Kirk’s assassination opens new paths for Donald Trump

Horst Wessel, a young Nazi stormtrooper and poet, was not a key figure in Hitler’s party. Yet his death became a pretext for creating a Nazi icon and triggered a wave of subsequent repressions — not only against the communists blamed for his murder, but against all dissenters.

Sergei Kirov, unlike Wessel, was a prominent figure in the Bolshevik sphere. His rise to leadership symbolized Stalin’s ultimate victory over his opponents and the transformation of the Politburo into a compliant group of supporters. Yet Kirov’s assassination was used to justify mass repressions across society.

In these stories, the political motive was not always obvious. Wessel had not paid his landlady and constantly clashed with her. Kirov was shot by his mistress’s husband. But for dictatorships, this was irrelevant. What mattered was the ability to instrumentalize the death — to turn a murder into a pretext for state terror.

Kirk’s killing opened several paths for Donald Trump. He can use the tragedy to consolidate society and foster unity against radicalization. At the same time, he has the opportunity to create his own “icon” — a symbol that justifies new attacks on opponents and shifts public discussion from his political failures to the hunt for culprits.

I have no doubt: Trump will choose the second path. History shows that politicians of his type always do.

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About the author: Vitaly Portnikov, journalist, laureate of the Shevchenko National Prize of Ukraine.

The editorial team does not necessarily share the views expressed by blog authors.