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By Trygve Olson
Charlie Kirk was shot and killed Wednesday while speaking at a campaign event in Utah.
In Minnesota, Senator John Hoffman and former House Speaker Melissa Hortman were shot in their homes.
Whether you agreed with their politics or not, these weren’t figures in a headline. They were people, they were your fellow Americans.
Charlie was a husband and a father to two young children. Melissa and John had families, friends, and communities who loved them too.
Now, those families are grieving, and children will spend the rest of their lives missing their parents who left them far too early, leaving them with a hole in their hearts that can never be filled, asking why.
That’s the truth we cannot allow ourselves to forget
The America We’re Choosing
These assassinations were not random acts. They are the latest and most shocking markers on a road we’ve been traveling for years — a road paved with disinformation, dehumanization, and so-called leaders profiting from fear and division.
And let’s be clear: This is not just about one ideology or one party. The extremes on both sides are guilty of demonizing opponents, reducing fellow Americans to caricatures, and indulging the fantasy that if their side just pushes hard enough, the other will disappear.
The Failure of Leadership
What makes this moment even more dangerous is that far too many — across the political spectrum — are trying to have it both ways.
They reach for the most divisive words to fire up their base: fascist, communist, radicals, enemies, traitors, destroying America. They know those words dehumanize. They know they turn neighbors into threats. They use them anyway — because it works.
And then, when violence erupts, they feign outrage. They condemn it in principle, but far too often hesitate to confront it when it comes from their own side. They retreat into silence when the consequences become too real.
But here’s the truth: leaders aren’t judged by what they say when violence happens on their side. They’re judged by how they respond when it happens to the other side.
If you want to know whether a leader is serious about protecting democracy, ask yourself: How would they respond if the roles were reversed? And just as importantly: How would you?
If your outrage only shows up when it benefits your side, it isn’t principled. It’s partisanship dressed up as virtue.
This isn’t leadership. It’s cowardice. And it leaves ordinary Americans caught in a cycle where no one at the top is willing to risk telling the truth: you cannot keep pouring gasoline on a fire and pretend to be surprised when it burns the house down.
What I Learned Abroad — And What I See Here
In the 1990s, I worked in Serbia as Yugoslavia was coming apart.
Neighbors who had lived side by side for generations were suddenly killing each other.
It didn’t start with guns.
It started with words.
Words from politicians who turned opponents into traitors.
Words from radio stations that dehumanized.
Words that taught ordinary people that their survival required hating across the street.
Once that poison took hold, violence wasn’t a surprise. It was the next step.
I never thought I’d see those dynamics here. But America is playing with the same fire.
Searching for Hope in This Moment
The lesson I carried from Serbia — and from later work in Belarus, Ukraine, and beyond — is this:
Political violence is never a “one-off.” It’s a strategy.
It thrives when we let politics collapse into binaries: in-group vs. out-group, good vs. evil.
It thrives when we stop seeing one another as human.
Charlie Kirk was not just a political figure. He was a husband and a father. Melissa Hortman wasn’t just a lawmaker. She was a wife and mother and her family will never be the same.
If we cannot see that, then we are already too far gone.
Three Things You Can Do Today
1. Refuse the Binary.
Reject the “good vs. evil” framing of politics. It’s lazy, destructive, and false. Most Americans live in the gray — that’s where we need to meet one another.
2. Name the Dehumanization.
When leaders, pundits, or neighbors describe fellow citizens as enemies, traitors, or vermin — call it out. Language is where the fire starts.
3. Act With Small Courage.
In Serbia, I saw courage in small acts: neighbors sharing bread, activists telling the truth even when it was dangerous. During COVID, I wrote that small acts of kindness accumulate. They still do. Check on your neighbor. Call out a lie. Be kind when it would be easier to walk away. These acts are the foundation on which democracy rests.
Final Thought
America is not yet lost — but we are teetering.
If we continue to reward leaders who profit from division and if we continue to indulge in the dehumanization of fellow citizens, we will see more blood.
But if we choose to see each other as human first — if we resist the binary, if we practice small courage, if we demand better from ourselves and our leaders — then maybe we can write a different story.
A story where ballots, not bullets, determine our future.

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