Condemning Kirk’s assassination, Obama described these attacks as threats to “the central premise of our democratic system,” namely that “we have to be able to disagree and have sometimes really contentious debates without resorting to violence.” This has been a common refrain in recent weeks. Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued a proclamation asserting that political violence would cause “irreparable moral decay” to the “Nation’s very soul.” The wounded Minnesota state senator John Hoffmann put it starkly: “political violence endangers our lives and democracy.”