Erika Kirk was sitting in a Provo, Utah courtroom on Wednesday, watching the preliminary hearing for the man accused of murdering her husband. Ten months after Charlie Kirk was gunned down at a Utah Valley University event, the 31-year-old Turning Point USA co-founder's widow was finally getting her day in court.
Meanwhile, in Michigan, a Democrat Senate candidate saw a fundraising opportunity.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Michigan Democrat running against Rep. Haley Stevens in MI-11, had his campaign fire off a tweet going after Stevens for voting in favor of a congressional resolution that condemned Kirk's assassination. The resolution passed with 94 Democrats voting in support. El-Sayed's campaign apparently thought that was something to attack her over — mocking Stevens for "carrying the flame" for Kirk.
The timing was not an accident. The preliminary hearing for accused assassin Tyler Robinson was actively underway. Kirk's widow was in the courtroom. And El-Sayed's campaign decided that condemning an assassination was a vulnerability they could exploit against a primary opponent.
The internet had thoughts.
The Daily Wire's editor, Ben Shapiro, pointed out what El-Sayed apparently hoped nobody would remember: "This would be the same Abdul El-Sayed who engaged in sympathy with constituents over the death of...Ayatollah Khameini." So mourning Iran's supreme leader is acceptable. Condemning the murder of a conservative commentator is a campaign liability. That's the hierarchy.
Chuck Ross added another layer, noting that "El-Sayed is friends with Hasan Piker of 'America deserved 9/11' fame." The company you keep tends to explain the positions you take. In El-Sayed's case, it explains them perfectly.
The ratio was immediate and brutal. Even people who had no particular affection for Kirk recognized the basic indecency problem: you don't campaign on the back of someone's murder while the accused killer's hearing is happening in real time. That's not a left-right issue. That's a basic humanity issue.
El-Sayed's camp could have issued an apology. Could have deleted the tweet. Could have said the timing was unfortunate and the wording was careless. They did none of those things, which tells you everything about what the tweet was designed to do. It wasn't a mistake. It was a calculated play for a Michigan primary audience that El-Sayed believes would reward punching at a dead man.
The 94 Democrats who voted for that resolution understood something El-Sayed apparently doesn't: condemning political assassination isn't partisan. It's the lowest possible bar for public service. You don't have to agree with a single thing Charlie Kirk ever said to recognize that violently assasinating him in front of 3,000 people was wrong and saying so publicly is the bare minimum expected of an elected official.
When your campaign strategy involves attacking a colleague for condemning a murder — during the murder trial — the voters aren't the ones who need to do some soul-searching.
