Making Sense of Charlie Kirk

The father and devout Christian should be remembered for his commitment to pro-American beliefs

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination on September 10th, the overwhelming feeling among conservatives was shock. We were horrified not only that such a violent event could happen, but that our fellow citizens, including professors across the country, seemed to condone or actively support Kirk’s killing.

The public spectacle that unfolded, beginning with the rapid spread of graphic videos of Kirk’s death, has ended. One hopes that the political hyperbole that marred what should have been a period of mourning did not permanently affect his legacy. We ought to remember Charlie for Charlie, not what Charlie’s death gave others the license to say.

It would be easy for this to be a “radicalizing” event, something that pushes us to the edge and makes us take the gloves off, prepared to throw out all conventions to address the danger “the other side” poses to the nation. This was certainly the gut reaction among many in response to the assassination. This has to be rejected, and Attorney General Pam Bondi has been rightly criticized for her newfound openness to prosecuting “hate speech” in the wake of Kirk’s death.

Charlie Kirk was an optimist who believed in the power of rational debate to change hearts and minds. It is impossible to separate his philosophy from that of the American founding, which he so revered, and which promised to build a nation in which foundational shared values prevented differences of opinion from spiraling into civil war. Kirk’s unique position and ability to facilitate the “sifting and winnowing” of ideas on college campuses stood at the heart of his life’s work.

Kirk’s personal integrity is not up for debate. It is unfortunate that short form media has incentivized debates to be clipped and condensed into minute-long sound bites, and that the most contentious and standoffish of these have gone viral, leaving many with no impression of his spiritual and intellectual depth. In longer exchanges, it is hard to watch Kirk debate and not walk away with the impression that he always argued sincerely. His deep conviction in the Christian faith and his visible display of emotion after the 2024 election prove that Kirk was not in politics for himself.

In many ways, he was too good for us. We have all had contentious debates, and we often walk away with the feeling that no one will ever change their mind. The best we can hope for is that our words are just one step in the process of a change of mind, which may take months or years. Charlie must have been deeply familiar with this feeling of despair and hopelessness. But he persisted unlike any other, and this can only be credited to his undying belief in the goodness and truth within every human person.

The fact is that political violence is real, but in many cases unexplainable, and more the product of confused politics and mental illness than some coherent philosophy on the part of the perpetrator. To act as if assassinations are something intelligible is to dignify the intellect of those who commit them and let them speak for entire groups of people. We legitimize insanity when we treat assassins as rational actors influenced by this or that movement, and we indirectly encourage others to idolize their actions. This is what happened with Luigi Mangione, and it cannot happen again.

To be clear: no group or party killed Charlie Kirk. The lone shooter killed Charlie Kirk. To say anything else would be to disown Kirk’s life project, ignoring the individual and calling out “the system.” Disrespectful and violent comments indeed make it feel like the shooter acted on behalf of an entire group, but can we really say that, put in the shooter’s position, any person who celebrated the death online would pull the trigger?

Celebrations of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, then, speak much more to our thoughtless acceptance of the way social media toys with our emotions than any genuine feeling of bloodlust on the part of the Left. But this is not a new problem. Like political violence itself, widespread celebration of political violence is not new in America. After JFK’s death, “an Oklahoma City physician beamed at a grief-stricken visitor and said, ‘Good, I hope they got Jackie.’” In one school, “students learned the President had died. That teacher ordered everyone to stand and sing ‘Dixie,’” the national anthem of the Confederacy. It is good that we realize social media is part of the problem, but the truth is that any political engagement carries with it the risk that we begin to act uncharitably towards those whom we have never met. Therefore, we should also be ashamed of the glee with which others doxxed those who had made violent or disrespectful comments on social media. At these moments, like those who celebrated Kirk’s death, we took pleasure in another’s destruction.

To claim Kirk’s assassination created “a million Charlie Kirks,” as many have in the past weeks, is to cheapen his legacy and encourage pale imitation. If Kirk had to die to inspire us, we would be motivated by revenge rather than the pursuit of truth. So how do we “pick up the microphone?” Rather than simply getting more involved in politics, it means recognizing that sometimes deliberating with others does more harm than good if we are not motivated by the right intentions. We cannot all be like Charlie, and we cannot twist his legacy into a license to gloat over others. If the only thing we discuss with the people we disagree with is politics, we undermine all the other bonds that hold our nation together.