Former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones (D-Mountain Brook) on Monday compared the attempted assassination of former Governor George Wallace and the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Jones said during a livestream on Monday in honor of the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that “words have consequences.”
“I want you to remember George Wallace in leading up to 1963 and then somewhat beyond, when he was elected, continued this violent rhetoric, continued this hateful rhetoric. And guess what? George Wallace was ultimately shot in Baltimore, in Laurel, Maryland in 1972 as he was running for President of the United States — the Democratic nominee for President of the United States,” Jones said. “Rhetoric like this has consequences that you can’t control. Once it’s out, once that genie is out of the bottle, once that genie is out, for God’s sakes you cannot control where the violence is going to come from.”
He continued, “We have got to meet the dangers that we have in today’s society with that same clarity, that same recognition that hateful rhetoric leads to violent acts. We need to call that out.”
“Leaders need to reject, not just the violence. You know, that was the thing after Charlie Kirk’s death. By the way, I’ve got to tell you, I was sickened when I heard the news that someone, even someone who I disagreed with as much as I disagreed with Charlie Kirk, eminently disagreed with Charlie Kirk. (He) was there doing work that he believed in, freedom of speech, even though I didn’t like it at a place, a university campus that should have been sacred for freedom of speech,” Jones continued. “It was not just an attack on one man, it was an attack on democracy. We’ve all got to recognize that. The fact is it’s easy in those moments to simply reject and condemn political violence, violence of any kind. That’s the easy part of this. Everybody did it. The hard part is to condemn the political rhetoric on both sides of the aisle if you hear it, to condemn rhetoric that you might hear from somebody you support to say, ‘dial it down.’ Communities and folks have to stand against it. Right now, political leaders feel somewhat emboldened to say whatever the hell they want to say.”
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