This is an attempt to write through some of the complex and muddled thoughts and feelings I’m experiencing in the wake of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. These fragmented reflections will probably appear contradictory at times (though I’m not sure they are). I’m going to avoid trying to smooth those points out or make them coherent. Thanks for coming on this ride with me. Barring egregious error or add a clarifying phase like this one, I will not make any edits for content. This represents my thoughts at a very specific moment (midday 9/11). I know if I was to write this again today (9/12) it would be different, though I am not sure how. – Matt
To me, Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, was a political opponent. I did not support his message. I did not want his vision for this country to succeed.
When I first drafted the title for this article, I called him a “political enemy.” I then realized that you can oppose someone without them being your enemy.
And that’s a necessary reframing I’m going to try to carry forward.
I’m horrified by this assassination. I’m horrified at the impact it has on Kirk’s family and friends. I’m horrified by the premeditated nature of it. If it does turn out to be politically motivated, I’m horrified by the implications.
I’m also horrified that it may not need to be politically motivated to spark Federal Government actions that will have terrible impacts on our nation.
There’s more I’m horrified about, too.
I’m horrified by how things are playing out on social media (and the role of algorithms and design choices in shaping how it’s playing out). I’m horrified by anchors on Fox News saying, “They killed Charlie Kirk.” I’m horrified by this President’s reaction, including saying that he intends to go after organizations funding this violence.
I reject the idea that any liberal institutions are funding violence. I reject the idea that conservative institutions are funding violence. I hope everyone can agree about that.
If I’ve already said things that are upsetting you, then I am achieving my goal. I’d love you to take some time and think about why they are upsetting you. And then ask yourself why that was what first came to your mind. If you feel comfortable, share what you find in the comments.
I also suspect you’ll find that happening frequently as you read this. It occurred to me a lot as I was writing it. Stay curious about those feelings.
I’m also horrified by a school shooting that happened at the same time, and the impact that it is having on families and the community there as well.
I wish they got the same level of attention, outrage, and, potentially, action (most likely for the worse in this case). I also wish the residents of Gaza, Ukraine, and Sudan (which no one seems to talk about) got the same level of attention.
To be human is, unfortunately, to have a limited capacity for attention. That requires us to see some people as “harmable, torturable, and killable” so we can continue to operate in the world successfully.
That isn’t to say we celebrate that they are harmed, tortured, and killed. It’s just we, as a world, have come to expect that will happen to them as a price of doing business.
School children are supposed to occasionally be murdered by people with guns (or knives). Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, didn’t belong to the “harmable, torturable, and killable” class.
I am not sad that Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, will no longer be taking action in the world. I think Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, should NOT have been killed for his viewpoints. I don’t think anyone should be killed for their viewpoints. I don’t celebrate the murder of Charlie Kirk, the political commentator. Nor do I mourn the loss of Charlie Kirk, the political commentator.
In that way, perhaps, I am honoring Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, who stated that he didn’t like the concept of “empathy.”
While I was opposed to just about everything Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, espoused, I also acknowledge that he was far more complex than his quotes made him out to be. Returning to the empathy thing, here’s the larger quote:
The new [Democratic] communications strategy is not to do what Bill Clinton used to do, where he would say, “I feel your pain.” Instead, it is to say, “You’re actually not in pain.” So let’s just, little, very short clip. Bill Clinton in the 1990s. It was all about empathy and sympathy. I can’t stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy. That’s a separate topic for a different time. [source]
As someone who works in an industry that has commodified the idea of “empathy” and, in its worst practices, thinks it’s something you can develop by reading profiles of fake people and thinking about how hard their imagined lives are, I agree with Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, on this issue.
That was the first time I looked up the whole quote in context. I had sought it out to prove the difference in our thinking. I think there is a lesson somewhere in there.
I think finding agreement in small things helps keep us human. I also still reject the rhetorical strategy of “Even my opponent supports this idea.” I don’t believe in amplifying opponents. Agreement is not the same thing as alignment.
I am processing some of the centrists’ writing about Kirk’s legacy. Erza Klein, as usual, seems to be the perfect crystallization:
Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.
That was not all Kirk’s doing, but he was central in laying the groundwork for it. I did not know Kirk and I am not the right person to eulogize him. But I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. [gift linked source]
I struggle with this vision of “practicing politics.” To me, this reads as a neutral, scientific take on what “practicing politics” means. It avoids grappling with the messy details (perhaps out of desire not to appear biased). We’re all already biased.
Without a doubt, Kirk built a very effective organization. And he seemed to really enjoy debating. His approach allowed for more opposing views to be voiced than the carefully crafted talk radio format, where everything is prescreened. Or the much more controlled debate formats that other right-wing commentators of his generation prefer. There is something to be said for that. And I just said it.
I reject the thinking that someone who used that apparatus to spread racist takes, countless lies, and stoke direct hatred for political opponents is “practicing politics in exactly the right way.” As MLK pointed out, so many, many times: polite racism is still racism. In fact, it’s arguably the most dangerous form of racism.
What is being said needs to be taken into consideration as much as the structures being built. Klein’s take feels like a “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” understanding of what it means to “practice politics in exactly the right way.”
I, most likely, tolerate it more when “my side” engages in racist takes, countless lies, and content designed to strike direct hatred for political opponents. That, unfortunately, is also to be human.
It’s also essential to recognize that we are always already biased, which impacts what we notice and don’t notice.
Turning Point and its employees have been implicated in several questionable activities. Ask young conservative and libertarian women about their conferences during the 2010’s, and many accounts of sexual harassment from staff. While Kirk was, to my knowledge, never accused of anything, the impacted folks did directly confront him, and he apparently did nothing.
That isn’t “practicing politics in exactly the right way”, nor do I think this is running an organization “the right” way either.
I desperately don’t want the killer to be a queer person, a pro-Palestinian person, a member of any minority group, an immigrant (documented or undocumented) or someone who has posted anything anti-Trump. I’m also prepared for it to be the case.
I don’t think those things should have a significant bearing on this. I also help my fellow travellers on the left will remember both these feelings and the fact that we shouldn’t be chasing collective guilt the next time a left-of-center person is the victim of violence that may be political in nature.
I have already heard from people I know who fall into some of those categories who are also hoping that the killer isn’t from “their group” because they fear collective punishment. Those fears are based in the reality of what has been happening to their communities over the last few years. Those fears are even more based on the escalation in persecution of their communities since January 20th, 2025.
I really wonder the degree to which fellow travelers on the right feel this way when people on the left are hurt and killed.
If the killer is found, I expect that they will have a history of mental illness.
I also am prepared for the possibility that the person may also kill themselves first (either by their own hand or death by cop) and remain a cypher–like the young man who attempted to assassinate then-candidate Trump over a year ago.
However, I won’t be surprised if the person is never caught. After all, roughly half of the murders in the US go “unsolved.”
On that note, I wish the heads of Federal Law Enforcement were chosen for their competency rather than their political views. Perhaps if that were the case, they might not decide to rush to social media and embarrass themselves.
Not to mention, who knows how that is affecting the overall investigation?
Additionally, given this present political moment, it would be great not to have them have known histories of publicly sharing lists of leftist political enemies they wanted to prosecute.
I also wish that Fox News commentators were not using rhetoric like “they killed Charlie Kirk” or “the left killed Charlie Kirk.” That’s eerily similar to the past media framings that have led up to civil wars and genocide.
This type of coverage also suggests that folks on the right don’t really have an issue with the concept of “systemic oppression.” They just don’t like it when it’s applied to things they support.
I cannot help but notice how different this reaction is from the overall response to the recent assassinations and shootings of Democratic state senators in Minneapolis. You know, the one that President Trump said that making a call to express solidarity and grief would be “a waste of time.”
I fear that extreme political actors on the right, and foreign agents interested in destabilizing the country, recognize the potential for state action against their political opponents. I also think most Democrats realize that this is a probability, too.
I think that says something about the different ways that the parties react to these situations. But I’m not sure if that’s my bias coming through.
Regardless, there is a categorical observable difference. Especially among political opportunists, including those in high offices:
I also wish that our social media platforms were not algorithmically optimized to value conflict as engagement. They are. And they promote conflict because engagement is the foundation of their business model.
I further wish that the second-richest person in the world (depending on who you ask) did not make the explicit design decision to allow people to pay $8/month to push their hot takes to the top of every reply thread.
As a general rule, anyone willing to pay $8 a month to have their takes seen is likely to have the worst takes.
I also wish that the same person hadn’t made their platform so LLM-friendly. Or had a more rigorous way of identifying them. The honor system only works when people have honor to start with.
If I were a hostile foreign power, I’d definitely shell out $356/year to have a blue check account that could be connected to an LLM or staffed by a low-wage worker and used to post the most awful rage-inducing content designed to drive wedges between Americans.
I am hard-pressed to think of information warfare tactics with a higher ROI–especially as reporting on what nuts are saying on social media (and making one or two nuts stand in for an entire political “side”) is low-hanging fruit for other news outlets.
Ultimately, I feel no need to honor Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, because he was assassinated. I definitely feel no need to honor Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, JUST because he was assassinated.
For me celebrating anyone’s death is ghoulish.
Yes, even Hitler. Or Trump.
No, I was not comparing Trump to Hitler. Or at least I don’t think I was. Your interpretation of that may vary.
Believing, to my bones, that the world is better because they are no longer able to act upon it in the ways they acted upon it is not celebrating their death.
It’s ok not to grieve the loss of Charlie Kirk, the political commentator, even though you revile how he died.
I personally don’t want to waste any energy on celebrating that he no longer acts upon the world. I am trying to focus on applying that energy to undoing the impact he left us.
