Ain't nobody here but us chickens

Violence is fed by lies and provocations

The assassination of Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus on September 10 was shocking and reprehensible. America is in a dark period; it cannot be brightened by means of political violence.

The shooting occurred in an environment of political vitriol. Before there was a suspect, the MAGA right rushed to blame Democrats. Liberal commentators received death threats. Historically Black colleges and universities were also threatened.

As it turns out, the 22-year-old arrested in the murder, Tyler Robinson, is from a white, Republican, gun-loving household.

I gasped when I saw that Kirk had died. His death was the last thing any decent person could want.

So what are we to do? We can begin by examining the truth. Despite his smiles, Kirk was a Christian nationalist with a record of insulting Black people, women, immigrants, gay and trans people. The Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that Kirk's group, Turning Point USA, "exploits complicated feelings of insecurity and anxiety to manufacture rage and mobilize support to revive and maintain a white-dominated, male supremacist, Christian social order."

Trump has announced plans to award Kirk a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. Good for him, but we should not use martyrdom to normalize extremism.

Kirk was a provocateur. Deploring his murder does not require whitewashing his record.

Trump himself has openly encouraged violence at rallies, not to mention inciting an insurrection in an effort to overturn the 2020 election, and later pardoning the insurrectionists.

Trump quickly used the assassination to demonize the "radical left" — thus not only leaping to conclusions, but ignoring the murder of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark; the arson attack against Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro; and the mockery with which Republicans responded to a brutal assault against Paul Pelosi, to cite a few examples.

My friend Robert Naylor, a longtime journalist, wisely cautioned on Facebook: "Public debates can create an illusion that both sides have equally valid perspectives, even when one side promotes harmful or dishonest views. Mainstream media, in which I worked for more than three decades, further legitimize this by prioritizing 'balance' over truth."

Just as we cannot resolve our nation's problems through violence, we cannot do it with lies, provocations, or performative neutrality.

The normalizing of Trump's transgressions reminds me of a song my father used to sing for my siblings and me, a 1946 hit by Louis Jordan:

"There ain't nobody here but us chickens,

There ain't nobody here at all.

So quiet yourself and stop that fuss.

There ain't nobody here but us."

The song tells of a chicken thief who, when caught, pretends to be one of the chickens. Trump is just the type: he always evades responsibility for his own actions. He routinely trashes opponents. He is notorious for his compulsive lying.

Washington's lovely late summer weather contrasted with Trump's takeover of our police and his sending federalized National Guard troops and Immigration and Customs Enforcement police onto our streets. He justified the federal occupation with a lie about crime being out of control when in fact it was down.

Trump sows chaos to further his dictatorial ambitions. Let us disappoint him by keeping our protests nonviolent.

Somehow, it makes perfect sense in the MAGA mind to use violent rhetoric with abandon, insist on people's right to carry semiautomatic weapons in the streets, then blame the tragic results on the very Democrats who are proposing stronger gun control.

Speaking of which, I agree with Elie Mystal, who writes in The Nation, "I do not think the constant drumbeat of death and violence at our nation's schools is an acceptable price to pay for the freedom to own a private arsenal. I don't think the Second Amendment should be interpreted as a murder-suicide pact."

To overcome the madness, we must resist being caught up in the rancor. This is hard for me when I see the likes of Rep. Nancy Mace, now a candidate for governor of South Carolina, double down on her rhetorical rage. She makes a particular point of demonizing trans people.

I hope Speaker Mike Johnson figures out how to keep members of Congress safe. I wish success to Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, who urged people to "log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member, go out and do good in your community."

When we vote for leaders who appeal to the best in us and not the worst, we may again be touched, in Lincoln's words, by the better angels of our nature.

Richard Rosendall is a writer and activist who can be reached at [email protected].

Copyright © 2025 by Richard J. Rosendall. All rights reserved.