We live in a bizarre world in which many, perhaps most, Americans deify people who are against basic American values. (Because what really drives conservatives is not the Constitution, but the OT.)
So many news posts and Facebook posts about this today. Trump wants to give Charlie Kirk, a community college drop-out, a medal of freedom. Congress prayed for him. Trump lowered the American flag to half-mast. The right reflexively accuses the left of the assassination, without any evidence whatsoever.
(It’s been noticed that the single shot that killed Charlie Kirk must have come from a very skilled shooter. A single shot, to the neck, from 200 yards. It’s easy to speculate about any number of conspiracy theories about who was behind it, and why.)
I’ll begin with this one for its concise compilation of links.
LGBTQNation, Daniel Villarreal, 11 Sept 2025: No, I won’t be shedding any tears for Charlie Kirk, subtitled “He spent his life fomenting hatred against me, my friends, and neighbors. And now we’re supposed to fly flags at half-mast for him?”
Charlie Kirk believed that gay people should be stoned to death, that the 1964 Civil Rights Act was a “huge mistake,” that we should legally be allowed to whip foreigners in the U.S., that Muslims only move here to destroy the country, that American Jews encourage anti-whiteness, that men should physically attack transgender people, that all women should submit to their husbands, and that Black professionals “steal” their jobs from more qualified white people.
This is the guy the American right admires. This is where we are.
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Slate, Aymann Ismail, 11 Sept 2025: Charlie Kirk Helped Create an American Culture That Would Laugh at His Death, subtitled “It’s hard to take the outrage about this kind of dark humor seriously.”
There’s no denying that before he was a right-wing firebrand, Charlie Kirk was a husband and a father, and a man it’s clear that many people loved. And an awful thing happened on Wednesday: That man was gunned down in public, on camera. The image of him slumped in his chair will live in our political memory for a generation.
People on both sides of the spectrum agree his violent death is part of an unacceptable trend of political violence in America. Earlier this year, Democratic lawmakers were assassinated; last year, the now-sitting president survived two snipers’ attempts on his life.
But the circumstances of Kirk’s killing—an end no one deserves—can’t erase the role he himself played in pushing American political culture toward embracing violence. The Overton window shifted partly by his own hand.
He celebrated when violence came for his enemies. When Paul Pelosi was nearly killed in his own home, the grace this purported holy Christian man could muster amounted to a homophobic snicker, and a request for “some amazing patriot” to “be a midterm hero” and “bail this guy out.” Kirk built his following by rewarding cruelty and training his audience to see violence as entertainment. He claimed to have helped in transporting 80+ buses “full of patriots” to “fight for this president” the morning of Jan. 6 and recently called for “full military occupation” of American cities. He mocked protests over George Floyd’s murder and spread COVID conspiracies. After Zohran Mamdani’s New York City mayoral primary win, Kirk posted: “24 years ago a group of Muslims killed 2,753 people on 9/11. Now a Muslim Socialist is on pace to run New York City.”
And, the essential tribalism.
Kirk pushed the idea that people’s identities or political beliefs make them inherently dangerous. He called Muslims like me “incompatible with America.” Just this summer, he released a podcast episode literally titled “Islam: Incompatible With the West.” Days before he was shot, a post circulated quoting him: “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.” I want to be the kind of person who could rise above that and mourn him, but I can’t. I’ve spent my entire life living with the consequences of that kind of rhetoric. And it has real-world consequences: The Council on American–Islamic Relations reported 8,061 complaints of anti-Muslim discrimination in 2023, the highest in its history, up 56 percent from the year before. Federal data shows hate crimes hovering near record highs in 2024. Mosques across the country, facing the threat of arson, shootings, and vandalism, budget for armed guards. It’s been a grim reality since 9/11, and that spiked again after Oct. 7, 2023, when anti-Muslim incidents surged nationwide. When my own kids were born, I worried about choosing names for them that would be the least likely to elicit taunts at school. Kirk contributed to that reality. His cause was making sure my community lived in a permanent state of suspicion.
And, the essential hypocrisy.
Conservatives who once laughed at Paul Pelosi’s fractured skull or made sport of George Floyd’s last breaths suddenly discovered the sanctity of life. Fox News hosts scolded Democrats for their “inhumanity.” Some conservatives urged people to report offensive posts to law enforcement. MAGA influencers claimed the jokes were proof of liberal depravity. Is any of this in good faith? Or just the next round of arena politics, where the only goal is to rack up points by accusing the other side of playing the same game? You can’t condemn violence in one context and celebrate it in another, and act surprised when the rest of us find difficulty in joining you in mourning your martyr.
