‘Gradually and then suddenly’: Reagan speechwriter talks political violence in aftermath of Kirk’s death

The assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk signals a troubling new chapter in America’s political violence, former Reagan speechwriter Peggy Noonan said.

Kirk, 31, died after he was shot in the neck during his “American Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. The assassination comes a year after two attempts to take the president’s life. 

“We like to say that something happened gradually and then suddenly,” Noonan wrote in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday. “It’s from Ernest Hemingway’s ‘The Sun Also Rises’: A character, asked how he went bankrupt, says, ‘Two ways, gradually and then suddenly.’ That’s how political violence in America has been growing in this century. I would say the 2024 assassination attempts on Donald Trump, and now the assassination of Kirk, are the ‘suddenly’ moments. The reality continues while the dark tempo is picking up.”

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“We know this can’t continue and we don’t know how to stop it,” Noonan wrote. “That is our predicament.”

Noonan, now a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, served as President Ronald Reagan’s head speechwriter from 1984 to 1986. 

Kirk’s assassination is one of multiple examples of political violence – or attempted political violence. 

For example, 20-year-old gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on Trump from a rooftop during a campaign rally in July 2024, and one of the eight bullets shot grazed Trump’s ear. The gunman also shot and killed Corey Comperatore, a 50-year-old firefighter, father and husband attending the rally, and injured two others.

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Likewise, Ryan Routh was apprehended and charged with attempting to assassinate Trump at his Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, in September 2024. Routh was charged with attempted assassination of a major presidential candidate, among other things, and his trial is currently underway. 

Other instances include an assassination plot against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Nicholas John Roske, 29, pleaded guilty in April to attempting to kill Kavanaugh in June 2022, according to the Justice Department. 

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Trump said Friday on “Fox & Friends” that an arrest had been made in Kirk’s assassination, and Utah officials confirmed the suspect as 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.

“I hope he’s going to be found guilty, I would imagine. And I hope he gets the death penalty,” Trump said Friday. “What he did, Charlie Kirk was the finest person, he didn’t deserve this. He worked so hard and so well. Everybody liked him.”