Calling for Social Order in a Time of Social Distress
Last week, Speaker Mike Hohnson introduced a resolution to honor the “life and legacy” of Charlie Kirk. Although the resolution received significant bipartisan support, 58 Democrats voted no on the ceremonial measure.
Last Sunday’s memorial service for Charlie Kirk is what the WSJ’s editorial board calls a welcome relief, after the nation appears to have undergone a week of functional trauma. Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, struck a courageous note when she asked for forgiveness for Charlie’s murderer.
Offering Water in the Desert
Along with commending Ericka, editors of the WSJ also highlighted the speech by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who identified Kirk’s project as aspirational, something the U.S. could “sorely use.”
Mr. Rubio recalled his early skepticism at Kirk’s ambitions to visit college campuses and persuade young minds. But “here was this voice that inspired a movement,” telling young Americans: “Ours was not a great country, but the greatest, most exceptional nation that has ever existed in the history of all of mankind. And that it’s worth fighting for. It’s worth defending. It’s worth preserving. And it’s worth passing on to the next generation.”
Too many Americans, said Marco Rubio, “are moving into neighborhoods with other people that agree with them politically” and “isolating themselves from people that do not agree with them.” Apparently, Kirk “understood that we were not created to isolate ourselves from one another. “Americans are meant to engage.
Katherine Dee in Spectator US writes of yet another conflict playing across America. It’s more significant than MAGA versus antifa or the progressive left versus the GOP. America is in a cultural war vs a spiritual war. “A nation built on faith in God has become nihilistic and lost its way.”
The irony in all this is that our nation needs, among other things, the ability to discuss our differences openly, honestly, peacefully, respectfully.”
In the Desert Giving Cups of Water
Although core principles might seem banal to an older generation, they need repeating now at a time when too many voices preach that America is either a colonialist oppressor (the left) or a debased culture no longer worthy of admiration (the right).
Rubio also honored Kirk’s message, particularly to young men, that the “highest calling we are called to is to be in a successful marriage and to raise productive children.”
This mix of patriotism, faith, and personal responsibility is linked to a larger civic revival: a roadmap for a potent political message. It’s likely to be far more effective in creating a bigger coalition than the messages of retribution or grievance that illustrated the memorial’s low lights.
Mr. Rubio is an ambitious man, one who may look to inherit MAGA after President Trump exits the stage.
Saluting Rubio, editors of the WSJ note that Macro Rubio could do worse than build on the pillars of his Sunday remarks.
