The Irish had their Troubles, a grim shorthand for decades of blood and bitterness. If America is fated to have its own chapter under that same title, historians may very well begin the chronicle here, on the week when the United States was jarred awake by two shocks in rapid succession: the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the sniper attack on an ICE facility in Dallas, Texas.
The Shot Heard in Orem
On a warm September evening, Charlie Kirk — a mildly-polarizing figure that was easy to miss if you aren't spending much time online — stood before a crowd at Utah Valley University. He would not finish his speech. From a rooftop perch, Tyler James Robinson opened fire. Kirk was killed before security could react. A single round took his life; it was a lucky shot — a shot considered too lucky by some.
Governor Spencer Cox called it what it was: a political assassination. The state of Utah, in turn, declared its intention to seek the death penalty. Beyond legal procedure lies a serious fact: this was no lone crime of passion. It was the first major political assassination in modern America since the fever pitch of the 1960s, and it struck at a man who embodied, for many, the sharpening edges of the culture war.
Dallas: Collateral Blood
Just two weeks later, in Dallas, a man with a rifle set his sights on an ICE field office. His notes made plain his intention: to make Federal agents live in fear and, in turn, disrupt the mission of ICE. He imagined himself a freedom fighter, as many of his stripes do; instead, in his frenzy, his aim was poor, and he took the life of two illegal immigrants in process of being detained.
Two dead. Another wounded. The shooter ended his own life before he could face arrest. The cruelty of the act lay not only in its violence but in its futility. Whatever protest he meant to stage dissolved into tragedy, with the blood of bystanders staining his cause.
A Nation on the Brink
It is tempting to treat these as discrete tragedies: one man’s hatred, another’s delusion, countless other acts committed behind the scenes that may not result in the termination of life but nonetheless wreak havoc. Together, they all feel like the snapping of twigs beneath the boot of history. Each act carries banners dyed with allied colors: the support of free immigration over immigration control, mass sexual dysphoria, a general antagonization of traditionalist society and its tens, if not hundreds of (miraculously) persistent elements among the general conservative wing of American society, however one endeavors to define or categorize them.
Sunday, October 5th, 2025: if this is Day 0, then it is not yet too late to hope that there will be no Day 1, even as President Trump, ignoring any judicial resistance, sends National Guardsmen to various Democratic Stronghold cities. But even hope requires clear eyes. America stands at a threshold. The Troubles may still be avoided, but the shadows have lengthened, and the first markers are already written in blood.