Remember when the nation would pull together in times of tragedy?

Flash back to how we united in grief when the crew of the space shuttle Challenger met their sudden demise. Think of how we came together in both tears and resolve when America was attacked using hijacked domestic aircraft 24 years ago this month.

The horror of 9/11 transpired not long after perhaps the closest presidential race in history, one ultimately settled by a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling. It was not exactly a time of political cheer and tranquility. Still, America rallied as one.

Yet, here we are a quarter-century later. Instead of unifying us, another instance of political violence has only cleaved us more and revealed the extent of our divide as if further revelation was necessary.

While I might not be prepared to place Charlie Kirk among the pantheon of Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., all cut down by assassins’ bullets, that is almost beside the point.

For a sizeable portion of the country, Kirk was an inspiring, resonant voice. Moreover, he was slain at a precociously young age, live on our screens, while engaging in what should be the most American of activities, that being reasonable, spirited political debate.

The murder was heinous enough. But even worse, if such a thing is possible, has been the reaction in far too many quarters of both the left and right. Lots of ever-righteous, ever-angry types on both poles further indicted themselves as enemies of free speech, decency and American pluralism.

Social media including TikTok was full of pretentious “progressives” either openly celebrating or feigning sympathy behind intentionally empty words. On the right, understandable shock and anguish morphed into bitterness, threats of reciprocal attacks and abundant talk of crackdowns on political opposition.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, never one to miss an opportunity to hype outrage wrapped in Christian piety, suggested a national divorce between red and blue states.

From President Donald Trump to Vice President JD Vance on down through the MAGA ranks, rightful sorrow and even anger soon turned into promises to suppress organizations and advocacy which they deemed objectionable.

White House aide, Stephen Miller, again indulging his contempt for core Constitutional principles, equated the administration’s opponents to “terrorist networks.” So much for unity or healing or lowering the political temperature.

In a notable irony, do you want to hazard a guess as to who would have been one of the loudest voices countering such words?

That would be Charlie Kirk himself. As he said, “There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And all of it is protected by the First Amendment.” Or on another occasion: “You should be allowed to say outrageous things.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi might want to cogitate on that before she pursues her “targeting” of what she determines to be hate speech. Giving that power to any attorney general is a dangerous proposition. America needs a rededication to free speech, not a parsing of it to determine if it suits the partisan whims and likes of those in power.

Whatever you make of Kirk, he was actively exercising that freedom guaranteed at the very top of the Bill of Rights. He was a skilled, intelligent provocateur, for sure. But he was operating wholly within the long tradition of political rhetoric and argument. My suspicion is that the erudite William F. Buckley would have patted Kirk on the back, even as their styles differed befitting different media ages.

This tragic episode attests to the allure of what we know as cancel culture. The killing itself was the ultimate cancellation of a prominent, forceful figure.

Now in the aftermath, too many purporting to be on team Kirk want to shut down disagreeable voices. Though before the left gets too high and mighty, they might think of their own gross excesses of silencing contrary opinions in academia as well as around the neighborhood cakeshop.

Students at another Utah university where Kirk was slated to speak later this month had petitioned for that event to be halted due to his “divisive and contentious ideologies.” Perish the thought.

Cancel culture flips both ways and both sides are guilty. Snowflakes now come in both blue and red hues.

Despite the silliness common on campuses and now despite the opportunistic, McCarthy-esque repression threatened by the current administration, speech is not the same as violence. Except in rare cases of immediate incitement, words are words while acts are acts.

It requires no great courage to stand up for speech which you high-five. The test is to defend the free speech rights of those whose pronouncements you find objectionable, even intensely so. It is a test far too many on both sides are failing.

Immediately after this monstrous shooting, I raised the question of what it will take for this fever to break. Sadly, distressingly, it turns out that the more immediate puzzle centers on how we can keep it from spiking ever higher.

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. He writes regularly for ColoradoPolitics and the Gazette newspapers. Reach him at EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann.