Charlie Kirk and George Floyd’s shared day exposes America’s fault lines

Oct. 14 will mark the birthday of two very different American martyrs.

On that day in 1973, George Floyd was born.

As everyone knows only too well, he died in 2020 after being placed under arrest by a Minneapolis police officer.

In 1993, Charlie Kirk was born on the same October day.

The nation is still coming to terms with his assassination while speaking to students on the Utah Valley University campus four weeks ago.

Floyd’s death was the result of a tragic mistake; Officer Derek Chauvin was convicted of second-degree murder, but on the basis that he killed Floyd unintentionally.

Kirk was struck down by an assassin with an explicitly political motive.

Floyd was unknown to the world until his death, while the 31-year-old Kirk had founded and built one of the most powerful organizations in the country, not to mention been the confidant of a president.

Both deaths were not just tragedies, they had profound political and social aftershocks that have shaped the national psyche.

And as the anniversary of their births approaches, how that day is marked by their respective followers will reveal how close to the boiling point America really is.

The House and Senate have passed a resolution deeming Oct. 14 of this year a National Day of Remembrance for Kirk, an inoffensive measure aimed merely at encouraging the country “to observe this day with appropriate programs, activities, prayers, and ceremonies that promote civic engagement and the principles of faith, liberty, and democracy that Charlie Kirk championed.”

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi was among the 22 Democrats to walk out of the House chamber during the vote.

That act marked a stark contrast from June 2020, when Pelosi and her colleagues, dressed up in performative kente cloth stoles, knelt for eight minutes and 46 seconds — the amount of time Floyd was pinned under Chauvin’s knee — in the Capitol Building’s Emancipation Hall.

“We’re here to observe that pain,” declared Pelosi.

“We’re here to respect the actions of the American people to speak out against that.”

There was, of course, much pain to observe.

Floyd’s death kicked off a summer of divisive disorder that yielded pain, destruction and still more death.

In the twin cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul alone, more than 1,500 businesses were damaged and well over $500 million in property destruction was wrought in violent riots in the days after his killing.

Five years later, businesses are still struggling.

“Even the guy that, you know, helped George Floyd, helped the guy get convicted for the murder. He had a black Chinese spot. He had to move out because he couldn’t afford it, you know. He wasn’t generating any income,” one resident noted.

By the fall of 2020, the Insurance Information Institute was projecting that across only 20 states, $1 to $2 billion in paid insurance claims were forthcoming.

The losses were more than pecuniary: It was reported that 17 people died “in incidents stemming from the unrest following Floyd’s May 25 death.”

Among those killed was David Dorn, 77, a retired black police officer who was lied about in the mainstream press.

Where are the riots? Where’s the violence and recriminations?

What about the vandalism and economic ruin?

Has there even been a discernible amount of bitterness?

Certainly not from Erika Kirk, the widow of the fallen and heir to his organization.

“That man, that young man, I forgive him,” she declared before a roaring stadium at her husband’s memorial last week.

“I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and is what Charlie would do.”

“The answer to hate is not hate,” she added.

“The answer we know, from the Gospel, is love and always love.”

Good people lamented the deaths of both George Floyd and Charlie Kirk, and bad actors tried to take advantage of both tragedies.

But how Oct. 14 is marked will show whether the left has learned lessons from its last self-righteous moral panic — and will likely demonstrate that the country is not yet done excusing the indefensible, both then and now.

Isaac Schorr is an editor at Mediaite. This article first ran in The Spectator World.