From the get-go, President Donald Trump blamed the "radical left" for Charlie Kirk's death, even though the shooter's identity and motive were not yet known. Trump called for "all Americans and the media to confront the fact that violence and murder are the tragic consequence of demonizing those with whom you disagree." Good, both sides, which is the only way to approach tragedies like this. But he then called out "radical left political violence," without paying tribute to any Democratic politicians who have been targeted, including in Minnesota, this year.

"From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year — which killed a husband and father — to the attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a health care executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives," Trump said.

On Friday, he piled on some more. In an hourlong interview on "Fox and Friends" reported in The New York Times, Trump built on the case he had made on Thursday evening to reporters that "we have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them." He dismissed on Friday a suggestion from one of his interviewers that there were extremists on both the left and the right, saying his biggest concern was those on the left. "The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime," he said. "The radicals on the left are the problem, and they're vicious and they're horrible and they're politically savvy."

Excuse me, but who's stirring the pot for political violence in this country but the president of the United States calling the political left vicious and horrible?

What would it do for him to ask everyone to take responsibility for the overheated tenor of political rhetoric, starting with him?

Reports of Kirk's killing sent shock waves around Capitol Hill, whose members are the face of politics in America and who were already subject to increasing numbers of threats. The U.S. Capitol Police is reportedly on track to work through 14,000 threat assessment cases involving its 535 members, up from 9,000 last year.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has been noticeably restrained in promising protection. "There are many security measures in place for members of Congress, at their homes, at their offices and when they go about. But we live in a dangerous society, and it's difficult to cover even the president of the United States from every angle," Johnson said. "The problem, ultimately, at the end of the day, is the human heart, that's what we got to address."

I wonder: Does it ever occur to the president that addressing the human heart is ultimately his problem as well as ours? Trump's first instinct is to feed the beast, not seek to tame it. Why is there so much free-flowing anger in this Trump-defined world? I know, why should there be anything less than white-hot anger that motivates an administration built on vengeance and retribution? It's just so tiresome and so small, confining especially for Trump in what should be his glory days and not his get-even ones.

I wonder: If they stop feeding the beast, will there be nothing left for it to feed on?

To find out more about Susan Estrich and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: Louis Velazquez at Unsplash