US President Donald Trump has intensified the split in the United States, hastily trying to “identify the enemy” after the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk. This was stated by former head of state Barack Obama, The Guardian reports.
Trump, he said, was supposed to unite people, but instead he split American society even more. Obama condemned the political violence and also mentioned the murder of Democratic politician Melissa Hortman, a member of the Minnesota House of Representatives. He called both incidents a “tragedy.” According to him, political violence is “anathema to what it means to be a democratic country.”
“There are no ifs, and or buts here: the central premise of our democratic system is that we should be able to disagree and sometimes have really sharp debates without resorting to violence,” Obama said.
The murder of Kirk, as Obama noted, provoked a debate about freedom of speech and incitement to violence. They can lead to a deepening of political and cultural differences, the former US president believes. Obama noted that after Kirk’s murder, people with different views on politics more often began to call opponents “parasites, enemies.” He called it a sign of a larger problem.
“I think there has been some confusion around this lately, and frankly, the White House and some other government officials assume that even before we determine who committed this heinous act, we are somehow going to identify the enemy,” he said.