You aren’t in a free country if you can’t feel safe expressing your views.
There are few people I disagreed with more than Charlie Kirk. His views on gender, race, and religion offended me deeply. His viral success and influence on the 2024 election made me jealous, angry, and afraid all at once.
But let me be very clear, nothing he said or did warranted his violent assassination.
If you struggle to find empathy for him, at least you can agree his two young children did not deserve to have their father ripped from their lives. Today, a life of trauma and despair was thrust upon them. They don’t deserve that.
The news of Kirk’s assassination has made me terribly sad. Sad for his children who lost their father, and sad for a nation now further fractured by political violence.
January 6th. Assassination attempts on President Trump and Governor Josh Shapiro. The beating of Paul Pelosi. The shooting of Gabby Giffords. The murder of Minnesota legislators. The shooting of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO. And now Charlie Kirk. Political violence is rising. It is contagious, it is spreading, and it is not confined to one side. We should all be terrified.
This road we are on is dangerous, spiraling out of control, and it puts us all at risk. Violence as a political solution only benefits those with fascist tendencies.
We have a choice: join in the partisan scorekeeping by blaming our political opponents. In moments like this, that kind of thinking is tempting. Please don’t. It is unproductive and unhelpful.
Today, I choose self-reflection. What can I do to help lower the temperature? What role have we all played in bringing the country to this point? What actions can I take to reverse it?
This isn’t a both-sides argument. Inciting rhetoric and political violence are not equal on both sides, and pretending they are won’t fix anything. But we have a choice. Focus on what divides us, and fall further into division and despair. Or try to find a better way out of this. Finding a better way will require all of us to pause and reflect. It will require all of us to take accountability for reversing our course.
Charlie Kirk has a three-year-old daughter. My oldest son is three. His son just turned one. On Sunday, my youngest son turned one. Today, I am thinking about them.
I opposed everything Charlie Kirk stood for. And yet, I mourn his death. Not because of who he was but for what it means for his children, and for what it means for our country. I hope Trump and other MAGA elected officials choose de-escalation. Early signs point to them making a different choice. So it will be on us, again, to find a better path forward.
I’ll end with a text I received from a good friend that captures this moment perfectly:
“Take care of one another. Be good to one another. Let compassion—not horror or fear—be the order of the day. And let’s design a way out of this.”
I never listened to him, but my first thought when I read about it was he was only 31. If you knew you would die so young, would you spend your life spewing hate? This will, and already has, ricocheted into more hate. It makes me feel very sad, too, for all the reasons you mentioned.
Thank you for this thoughtfully-and compassionately composed message. I agree 100%. The man never spoke a word I could agree with. But acts of violence such as this do nothing but enrage and give "permission" to others to increase the response with other and even bigger acts of violence. We need to stop all of this and bring it to a place of humanity and intelligence.