Republican nominee for Michigan governor John James says Democrats and Republicans need to come together to address a rise in political violence.
James attended a Charlie Kirk memorial event at Michigan State University on the one-year anniversary of Kirk’s death.
Michigan State University College Republicans remembered Kirk as someone who would debate anyone and make his case without apology.
James’ running mate, state Rep. Jay DeBoyer, R-Clay, said that’s exactly why Kirk was assassinated.
“When an individual cannot provide support for an argument, they will move to violence,” DeBoyer said. “They will move to silencing. And, unfortunately, a year ago we witnessed that at its highest degree.”
Kirk visited MSU’s campus last year, debating students on topics like abortion and LGBTQ+ rights.
James said “those who espouse conservative thought on college campuses are shouted down, fired, given failing grades and shot in the neck.”
“We live in a society where conservative speech is experienced as violence, whereas liberal violence is construed as speech,” James said.
James said that while he thinks his Democratic colleagues in Congress have become more extreme on policy, most of them are good people.
“All of them are American, and none of them are my enemies,” James said. “While I vehemently disagree with their increasingly extreme worldview, we can disagree without destroying each other.”
But he said some have forgotten calls from within their own party to bring down the temperature of political discourse amid an increase in political violence.
James said some of the reactions to the Kirk assassination are an example.
“It’s okay to be angry. That’s real. But what you do with that anger matters the most,” James said. “So when they call us Nazis, and fascists, and racists, and threats to democracy, you love them anyways. When they mock us as we mourn, we pray for them harder.”
He said restraint is the greatest display of strength.
But James said Democrats don’t face the same level of public scrutiny as Republicans.
“Our friends on the left dish it out, but they can never take it,” James said.
The remarks on the anniversary of Kirk’s death also came a few days after an armed man in Ohio was arrested after allegedly lunging at a Democratic candidate for governor.
James said there is “no reason and no excuse” for political violence, and candidates “have to disagree without being disagreeable.”
Less than three months before Kirk's assassination, two Democratic state legislators in Minnesota were shot in their homes, one fatally.
James' opponent in November, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, is among dozens of Democratic officials named in writings found in the alleged shooter’s vehicle.
Benson said last year that the threats are "chilling" but added that "if anything, they only make me more determined to do my job well, with integrity, and to continue to serve the people of Michigan.”
DeBoyer said Kirk’s death inspired his four young adult children to become more politically active.
“The beauty, if you can find it, in what happened to Charlie Kirk is that it has made the desire for liberty stronger,” DeBoyer said.
