There is controversy at George Mason University after Nicholas Decker, an economics PhD student published an essay asking “When Must We Kill Them?” in reference to Trump and his supporters. The essay captures the growing violent ideation on the left, fueled by rage rhetoric from politicians and commentators. The danger is that, for some on the extremes of our society, the question is not “when must we kill them?” but “when can we kill them?”
On his Substack “Homo Economicus,” Decker warns that “evil has come to America” and that Trump is “engaged in barbarism” and seeking “to destroy the institutions which oppose” him. He then suggests that the answer may be murder and violence.
“What remains for us to decide is when we fight,” Decker writes. “If the present administration wills it, it could sweep away the courts, it could sweep away democracy, and it could sweep away freedom. Protest is useful only insofar as it can effect action. Our words might sway the hearts of men, but not of beasts.
If the present administration chooses this course, then the questions of the day can be settled not with legislation, but with blood and iron. In short, we must decide when we must kill them.“
This is obviously just the reckless rhetoric of one individual. However, it is indicative of a larger and growing problem on the left where people are increasingly turning to political violence. Rage gives people a sense of license to break free from basic norms of civility, decency, and even legality.
Decker is an example of that unhinged hatred masquerading as logic.
I found the essay deeply depressing. This is a student who clearly must be interested in teaching, but has not only undermined his chances of teaching but has adopted the very antithesis of an intellectual life.
Yet, I do not believe that this essay should be the basis for prosecution. The university has referred the matter to federal and state authorities for investigation. I have long opposed violent speech from being criminalized.
As someone who has received death threats for years from the left, I do not take such viewpoints lightly. However, I have long disagreed with sedition and violent speech prosecutions as a general matter.
College is often a time when students dabble with extreme or controversial viewpoints. Most quickly return to the center and moderate their positions. Some yield to the impulse to shock or to unsettle others.
Again, it does not excuse the chilling statements made in this essay. While Decker added that “violence is a last resort,” he still maintains that it is an option. He ignores that Trump is the product of a democratic process and that the legal process is working to sort out these disputes.
Trump is likely to prevail in some cases, but not all. Our system does not guarantee that you will prevail in such controversies, and failure to succeed is not a license to use violence “as a last resort.”
What I am more concerned about is the culture that is producing such increasingly violent rhetoric on our campuses.
Many current faculty have long espoused such violent positions. Indeed, some faculty members continue to make the news for violent political acts.
It is now common to hear inflammatory language from professors advocating “detonating white people,” denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters and other outrageous statements. One professor who declared that there is “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence as killing conservatives was actually promoted.
That is the culture that produces this type of extreme rhetoric among students. These faculty members have normalized violent speech.
Of course, some professors have gone further and committed acts of political violence. Such conduct should be prosecuted and those faculty members fired. However, even in those extreme cases, liberal faculty have often rallied around their colleagues.
Years ago, many of us were shocked by the conduct of University of Missouri communications professor Melissa Click who directed a mob against a student journalist covering a Black Lives Matter event. Yet, Click was hired by Gonzaga University. Since that time, we have seen a steady stream of professors joining students in shouting down, committing property damage, participating in riots, verbally attacking students, or even taking violent action in protests.
At the University of California Santa Barbara, professors actually rallied around feminist studies associate professor Mireille Miller-Young, who physically assaulted pro-life advocates and tore down their display. Despite pleading guilty to criminal assault, she was not fired and received overwhelming support from the students and faculty. She was later honored as a model for women advocates.
At Hunter College in New York, Professor Shellyne Rodríguez was shown trashing a pro-life display of students.
She was captured on a videotape telling the students that “you’re not educating s–t […] This is f–king propaganda. What are you going to do, like, anti-trans next? This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”
Unlike the professor, the students remained calm and respectful. One even said “sorry” to the accusation that being pro-life was triggering for her students.
Rodríguez continued to rave, stating, “No you’re not — because you can’t even have a f–king baby. So you don’t even know what that is. Get this s–t the f–k out of here.” In an Instagram post, she is then shown trashing the table.
Hunter College, however, did not consider this unhinged attack to be sufficient to terminate Rodríguez.
It was only after she later chased reporters with a machete that the college fired Rodríguez. She was then hired by another college.
Another example comes from the State University of New York at Albany, where sociology professor Renee Overdyke shut down a pro-life display and then resisted arrest. One student is heard screaming, “She’s a [expletive] professor.” That, of course, is the point.
This student is voicing the same rage that he has heard from teachers and commentators. The current generation of faculty and administrators has created this atmosphere of political radicalism and moral relativism on campuses.
I genuinely feel saddened by Decker’s essay because we likely share a desire to teach and to be part of an intellectual community. The most essential part of that life is to defend a diversity of viewpoints and oppose violence as a means to force ideological compliance in others.
I hope that Decker and others in our community will come to understand that in time.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
It appears we are entering revolutionary times with the calls to violence that are lauded instead of condemned and shunned. We have been on this path for decades, not just the past few years. There are no guardrails anymore. There is no competition of ideas just a war of words and censorship. The institutions that formed a secure, prosperous and civil society are being degraded, discarded, or taken over by extremists with a desire and intent to exert influence and power over those they falsely swore to serve and defend. A schism is forming in the party of the left between the revolutionaries, aka the progressives, and the moderates for control of the party. Only time will tell where this all leads us.
We have our own, home-grown, Jacobins.
JT, the king of obfuscation.
DJT has been admonished by numerous courts, including the SC (twice now),
The President of the United States is cleansing Universities of those that oppose him, and JT brings up this.
If anyone thought JT stood for free speech, WAKE UP.
JT is one small cog that will go down in history as an enabler of the President that tried to become a king. It’s failing.
The more DJT oppresses, the more the opposition will grow.
JT, Wake up and start paying attention what the orange god is attempting to do.
Can you not recognize the difference between free speech and sedition?
Indeed, trump is guilty of treason, he is beyond incompetent, he is actively destroying our county.
No he cannot. Like way, way too many people in the Country, he doesn’t know the difference between a Constitutional judicial branch and judicial tyranny.
Turley’s problem is that he still believes these radicals will some day, “see the light”. I hate to break it to him that it isn’t going to happen. For the Left, this is their religion. To then, its a jihad. You’re not going to somehow change the minds of these people. They view the world much differently than you. I love the new buzzword from the Left, “due process”. It appears to be a euphemism for finding a sympathetic judge to hear your case. The Left spent the last four years dismantling the entire immigration system, ignoring laws they didn’t like, even directing taxpayer money through USAID to groups bringing these people into the country. None of them were vetted in any way, in fact, they were shipped around the country on chartered flights in the dead of night so they couldn’t be tracked. Practically none of these people ever had a legit asylum claim. The Left just doesn’t care. It was never about helping immigrants have a better life, they could have done that if that was the goal. Biden had the House and a 50/50 Senate, did anyone ever wonder why he didn’t just double the number of legal immigrants allowed in under the quota system? It would have easily passed. The goal was to overrun and destroy the system. The Left rolled the dice and hoped that their lawfare would usher in Harris and a Congress that could have given blanket amnesty. If I were Trump, I would continue shipping out as many of the worst as I could possibly do, damn the consequences. He has complete immunity, even for illegal, but still official acts. And under the Biden rule, he can pardon his entire administration, maybe even himself, if necessary. Trump is almost 79, even if they impeach him, which is doubtful for at least two years, he will go down as a hero that did something to fix part of the disaster that the Left tried to inflict upon us.
Social Mood has turned Negative and getting deeper. Throughout history we can see this pattern. Social Mood moves in WAVES and PATTERNS. Protest, Wars, Sickness, Pandemics, Stock MKT Crashers, Revolutions are all products of Social Negative Mood. Things will get darker before they turn Positive.
Violence and hate are being fanned by the Left Wing Radical DEMS, SOROS, Globalist Elites etc. The DEM Party is moving farther Left. There will be more Violence, Pandemics, WARS ahead.
Oh yea its all on the left.
Give me a break. DJT has cleansed the top government of anyone that is smarter than him. You do realize DJT has an IQ of maybe 90 (on a good day). Nobody is in charge of the sh-t show taking place.
Tariffs? What is the plan?
One man has single handedly made the United States Uninvestable. Watch the value of the dollar, watch interest rates.
Hey, is the Ukraine war over? He said it would happen on day 1.
Yea, its all the left’s fault.
Sadly, you are spot on. Timelines show, particularly, that pandemics are followed by economic strife and then war.
Well stated. That is my fear.
And this little PhD creep seeks to become a thought leader and part of the Illuminate Filth with hopes of running this country one day! One phrase for morons like this – 2nd Amendment Rights! Want it? Come and Get It!!
Probably the best reason our founding fathers created the 2nd amendment.
I will not comply! Say When
Professor Turley, you are being too kind to this individual.
Professor Turley:
I would respectfully disagree with you on the passage below. His essay advocating violence against Trump supporters will inevitably fast track him to professorships at Columbia, Harvard, UPenn, the University of Wisconsin (especially Eau Claire) and similarly morally and intellectually void institutions.
Quote: “I found the essay deeply depressing. This is a student who clearly must be interested in teaching, but has not only undermined his chances of teaching but has adopted the very antithesis of an intellectual life.”
I think it a better description is that our media/education industries have radicalized this dupe and he’s ignorant of his own intellectual and moral ignorance.
The progs have been creating their army of revolutionaries and by DOGE data, we taxpayers have been funding a good deal of it.
If that article doesn’t scare the sh*t out of you then you haven’t been paying attention.
Heaven help us if progs EVER gain political control again, there will be blood on the streets this time.
He is still interested in teaching, the essay will be his cover letter. Columbia has already made an offer.
A 19-year old college student was just arrested in Boston for firebombing a Tesla dealership in Kansas when he was home on spring break. He now faces Federal charges and a possible 20 year sentence to Federal prison. Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche stated no plea deals would be offered. He has ruined his life and possibly that of his family (the authorities traced his DNA from a woman’s hat found on the scene – was it his mother’s?). His social media posts evidently expressed frustration and emotional distress over political and social issues…did his parents know what was going on with their kid? Did they attempt to get some mental health support for this young man before he started filling bottles with gasoline?
Do the parents of young Mr Decker know what he is about? While he certainly has the right to think, say, and publish what he wants, maybe his folks need to throw a net over him before he harms others, or himself, or them.
Sorry, forgot to add my identifier — Farm4501 here.
Violence is clearly what they want, this is what they speak of “fight”, “go to the streets”, “get in their face”, “the constitution is too old”. We have politicians and judges who are blocking deportations of people who have illegally entered the country as well as being confirmed criminals. They sat by doing nothing as millions unvetted entered the country feeding off taxpayers dollars. The current accounting of taxpayers dollars show massive waste and fraud by government. These actions are calculated by “America hater’s” who are Marxist. Their much like an alien virus that has absorbed their host replicating it in name only and corrupting it to its needs. Even with an administration who hopes to preserve what the nation was founded on one can only hope it’s not too late.
Yes, why is it that these judges weren’t interested in applying the law with such vigor about what obama/biden were doing, but not want to inspect every potential violation of a law to aid and abet illegal criminals?
We should have listened to Tail Gunner Joe way back when. Now it might be too late to prevent a bloody struggle to keep this nation.
This is not a civil war, this is a rebellion calling for revolution. Now how do we stop generations who have taken this crazy train to anarchy?
Maxine Waters has called for confrontation in the past and was recorded making those statements to a crowd. Certainly she’s not the only one. She and others like her have reckless disregard for public safety and reasonable debate and want to force feed their agenda. I believe they are blinded by hate.
The USA left sounds more and more like the Hamas, signaling they are religiously correct, claiming only they know the truth, tunneling into university infrastructure, frightening the innocent, and apparently now ready to go kinetic.
Last year the ATF stated 700 million guns in circulation. I’m your Huckleberry.
and this people are why we NEED to end any federal aid reaching colleges
let capitalism destroy these anti-american universities
When the rule of law becomes a protection racket for the ruling elites than society has no other choice. Too bad these young individuals didn’t feel the same way when the nanny state democrat’s in the last administration trampled on constitutional rights.
He DOES NOT share your passion to teach! He has a passion to indoctrinate, I hope you don’t JT!
Think back on when we saw hundreds and thousands of illegals steaming across the border and we were so angry. Or when Biden forgave hundreds of thousands of dollars in student loans; furious. I don’t recall large swaths of conservatives threatening death and being hailed for their courage. This is insanity!
It is going to be interesting to see how people respond when they finally wake up and realize what the people who were making Biden’s decisions for him have done to them. For once, the Left may have finally pushed too far.
As we all know, they INTENTIONALLY let tens of millions for foreigners in the country en masse against the will of a majority of Americans. The Trump administration got elected in large part stop the deluge for foreign imports and deport them. Except now that the worst of the worst are being deported, the LEFT is demanding individual trials and full appeal rights for each one individually. That obviously is impossible. If the Left wins the court fight, it’s over. Republicans and decent Americans will NEVER win another election. The road to bankruptcy will be accelerated.
If they can’t be deported, the Left will begin their usual emotional blackmail campaigns demanding these foreigners be given full citizenship rights. Meaning, full voting rights, full welfare, social security, and all the rest that AMERICANS have been forced to pay into with the expectation it would be used to improve the lives of Americans, not foreigners.
So that was the plan. Bring them in en masse, demand “due process” for each individually, and since that is impossible then turn them all into new Democrat voters to dilute the votes of Republicans. And with birthright citizenship, all their offspring will be citizens, too.
It was ingenious provided you only care about power. Yes, it’s immoral and evil, but Democrats have been evil since forever. So that part is nothing new.
We’ll see how Americans respond once they full grasp what Democrats have done to them. More than likely, they’ll just accept it. That’s been the typical pattern for a century. But what differentiates this scheme from all the others is that they could at least pretend the prior vote buying schemes were meant to magically improve the lives of AMERICANS.
This time, they want to dilute the votes of Americans with votes of foreigners. They want to steal the taxes Americans have been forced to pay with the expectation it would benefit other Americans, and give it to the foreigners Biden allowed to invade the country. This time the scheme is different and maybe this time Americans won’t allow themselves to be rolled by Left. We’ll see.
I return to my theme with a question. Professor, if this was 1920-30s Germany, do you think you would have had the same empathy and consideration for Nazis? I presume you are thinking – Of course not. The only difference between them and the modern left is the left does not yet have the power? People like to say that Hitler told them what he was planning and they didn’t listen. Shouldn’t we listen to the left? I share with you the desire to wish they would wake up one day – while it’s possibly, it’s not likely. And you have a family. They said they wanted to kill Kavanagh and they tried. Same for Trump. I get it’s depressing, but be all learned to. Don’t trust them. Don’t underestimate them.
“Our system does not guarantee that you will prevail in such controversies, and failure to succeed is not a license to use violence ‘as a last resort’”. Except that his retort to use violence in response to not prevailing in such controversies is not unexpected from his generation where you were awarded a trophy or medal even after losing. Participation trophies meant a child never had to learn to deal with the disappointment of losing, never had to be sufficiently insightful and figure out how to win the next time. There were taught they were winners even when they lost. Unfortunately for them, that’s not how the real world works. Thus, in their mind, their only alternative is to resort to violence. They are telling you that they are coming for you. If this attitude is not a wake-up call to apply for a concealed carry permit for possible self-defense, I don’t know what will be.
Train and carry 7/24.
When did speech that advocates violence in complete disregard of the First Amendment become tolerable? IF I wrote a piece on my Substack newsletter calling for the death of people based on their race would that be considered advocating and promoting genocide — a crime in the civilized world. This is no different.
That weak-minded idiot Decker is essentially talking about civil war. It is amusing that while gun owners are more likely to be politically right-leaning and are characterized by the Left as violent, they are also more inclined to talk about self-defense than starting a war. Veterans, especially, say be careful what you wish for. Am I imagining things when I think that academics with minimal practical life experience seem more willing to embark on extreme and idealistic missions without a broad view of the justifications and the consequences? Can you see what happens when you teach morons to read and write but they remain unable to think? They grasp desperately for meaning and latch on to truly stupid ideas some other whacky academic barfed up. They are programmable dufus machines.
Tell him to pack his lunch. The difficult I will do immediately, The impossible may take him all day. Looney lefties think us old soldiers will be a pushover. Won’t they be surprised.
The Looney left aka Communist Democrats think armed citizens will be a pushover. 700 million guns in circulation. Say When
Expulsion, period. Then a referral to a mental health professional.. if there are no consequences a la expulsion, this wil only escalate