wilkes Booth, actor, confederate, sympathizer, narcissist, sound familiar,

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an entertainer who thought politics required violence. The original celebrity assassin.

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Booth didn't just kill Lincoln. He thought he was saving

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the South. Thought he'd be a hero, shouted sick semper tyrannus,

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thus always to tyrants. After shooting an unarmed man watching

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a play, he wrote in his diary while on the run,

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I have too great a soul to die like a criminal.

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Die like a criminal. You shot the president in the

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head while he watched a comedy with his wife. You're

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the definition of criminal. Booth was cornered in a barn

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twelve days later, shot or shot himself, were still not sure.

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Died thinking he was a patriot. He was just a

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murderer with good cheekbones and theater training. But here's what

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Booth really did. He created the template the American political

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assassination playbook. Build up grievance into righteousness. Convince yourself violence

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is patriotism. Attack when the target is relaxed and vulnerable.

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Expect to be celebrated as a hero, die or get

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captured while the nation tears itself apart. Every American assassin

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since has followed Booth's script. They all think they're saving America.

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They're all just murderers with manifestos. Lincoln was fifty six.

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He'd just won a war, freed four million enslaved people,

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wanted to heal the nation. Instead, he got a bullet

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from an actor who couldn't accept that his side lost.

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Mary Todd Lincoln held her husband's head as his blood

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soaked her dress. Their last conversation was about visiting the

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Holy Land. Instead, she got widowhood and madness. Booth gave

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America its first presidential assassination. More importantly, he gave every

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angry loser with a gun the idea that murder could

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change history. It can't. It just changes families into survivors.

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Nobody remembers James Garfield and William McKinley, two presidents murdered,

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two deaths that changed America. Two assassinations we've collectively forgotten.

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July second, eighteen eighty one, James Garfield has been president

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for four months. Four months. He's at a train station

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in Washington, heading to a college reunion. Charles Getou shoots

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him twice. Why because Garfield didn't give him a job.

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That's it. Geteau wanted to be ambassador to France. Garfield

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said no, so Getow shot him. Guiteau was a lunatic

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who thought God told him to kill the president. He

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smiled at his trial, literally smiled while being sentenced to

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death for murder. He thought he'd get a reward in heaven.

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Garfield didn't die for seventy nine days, seventy nine days

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of agony while doctors probed his wounds with unwashed fingers.

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He died of infection, not the bullets. Medical malpractice finished

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what Guitto started. Twenty years later, September sixth, nineteen oh one, Buffalo,

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New York. President William McKinley is shaking hands at the

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Pan American Exposition. Leon Chulgosh has a gun wrapped in

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a bandage, shoots McKinley twice in the stomach. Why because

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he was an anarchist who thought government was evil, so

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he murdered the head of government. Makes perfect sense if

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you're insane. McKinley lived for eight days, seemed to be recovering,

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then gangrene set. In his last words, it is God's way,

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his will be done, God's way. An anarchist with a

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point three to two caliber is God's way. Chol Gosh

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was executed forty five days later, fastest death penalty in

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American history. They electrocuted him, dissolved his body in acid,

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and burned his belongings like they could erase assassination by

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erasing the assassin. You can't getou and Cholgosh prove something horrible.

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You don't need a cause to kill a president. You

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just need a grievance and a gun. Garfield was forty nine,

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had seven kids. Was a brilliant mathematician who could write

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Latin with one hand and Greek with the other simultaneously.

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Dead because he didn't give someone a job. McKinley was

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fifty eight, beloved by the public, expanded America into an empire.

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Dead because an anarchist thought killing leaders would create paradise.

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Two presidents, two murderers, Two reminders that in America, disappointed

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men with guns think murder is always an option. November

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twenty second, nineteen sixty three, Dallas, John F. Kennedy is

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riding in an open convertible, waving, smiling. Jackie's in pink.

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It's a beautiful day. Then zapruter frame three hundred and thirteen.

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The frame where everything changes, The frame where Kennedy's head explodes.

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The frame that made every American a witness to murder.

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Lee Harvey Oswald, former marine Soviet defector who came back, communist, loser,

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nobody who wanted to be somebody. Three shots from the

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sixth floor of the Texas school Book Depository, at least

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two hits Kennedy's throat, Kennedy's head. Kennedy's dead. But this

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was different from Lincoln Garfield McKinley. This was on film.

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We could watch it, rewind it, analyze it, obsess over it.

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We watched Jackie climb onto the trunk. We watched Secret

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Service agent Clint Hill jump on the car. We watched

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a president die in real time in color Forever. Oswald

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ran killed a cop named J. D. Tippett, got caught

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in a movie theater watching War as Hell. Even his

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capture was cinematic. Two days later, Jack Ruby shot Oswald

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on live TV. The assassin assassinated while America watched. We

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saw Oswald's face contort, saw him clutch his stomach, saw

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him die. Ruby said he did it for Jackie so

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she wouldn't have to testify at trial a strip club

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owner murdering for a widow's convenience. JFK was forty six,

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youngest elected president, had two kids under six. John John

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saluted his father's casket on his third birthday. Jackie wore

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that bloodstained pink suit all day. Wouldn't change. Let them

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see what they've done. She said. What they'd done was

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turn assassination into television, into content, into something we could

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watch and rewatch until it stopped feeling real. The Warren

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Commission said Oswald acted alone. Maybe maybe not, doesn't matter.

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What matters is that killing Kennedy on camera changed how

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we see political murder. It became spectacle entertainment, something to

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analyze frame by frame, instead of more in life by life.

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Kennedy's death didn't just kill Camelot. It killed the idea

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that presidents were untouchable, that success protected you, that being

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loved meant being safe. Oswald proved that any loser with

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a mail order rifle could change history, could become famous,

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could matter by making someone else not matter anymore more

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in a moment. If nineteen sixty three was when assassination

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became spectacle, nineteen sixty eight was when it became epidemic.

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April fourth, nineteen sixty eight, six h one pm, Memphis,

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Martin Luther King Junior steps onto the balcony of the

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Lorraine Motel. He's joking with friends about dinner. One shot,

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his jaws nearly severed. He's dead by seven h five.

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James Earl Ray petty, criminal racist, another nobody with a rifle,

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thinking murder makes you somebody. Ray fled to Canada, then England.

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Got caught at Heathrow, trying to fly to Rhodesia, white

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supremacist heading to white supremacist paradise with a dead civil

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rights leader on his conscience. He pled guilty, got ninety

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nine years, died in prison in nineteen ninety eight, still

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claiming innocence, still lying about conspiracy theories. The truth was simpler.

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A racist killed a black man who dared to dream

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about equality. King was thirty nine, four kids, a wife,

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a movement, all shattered by one bullet from a man

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who couldn't stand the idea of black children and white

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children holding hands. But nineteen sixty eight wasn't done. June fifth,

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nineteen sixty eight, twelve fifteen am, Los Angeles, Robert F.

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Kennedy has just won the California Democratic primary. He's going

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to run against Nixon. He's walking through the kitchen of

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the Ambassador Hotel. Sir Hans Sir Han, Palestinian, angry about

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Kennedy's support for Israel, has a twenty two revolver eight

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shots in a crowded kitchen. Kennedy has hit three times,

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once behind the ear. He dies twenty six hours later.

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Is everybody okay? Were among his last words. The dying

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man worried about everybody else. Sirhan is still alive, still

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in prison, still claims he doesn't remember bullshit. You remember,

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you remember deciding that your political grievance mattered more than

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a man's life. RFK was forty two eleven kids eleven,

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the youngest, Rory, was born after her father's murder. Never

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met him, never heard his voice except on tape. Two months,

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two assassinations, Two men who talked about hope and change

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in making America better. Both dead, both killed by losers

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who thought bullets were ballots. Nineteen sixty eight broke something

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in America. We learned that anyone who inspired hope could

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be killed for it, that dreams were dangerous, that anyone

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who made us believe in better would die for it.

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So we stopped believing, stopped hoping, started accepting that political

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murder was just part of American life. After nineteen sixty eight,

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presidential assassination stopped working. Reagan survived in nineteen eighty one,

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but political murder didn't stop. It just changed targets. Harvey

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Milk nineteen seventy eight, killed by a colleague who couldn't

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handle losing political power. The Twinkie defense got his killer

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manslaughter instead of murder. Alan Berg nineteen eighty four, radio

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host killed by white supremacists for being Jewish and liberal,

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machine gunned in his driveway. The Abortion Wars doctors murdered

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for providing legal medical care. David Gun nineteen ninety three.

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Doctor George Tiller two thousand and nine, killed by pro

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life activists. The irony would be funny if it wasn't

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written in blood. Federal building bombings, Oklahoma City nineteen ninety five,

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not technically assassination, but political murder. One hundred and sixty

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eight dead, including nineteen children, because Timothy McVeigh was mad

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about Waco. The two thousands brought new targets. Judges. Federal

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judge John Roll killed in the Gabby Gifford's shooting twenty eleven.

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Local officials, prosecutors, anyone involved in politics became a potential target.

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The two thousands tens accelerated everything. Congressional baseball shooting twenty seventeen,

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Steve Scalise nearly died. The shooter was mad about healthcare,

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decided shooting Republicans was healthcare reform. And now the twenty twenties,

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it's not even notable anymore. Twenty twenty four, Minnesota Democratic

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House speaker assassinated, twenty four Trump assassination attempt twenty twenty five.

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Charlie Kirk assassinated three major political violence incidents in fifteen months,

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and those are just the big ones. Charlie Kirk Wednesday,

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three days ago, shot from a rooftop while debating college students,

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thirty one years old, dead for the crime of having opinions.

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While famous. As we write this on Thursday, his killer

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is still free, still out there, probably thinking they're a hero.

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Following John Wilkes Booth's template one hundred sixty years later,

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from Ford's Theater to Utah Valley University, from point four

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to four caliber derringers to modern sniper rifles. The weapons evolved,

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the hatred didn't. We like to think we're better than this,

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that political violence is an aberration. It's not. It's who

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we are who we've always been. A nation that settles

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disagreements with bullets, that turns grievance into gunfire, that makes

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murderers into historical footnotes while they're victims become martyrs. Charlie

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Kirk joined a bloody American tradition. Lincoln Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy, King, Kennedy,

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and now Kirk. Different politics, different eras, same result. Dead

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Americans who died for the crime of believing in something

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while someone with a gun believed in something else. That's

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celebrity trials for Saturday, September thirteenth. Today, we examined the

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successful assassinations, the ones that worked, the murders that made history. Tomorrow,

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we look at the failures, the attempts that missed, Reagan's

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near death, Fords, two close calls, Trump's golf course salvation,

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and what those failures cost us, not in blood, but

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in freedom, because every failed assassination leads to more security,

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more barriers, more distance between leaders and lead, until democracy

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becomes a bunker. And freedom becomes a cage. Lincoln could

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walk to to the theater, Kennedy could ride in an

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open car. Charlie Kirk could sit at a table with students.

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Each death took away access. Each murder made democracy a

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little less democratic. I'm read Carter. John Wilkes Booth has

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been dead for one hundred and sixty years, but his

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template lives on. Every American assassin follows his script. Grievance

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plus gun equals glory. They're wrong. It equals grief for families,

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for democracy, for all of us. Rest in peace to

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all of them, from Lincoln to Kirk. They deserved better

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than America gave them. See you tomorrow,