adminWhen a human life was senselessly taken at a public event, Stephen A. Smith did something the modern left too often forgets: he put decency before partisan scoring. Smith publicly excoriated people who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination and insisted that, regardless of politics, rejoicing at a man’s death is shameful.
That stand is especially notable because the same slick, sanctimonious corners of Hollywood and late-night television were busy trying to weaponize the tragedy for political theater. Jimmy Kimmel’s on-air monologue that tied the killer to “the MAGA gang” and his subsequent walkback sparked outrage and led ABC to briefly pull his show while the FCC even weighed in on whether he had misled viewers.
Meanwhile, the uglier truth the left refuses to face is that many on the radical fringe did celebrate — a fact Smith rightly condemned — and social media was flooded with vile reactions that exposed where hatred really lives in our culture. Conservatives are not inventing grievances; we are watching a double standard where forgiveness and outrage are doled out based on which tribe you belong to.
Give credit where it’s due: Stephen A. Smith didn’t cave to the mob or the narrative machine. He reminded Americans that basic human decency should trump political theater, and that when a father is killed in front of his children, our response must be to mourn, not to gloat. That kind of common-sense decency is precisely what many on the right have been asking for from national voices for years.
And yet the media elites rush to protect their own. Networks and late-night hosts have long enjoyed a free pass for partisan venom, but when a moment of accountability arrives, they pivot to crocodile tears and claims of free speech while refusing to own the consequences of years of dehumanizing rhetoric. The American people deserve consistency — not excuses for hypocrisy.
If this country is to heal, we must reject the normalization of political violence and the culture that cultivates it on both sides of the aisle, but especially among those who profit from dividing us. Hold the haters accountable, demand real apologies from those who misled the public, and praise the rare voices — like Stephen A. Smith’s — that call for decency in a time when the left’s cancel culture would rather stoke rage than seek reconciliation.
