Stay on Charlie Kirk’s path, the online roots of rage and other commentary

From the right: Stay on Charlie Kirk’s Path

“The worst thing the young American right could do now in this moment is turn Charlie Kirk’s martyrdom into a lesson fundamentally at odds with his mission,” warns The Spectator’s Ben Domenech. Kirk believed “that through engagement, debate and organization” he could “win young people over for conservative ideas” — and “ he actually pulled it off.” He “exemplified a belief in the American values of civil debate.” But after “Kirk’s bloody violent murder . . . the lesson many on the right may take away is that there is no future for such engagement.” “The consequences of such a move would break from Kirk’s mission, and serve to accept the message the American left . . . that there is no place for Republican views in society.”

From the left: The Online Roots of Rage

“Civil war is for idiots and losers,” contends Noah Smith at his Substack; “hatred begets hatred, and violence begets violence.” Yet “the marginal cost” of online extremism “is zero,” so we wind up with a “toxic mix of alarmism and extremism” all along the political spectrum. “Extreme and divisive” content especially prospers on social media. Plus, “a lot of the people you read on social media are simply fake,” as the purpose of some “tech-savvy” foreigners “is fomenting civil conflict and internecine hatred in the United States.” “The probability of an actual American civil war is relatively low,” yet we still “need to fight back against the toxic idea that our neighbors are our enemies.”

Democrat: Our Sad Social-Media Flop

Democrats’ attempts to find a solution “to the party’s messaging woes” is not “going well,” gripes Max Burns at The Hill. “In May, the Democratic National Committee embarked on a multimillion-dollar scheme to build its own ‘liberal Joe Rogan,’” resulting in podcasts “from California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and former national party chair Jaime Harrison,” while “Chorus, a scandal-plagued dark money group” spent “millions of dollars to cultivate Democratic influencers across social media.” These efforts fall flat because “Democrats’ disillusioned base simply isn’t motivated by digital content that sounds like it was produced in a DNC editorial meeting.” An approach that seems designed to “provide a safe space for party leaders to recite their talking points to the converted” has at least one “fatal flaw”: a “lack of spontaneous, unscripted moments.”

Culture critic: Spike Stands Up for Fatherhood

Spike Lee’s new film, “Highest 2 Lowest,” depicts music exec David King (Denzel Washington) and his chauffeur as “stern, loving, involved fathers who are aware that they are role models,” cheers The Wall Street Journal’s Jason L. Riley. In one scene, King tells “an aspiring rapper named Yung Felon” — who’s kidnapped the chauffeur’s son — “to turn himself in” and “not repeat the mistakes of the rapper’s wayward father.” “ ‘Who taught you to do wrong? Who told you you weren’t any good?’ King says. ‘Where is your father?’ ” Riley flags Lee’s “moral message about the primacy of stable families,” vs. single-parent households, since many today pretend “the nuclear family is just one of several equally fruitful ways to raise the next generation. Even Hollywood A-listers know that’s bunk.”

Historian: We’re Losing the ‘Civilizational Clash’

For 24 years, “I have valiantly tried to see 9/11” not as “a civilizational clash between Islam and ‘the West’” but the result of “underlying historical trends”: the “spread of terrorism,” the “post-2000 economic downturn,” US imperialism and “the fragmentation of the multicultural polity,” recalls Niall Ferguson at The Free Press. Yet “my wife, Ayaan Hirsi Ali,” and others who pointed to that clash “were right.” Our national-security agencies have kept most actual terrorism off our shores, but “nonviolent radicalization” has “advanced significantly,” as polls — particularly on Israel — show. “9/11 really was a clash of civilizations. And it has taken me until this week finally to face the reality that ours is losing.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board