Civility for Some, Immunity for Others: Power and Punishment in Trump’s America

Dec 31, 2025

Power without restraint no longer requires justification.

Editor’s Note

This article is a companion piece to ‘Donald Trump, Rob Reiner, and the End of Presidential Guardrails.’ It does not revisit that argument, but extends it.

Where the earlier essay examined how presidential restraint has collapsed at the top of American politics, this piece looks downward at how expectations of civility, restraint, and respect are now enforced selectively. In particular, it contrasts the professional and social consequences faced by ordinary people after the assassination of Charlie Kirk with the absence of consequence following Donald Trump’s response to Rob Reiner’s murder.

Taken together, the two essays examine the same structural shift from different angles: a political culture in which standards are no longer shared but applied hierarchically; demanded of the powerless and waived for the powerful.

L, 31.12.25

This essay is a companion piece to one of our recent articles, ‘Donald Trump, Rob Reiner, and the End of Presidential Guardrails.’ It examines a related but distinct dynamic exposed by recent events in the United States: how norms of restraint and civility are enforced selectively — demanded from ordinary people, while routinely waived for Donald Trump and those operating within his political orbit.

In September 2025, founder of Turning Point USA and right-wing Trump ally, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated at a public event. In the days that followed, a coordinated effort emerged to discipline public speech deemed disrespectful or insufficiently deferential. Journalists, academics, teachers, airline staff, firefighters and others faced disciplinary action, loss of employment, investigations, or public targeting for social media posts reacting to Kirk’s death. Employers, political figures, and activist networks actively pressured institutions to impose consequences on individuals whose remarks fell outside an approved moral script (Reuters, 2025; PBS NewsHour, 2025).

By contrast, when Hollywood director Rob Reiner was murdered later the same year, Donald Trump responded with public mockery, falsehood, and overt politicisation of the event. His remarks drew criticism, but they did not trigger professional sanction, institutional discipline, or organised campaigns demanding restraint. The divergence is not incidental. It reflects a political culture in which expectations are enforced downward, while power remains insulated from the standards it imposes on others.

The purpose of this companion piece is to examine how norms of acceptable speech are now applied asymmetrically in American public life, and what that asymmetry reveals about power, loyalty, and permission. The issue is not inconsistency, but structure. Civility is no longer a shared expectation; it is a disciplinary tool, deployed selectively against those without power, while those at the top operate with near-total immunity.

By comparing the consequences faced by ordinary individuals after Charlie Kirk’s death with the absence of consequence following Trump’s response to Rob Reiner’s murder, this essay argues that contemporary American politics no longer enforces moral standards universally. Instead, it enforces them hierarchically. What is prohibited for the many is permitted for the powerful and those who agree with Trump and push his narrative.

The Enforcement of Respect: What Happened After Charlie Kirk’s Death

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, a clear pattern emerged in American public life: restraint was enforced. Public figures, employers, and political activists moved quickly to frame acceptable responses to Kirk’s death, drawing firm moral boundaries around what could be said and, crucially, who would face consequences for crossing them.

Reporting by Reuters documented how individuals across a wide range of professions were disciplined, investigated, or dismissed for social media posts reacting critically, dismissively, or irreverently to Kirk’s death (Reuters, 2025). These were not public officials exercising power from within government, but ordinary people: teachers, airline workers, local government employees, and media staff. In several cases, online campaigns actively identified individuals and contacted employers, demanding action.

The justification offered was consistent. Kirk’s death, it was argued, demanded respect regardless of political disagreement. Criticism, even of Kirk’s ideology or public role, was reframed as indecent or morally disqualifying. Employers were warned that failing to act would imply complicity. Silence, or carefully scripted condolences, became the only acceptable public posture.

A public figure defined as much by division as by visibility.

PBS NewsHour reported that these disciplinary actions triggered widespread debate about the limits of free expression and the role of employers in policing speech unrelated to job performance (PBS NewsHour, 2025). What was striking was the speed and asymmetry of enforcement. Consequences were imposed rapidly and publicly, often before any meaningful assessment of intent, context, or proportionality.

Respect was not requested; it was demanded. Moral language was mobilised to justify professional sanction, and grief became the framework through which political loyalty was tested. Those who failed the test were removed from view.

Importantly, this enforcement did not operate neutrally. Expressions of anger, hostility, or vindictiveness directed at perceived enemies were treated differently depending on the speaker’s position within the political hierarchy. Criticism from below, particularly from individuals without institutional power, was policed aggressively. The expectation was clear: ordinary people were required to demonstrate restraint, deference, and silence.

Kirk had built much of his career around a maximalist interpretation of free speech, frequently arguing that offence and provocation were necessary correctives to liberal overreach. Yet in death, those principles were inverted. Speech that offended Kirk’s political allies was no longer defended as expression, but punished as moral violation (Rolling Stone, 2025).

What matters here is not whether some comments were cruel or distasteful. Many were. The issue is how swiftly moral judgement translated into material consequence, and how narrowly that judgement was applied. Civility was enforced vertically, not universally. Those with the least power bore the greatest cost.

This pattern established a baseline expectation: grief would be performed correctly, criticism would be deferred, and deviation would be sanctioned. The rules were made explicit through firings, suspensions, and public examples. Respect, in this context, functioned a mechanism of control.

It is against this backdrop that Trump’s response to Rob Reiner’s murder must be understood. The issue is not that standards existed in one case and were absent in another. It is that standards were enforced selectively, binding the powerless, and dissolving entirely at the level of executive power.

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Trump and the Immunity of Power

Against the backdrop of enforced restraint following Charlie Kirk’s death, Donald Trump’s response to the murder of Rob Reiner stands out not because it was uniquely offensive, but because it was uniquely insulated. Trump responded with mockery, false claims, and overt self-reference — behaviour that would have carried immediate professional consequences for an ordinary employee, journalist, or public servant. For Trump, it carried none.

A presidential response that treated violent death as political material rather than a moment for restraint.

Trump’s comments were widely reported and criticised. Major outlets documented the tone and content of his response, noting its departure from basic expectations of restraint and factual care (BBC News, 2025; CNN, 2025). Yet criticism did not translate into sanction. There were no coordinated calls for discipline from within his party, no withdrawal of institutional support, no material cost imposed by donors, allies, or media partners. The response was reputational at most, and transient.

This absence of consequence reflects a long-standing reality of Trump’s political position: he occupies a space in which norms are descriptive rather than prescriptive. They describe how others are expected to behave, not how he is required to behave. Trump’s rhetoric has repeatedly crossed lines that would be disqualifying for anyone outside the apex of power: mocking victims, praising violence, encouraging aggression, without triggering sustained institutional response (Stanley, 2018).

What matters here is not simply that Trump ‘gets away with more,’ but that the system has adjusted to this imbalance. Where ordinary people are expected to demonstrate restraint in moments of death, Trump is treated as exempt from that expectation altogether. His speech is framed as personal style, provocation, or branding rather than as conduct subject to standards.

This exemption extends beyond Trump himself to his political environment. Figures aligned with Trump routinely deploy language that would trigger disciplinary scrutiny if used by less powerful actors, particularly when directed at perceived enemies. The difference lies in position. Power confers immunity.

Political scientists have described this phenomenon as a feature of personalised power systems, in which accountability flows downward rather than upward. Norms are enforced against those without leverage, while those at the top operate with broad latitude because institutions fear the cost of confrontation (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018). Trump’s presidency has intensified this dynamic. No longer constrained even by the minimal expectations of office, he operates as a political actor whose speech is effectively consequence-free.

The contrast with the Kirk aftermath is instructive. In that case, moral language was mobilised aggressively to discipline speech from below. Employers were pressured to act swiftly. Silence was framed as complicity. Yet when Trump responded to Reiner’s murder with contempt rather than restraint, no equivalent moral enforcement followed. The same actors who demanded civility from teachers, service workers, and journalists declined to demand it from the president.

This is not hypocrisy in the ordinary sense. Hypocrisy assumes shared standards that are violated selectively. What is visible here is something more structural: a hierarchy of permission. Civility is mandatory for those without power, optional for those with it, and increasingly irrelevant at the highest level of political authority.

Trump’s immunity is therefore institutional. It is produced by a political culture that has learned to accommodate rather than confront, to manage rather than enforce. Each instance of unpunished transgression reinforces the lesson that standards are not universal, but situational.

When power operates without expectation of restraint, it reshapes the moral architecture of public life. The message transmitted is clear: consequences are not attached to conduct, but to status. Who you are matters more than what you say. And once that principle takes hold, decorum ceases to function as a shared norm at all.

Loyalty as the New Moral Currency

The contrast between the treatment of critics after Charlie Kirk’s death and the immunity enjoyed by Donald Trump after his response to Rob Reiner’s murder is often dismissed as hypocrisy. But hypocrisy implies the existence of shared standards that are selectively violated. What is visible here is something more stable, and more damaging: a political order in which loyalty has replaced principle as the primary moral currency.

In this system, courtesy is no longer a universal expectation applied evenly across public life. It is conditional. It is demanded from those without power as proof of moral fitness, while being treated as optional, or even suspect, among those aligned with power. Speech is not judged by content alone, but by who is speaking and whom they are perceived to serve.

The aftermath of Kirk’s death illustrates this clearly. Calls for respect were framed not as general norms, but as tests of alignment. To speak critically, irreverently, or angrily was taken as evidence of poor taste and political hostility. Moral language functioned as a sorting mechanism: those who complied demonstrated loyalty; those who did not were marked as enemies and subjected to sanction (Reuters, 2025).

By contrast, Trump’s response to Reiner’s murder violated every expectation imposed on others yet did not threaten his standing within his political coalition. This is because loyalty flowed upward. Trump’s position at the apex of the movement insulated him from standards that apply only laterally or downward.

Political theorists have long observed that in populist movements organised around a single leader, moral norms become instrumental rather than binding. Right and wrong are no longer evaluated against external standards, but against allegiance to the leader and the in-group (Moffitt, 2016; Stanley, 2018). In such systems, transgression by the leader is reframed as authenticity, while transgression by outsiders is punished as moral failure.

This helps explain why civility is enforced so aggressively against ordinary people while evaporating at the level of executive power. Civility, in this context, is about control. It disciplines those without leverage and signals who belongs. The demand for respect is therefore directional.

The consequences of this shift are significant. When loyalty determines moral standing, public debate narrows. Criticism becomes risky for those without institutional protection, while those with power are encouraged to escalate. Over time, this produces a culture of self-censorship from below and impunity from above. Speech is chilled where it might challenge power and unleashed where it reinforces it.

This dynamic also clarifies why appeals to consistency fail. Critics who point out double standards assume that exposing contradiction will provoke correction. But contradiction is a feature of this system. Selective enforcement is how loyalty is rewarded and dissent suppressed. The rules are not broken accidentally but applied strategically.

In this environment, moral language loses its stabilising function. It no longer sets limits on power; it serves it. Courtesy becomes a weapon rather than a value, wielded to punish the weak and absolve the strong. What appears, on the surface, as inconsistency is in fact coherence of a particular kind, organised around allegiance rather than accountability.

Understanding this shift is essential. Without it, the contrast between the Kirk and Reiner cases looks like outrage without explanation. With it, the pattern becomes clear. The issue is not that American politics has become less moral; it is that morality itself has been reorganised around power.

Why This Matters More Than Hypocrisy

In contemporary American politics, moral expectations no longer function as universal constraints; they function as instruments. Courtesy, restraint, and respect are not principles applied evenly across public life; they are tools deployed selectively, binding those without power while exempting those who possess it. This distinction matters because it changes how accountability operates. When rules apply only downward, they stop being rules and become mechanisms of control.

The consequences are concrete. For individuals without institutional protection, speech becomes risky. A poorly judged comment, a moment of anger, or a refusal to perform sanctioned grief can result in professional punishment, public shaming, or lasting reputational harm. This produces a chilling effect that narrows the space for dissent, irony, or moral disagreement. Speech is self-disciplined through fear of consequence.

At the same time, power is liberated. When leaders learn that restraint is not expected of them, and that breaches of basic norms will be absorbed rather than sanctioned, escalation becomes rational. Trump’s response to Reiner’s murder is not an outlier in this sense; it is a demonstration of how far the boundaries have shifted. The absence of consequence is itself instructive. It signals to allies and successors alike that cruelty carries no cost at the top.

This schism reshapes public culture. Citizens learn that standards are situational, not shared. Moral language loses credibility because it is experienced as coercive rather than principled. Calls for restraint sound less like appeals to common humanity and more like demands for compliance. Over time, this erodes trust, not only in leaders, but in the very idea that public life is governed by anything but power.

Political theorists have warned that democracies are especially vulnerable when informal norms decay unevenly. Formal rights may remain intact, but the spirit that animates them withers. Accountability becomes sporadic. Enforcement becomes partisan. What survives is not neutrality, but hierarchy (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018).

Seen in this light, the contradiction between the Kirk and Reiner cases is not a scandal to be corrected, but a system revealing itself. Ordinary people are expected to show restraint because restraint is a form of submission. Powerful figures are exempt because exemption is a marker of dominance. Decency is no longer about protecting the social fabric. It is about signalling who holds authority over it.

This is why the issue cannot be resolved by calling for consistency or better behaviour. The problem is not that standards are unevenly applied by mistake. It is that they are unevenly applied by design. Until that structure is confronted, appeals to decency will continue to fall hardest on those least able to bear the cost.

Conclusion: Selectively Applied Civility

Taken together, the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death and Donald Trump’s response to Rob Reiner’s murder expose a simple but consequential truth about contemporary American politics: restraint is no longer a shared expectation. It is a demand placed on some, and an exemption granted to others.

Ordinary people were disciplined for speech deemed insufficiently respectful, often swiftly and with material consequences. Employers acted, institutions complied, and moral language was mobilised to justify enforcement. By contrast, when Trump responded to Reiner’s murder with mockery and politicisation, the system absorbed it without sanction. The same appeals to decency, restraint, and respect did not apply upward.

This is now the operation of hierarchy. Civility functions as a tool of control rather than a common standard. In such a system, moral language loses its credibility. It no longer signals shared values, but power relations.

The result is a narrowing of public life. Speech becomes cautious where it should be free, and reckless where it should be constrained. Accountability weakens at the top, while fear of consequence spreads below. Over time, this corrodes trust not only in leaders, but in the idea that political life is governed by anything other than loyalty and leverage.

This companion piece does not argue that public speech should be without limits, nor that cruelty should be excused. It argues that limits which apply only to the powerless are not limits at all. They are instruments. And a political culture that enforces civility downward while tolerating contempt upward has already decided whose voices matter, and whose do not.

That decision is not accidental. It is the system, working as it now does.

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