We say ‘Amen’ to Erika Kirk’s message of free speech and forgiveness

President Donald Trump should heed the bold, brave message of faith, hope and forgiveness Erika Kirk delivered Sunday.

It was one of the best American speeches of this century — and points the nation to a better way, one it desperately needs.

As Erika said, the answer to hate is not hate.

And for Trump it risks dragging his administration and the whole country down.

Justified anger at the poisonous left and the toxic media — and at all the deceptions and abuses of power involved in trying to take Trump down these last 10 years — doesn’t mean fighting fire with fire should be the only answer.

In particular, clamping down on free speech is not the way.

Attorney General Pam Bondi last week seemed to see a “hate speech” exception to the First Amendment. In the maelstrom of anger at Jimmy Kimmel’s vile remarks, Federal Communications Commission chief Brendan Carr said his agency would be “going to have remedies that we can look at.”

A frustrated Trump also posted on social media over the weekend demanding that Pam Bondi go after his political opponents harder and faster.

But we’re hoping the widow’s call for engaging with the other side will get through to him.

It is, after all, not just what Charlie would do, but what he did — with huge success, as Turning Point’s explosive growth attests.

We at The Post know as well as anyone what’s it like to be censured.

Big Tech, the mainstream media and major political actors worked in collusion to throttle our reach when we raised impertinent questions about Covid’s origin, challenged the Black Lives Matter movement and reported on the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.

But getting the First Amendment right means a conservative “disinformation czar” would be every bit as obscene as the liberal one the Biden crew tried to impose.

The nation does face a crisis of political violence, mostly from the left. Democratic politicians and celebrities need to stop priming their supporters to lash out and signaling that violence is OK. The feds have every right and duty to investigate and prosecute Antifa and other organizers of violence when they break the law.

It’s when you’ve chosen the punishment first, then rushed to justify it, that things go astray.

Trump should heed Erika’s call for forgiveness: Bending every federal sinew to get back at those who abused their power to try to jail and bankrupt him will only lead to further cycles of escalating political warfare and hatred, especially when the Democrats someday return to power.

Tit-for-tat battles point in only one direction: to more violence, ruin and division — with the public learning to trust politicians and the entire government ever less.

And the country is already exhausted from this madness.

Trump half-joked at the memorial that he disagreed with Charlie and Erika, since he does hate his opponents, and “I don’t want the best for them.”

But he should ask himself, does he want the best for himself, his party and the American people?

If so, he needs to think deeply on the lessons of Charlie and Erika.