Blogger Najm Al-Din argues that with Americans reeling from the assassination of conservative political activist Charlie Kirk, what many are calling a watershed moment in the country’s history has polarised the nation more than at any point since the Civil War.
An influential right-wing spokesperson and Republican ally, Kirk’s pro-Zionist leanings and incendiary commentaries on gender, race and immigration made him the enemy of America’s leftist and progressive circles.
This fracture has only sharpened following Kirk’s death.
With pundits now predicting a surge in political violence across the country, it behoves any person of conscience to ask who ultimately benefits from these broadening social divisions.
Identity politics
Far from encouraging a meaningful national reckoning, Kirk’s demise will be exploited by the two-party duopoly to exacerbate divisions along sectarian party lines and consolidate control over a broken social fabric.
Despite the bipartisan outrage at his killing, the Republican and Democratic parties are already amplifying the emotionally-charged messaging of their diehard fanbases by doubling down on party lines and deepening ideological rifts to secure intra-party victories and reinforce voter allegiance.
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Fostering hostility and distrust towards each party and politicising national traumas to demonise political opponents is an age-old tactic of Western democracies, many of which magnify inter-group differences to strengthen in-group identity.
Instead of forcing a national conversation on the roots of violence and exploring how Kirk’s death can inspire structural change on issues affecting most citizens, US policymakers on both sides of the spectrum will revert to their traditional divide-and-conquer tactics, with Republican commentators inciting the MAGA base against a subversive Democratic threat, while the leftist commentariat militates against the ethno-nationalist strand in American politics.
By furthering the wedge between liberals and conservatives through binary “us versus them” narratives, the elites occupying the corridors of power can successfully reinforce partisan alignment through mutual demonisation.
Not only does this function to limit voter choice, it enables the Democrats and Republicans to continue with their co-optation of America’s media ecosystem and maintain online echo chambers to preserve entrenched positions which are often in the service of unaccountable and powerful interest groups, as opposed to the electorate.
Diversion of public attention
As a key figure in the culture war against progressive liberals, Kirk had a far more useful role than simply highlighting the clashing ideals between the left and right.
Much like his social justice counterparts on the left who engage audiences on topics such as race and immigration, Kirk’s activism on college campuses functioned to divert public attention away from systemic issues by fixating primarily on culture wars, ultimately allowing the likes of Trump to avoid accountability on substantive policy failures and maintain the status quo.
On crime, Trump and leading Republican mouthpieces like Kirk frequently singled out the liberal policy on unauthorised immigration, highlighting racial dynamics for the lawlessness on America’s streets, despite research showing how migrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born citizens.
Not only has Trump failed to enact criminal justice reforms, he has advocated for more punitive measures such as mass deportations and border enforcement, often overstating the influence of draconian policies and resorting to inflammatory language to connect immigrants with crime, while evading discussions on more complex factors like the role of social inequality and poverty.
There has also been a tendency for far-right spokespersons to scapegoat immigrants as a burden on public services, blaming them for overwhelming clinics and denying aid to American taxpayers.
Instead of acknowledging how immigrants shore up the financing of programmes like Medicare through tax contributions and scrutinising legislative shortcomings and internal party discord for the lack of a coherent healthcare plan to replace the ACA (Affordable Care Act), Trump and his far-right constituency have resorted to conspiratorial and xenophobic messaging, framing the expansion of ACA coverage and Democratic proposals like “Medicare for All” as a far-left socialist ploy to take over the healthcare system and empower undocumented immigrants.
This doesn’t exonerate Democrats from their part in contributing to diversionary culture wars.
The left’s obsession with identity, race and gender is often at the expense of traditional working-class voters who share legitimate grievances with progressive policies and the cultural indoctrination in America’s public institutions.
The overemphasis on cancel culture in particular has often stifled debate on core issues, hindering constructive dialogue while fuelling the binary “us vs them” rhetoric.
Housing shortages and growing inequality in areas where Democrats can effect change are conveniently blamed on Republican obstructionism, while blind adherence to wokeism, neoliberal ideology and free-market policies is rationalised by pointing the finger at the opposition.
From employment and taxation to housing and education, Republicans and Democrats weaponise information to keep partisans from dissecting the facts, thus galvanising their base and reinforcing the two-party dynamic and left-right divide which America’s power brokers exploit to mobilise voters whilst distracting from the substantive issues.
The playbook is simple: keep the public bogged down with endless arguments over identity politics, while rigging the political and economic system in favour of oligarchs.
Culture wars
For Muslims in the West, it is important to recognise that the constant shift to culture war talking points is designed to trap voters in a vicious cycle of conflict and distract the public from systemic problems by reframing important political and economic issues as moral and cultural battles.
Today, diaspora Muslims are bearing the brunt in the toxic culture war battleground.
While the left connects the Israel–Palestine conflict to broader issues like race and colonialism to mobilise support from Muslim minorities, some conservative and far-right Christian commentators have highlighted their alignment with Muslims on issues like LGBT+ rights and the increasing sexualisation of the school curricula, to enlist Muslims against progressive causes and with the broader parental rights movement.
However, both cases represent a false sense of solidarity, allowing conservatives and liberals to feign common cause with the very Muslim community they routinely vilify.
The same far right accuses Muslims of demographic takeover through a stealthy “rape jihad” against unsuspecting white girls and the same progressive left labels orthodox Islamic interpretations on marriage and gender equality as patriarchal and misogynistic.
By falling for this sleight of hand, we obscure the underlying causes behind the collapse of Western nations, thus perpetuating the systemic decay.
Muslims must rise above the noise, eschew left–right polarity and avoid the temptation to focus their anger solely on these perceived enemies.
We cannot be manipulated as cannon fodder and tools to perpetuate elite-driven culture wars, which prevents any unified front against the fundamental reason behind the disintegrating social fabric: a secular capitalist system which has usurped God’s sovereignty and is devoid of a moral anchoring.
