The assassination of Charlie Kirk has become a flashpoint in the deep divide between red and blue America.

The normal and obvious reaction of responsible leaders would be to call for calm and try to unite the country. At least that is what has happened in the past and enabled the Great Experiment to soldier on.

When the country was torn apart by the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln used his second inaugural address to remind Americans that “we are not enemies, but friends.”

After the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, then a candidate for president, broke the news to a stunned crowd during a campaign stop in Indianapolis.

“What we need in the United States is not division,” Kennedy said during an improvised five-minute speech. “What we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence or lawlessness, but love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or they be black.”

Once again, America yearns for the same measured leadership and compassion. But it is not coming from Donald Trump.

When a Fox & Friends cohost asked Trump how to “fix this country” and bring it “back together” amid the heightened tensions in the wake of Kirk’s killing, he said, “I couldn’t care less.”

Trump went on to blame the “radicals on the left” — even though the shooter, 22, is a white male who was raised by registered Republicans.

In a separate video message, Trump threatened to go after other perceived enemies: “My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.”

To be sure, there is no room for political violence aimed against anyone. No one should be celebrating the killing of Kirk. In fact, his shooting death — just like the needless loss of so many others — is reprehensible and a tragedy for his family.

There is room enough within our national consciousness for that sense of empathy to coexist alongside a full accounting of Kirk’s legacy.

Critics of Kirk have correctly pointed out that any remembrance of him would be incomplete without acknowledging his illiberal, partisan, and often deeply bigoted viewpoints.

He helped elect a twice-impeached, wannabe authoritarian who has been repeatedly accused of sexual assault, dodging taxes, inspiring an insurrection, and faced four criminal indictments.

Along the way, Kirk said a lot of racist, antisemitic, and uninformed things, like claiming the Civil Rights Act was a “huge mistake” and “Jewish donors” fuel “radical, open border neoliberal quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits,” in part through Hollywood, universities, and nonprofits.

Kirk also called King “awful” and “not a good person.” He called George Floyd a “scumbag,” and said the Second Amendment was worth the cost of “some gun deaths every single year” in order “to protect our other God-given rights.”

But there is no denying Kirk was an influential conservative voice of his generation. His “prove me wrong” debates on college campuses championed open dialogue and free speech.

That’s what makes the all-out effort by Trump and his supporters to silence Kirk’s critics all the more hypocritical.

A right-wing mob wielding social media pitchforks is targeting academics, teachers, government employees, and others who post critical remarks about Kirk.

Several dozen people have been fired or suspended because of social media posts criticizing Kirk or celebrating his death.

A top U.S. State Department official threatened that “foreigners” in the U.S. who praise Kirk’s death could be kicked out of the country.

Pete Hegseth, the supremely unqualified defense secretary, ordered staff to waste time and resources trying “to find and identify military members” who mock or appeared to condone Kirk’s murder.

This is a Republican Red Scare run amok.

Meanwhile, poll-watching politicians raced to venerate Kirk.

Vice President JD Vance ditched a ceremony commemorating the lives lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to escort Kirk’s casket home to Arizona.

Even Gov. Josh Shapiro, D.-Pa., joined the hagiography and ordered the flags at state facilities to be flown at half-staff to honor Kirk, a political activist who never held office or served in the military.

Now, the Trump administration plans to use the full weight of the federal government to go after liberal groups it claims, without any evidence, are fomenting violence.

Where was the right-wing outrage when former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s, D.-Calif., husband was beaten with a hammer by a home intruder? Instead, Trump joked about the attack.

When insurrectionists stormed the U.S. Capitol looking to hang former Vice President Mike Pence, Trump not only expressed support, he also pardoned all the rioters.

After a gunman killed a Minnesota state representative and her husband and wounded a state senator and his wife, Trump called the shooting terrible, but refused to reach out to Gov. Tim Walz.

“I could be nice and call, but why waste time?” Trump said.

Trump’s “selective rage” rings hollow.

Lacking a real leader in the White House, it is up to all Americans to put aside political differences and reach for the better angels of our nature.

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