I have never owned a crystal ball, but I still find myself saying “I told you so” on a daily basis. Take my article Trump & Musk Aren’t Ready For What They Are Unleashing, where I said, “The stage is set for a violent revolution; this gradual disenfranchisement will pull the trigger.” Or my other article, There Will Be 20 Million Luigi Mangiones, where I said, “This is not a threat, nor a call to arms, but a realistic assessment of American society and the direction in which it is headed. Mangione was just the warm-up, a taste of what is to come. Millions more will be carved into his image over the coming months and years.” And now, Charlie Kirk is dead. I, along with countless others, was right, yet I am still not happy about it.
Kirk was a racist, homophobic, misogynistic, Islamophobic, nationalist, white supremacist, anti-intellectual fascist who consistently spouted damaging misinformation and drove hateful violence. You will forgive me if I do not shed a tear at the passing of someone so toxic.
But this is still an awful moment, as no one should ever be killed for their political beliefs, and like all left-leaning commentators and politicians, I am not an advocate for violence, and I denounce such actions.
I mourn the fact that this was even possible in the first place, how ubiquitous these violent acts and their ensuing trauma are in America, the immense pain and fear this murder leaves those who followed Kirk, and what this will do to America’s society and its already crumbling political discourse. But also, I mourn not being able to hold him, and his demonstrably false and damaging rhetoric, to account and be able to heal the damage. That is the power of political discourse. Now, he has been silenced, and this remediation can’t happen. The damage he created will live on in martyrdom. His voice, while deeply harmful, was a key component in America repairing itself, and it should never have been snuffed out.
I do have to call out some outrageous hypocrisy, though.
Kirk was a staunch advocate for the Second Amendment and its more extreme interpretations. He even repeatedly claimed that a certain number of deaths a year is a necessary evil to uphold this “freedom” — though, where I come from, the freedom to take another’s life is not considered a freedom; it’s seen as psychopathic. Hence why our politically-motivated killings are almost non-existent. There is a deep irony to Kirk’s death; he protected the violent acts that would eventually end his life.
You can witness this hypocrisy within the reams of politicians and commentators who supported the violent January 6th insurrection, using Kirk’s death to smear Democrats as the party of violence and the left as a national security risk.
But it also comes from the pro-Second Amendment politicians decrying this act. One of the major justifications for the Second Amendment is that it offers citizens protection against the US government becoming tyrannical, as it enables the people to rise up and violently rebel against tyranny and its supporters. Kirk was a close confidante, critical mouthpiece and propagandist for the Trump administration, which is unquestionably fascist and tyrannical in nature.
So, let me be crystal clear here: You cannot decry the death of Charlie Kirk while simultaneously supporting an amendment designed to codify and enable violent insurrectionary actions against the very sort of political movement he enabled. It is one or the other.
However, there is a reason for this hypocrisy. History, as well as modern research, has shown that non-violent mass rebellion is far more effective than violent rebellion. Why? Because fascists and tyrants are bullies, and violence is their tool, and they can weaponise your violence against you.
No matter how peaceful a movement aims to be, when millions of people are desperate, there will be someone willing to take desperate actions. So, flooding the population with deadly weapons almost guarantees that one person will make things violent, and it only takes one violent act to destroy peaceful resistance. This hypocrisy is a failsafe; it maintains the political status quo by making possibly the only tool powerful enough to disturb it, en masse peaceful protest, virtually impossible.
But that doesn’t mean the shooter was left-wing, or even politically opposed to Kirk. As of writing, the shooter hasn’t even been identified, let alone apprehended. That didn’t stop Musk from baselessly calling the Democrats the party of killers or Trump declaring that the left are at war with him, because they are both morons and fascist political grifters. Let’s also not forget that right-wing white men commit almost all of the political gun violence in the US. Then, there is the fact that Kirk was a key player in mainstreaming the QAnon conspiracy theory, and he recently experienced considerable backlash from that base when he followed Trump’s lead to hide the Epstein files. He did later pull a 360 on this, so there is tension between him and both sides of the MAGA split on this debate. Or the fact that Trump’s approval rating in the very red state of Utah isn’t exactly sunshine and rainbows right now.
Essentially, the shooter has no clear motive, as we don’t know who they are, and there are a variety of incentives on both sides of the aisle. So, until the killer is identified, we absolutely can’t point fingers, and anyone who does so has ulterior motives.
But it doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger, because nothing good can come from this.
Just a few weeks ago, a DOGE employee receiving a black eye was enough for Trump to send in the National Guard to an overwhelmingly peaceful city. What do you think he will use this death to justify next? Sure, Utah is a red state, so he doesn’t want to overstep there too much, but this shooting will be used to warrant giving Trump exponentially more illegal, tyrannical, and militarised power over the nation.
Then there is the cultural impact.
Two months ago, a MAGA supporter shot dead two Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, and when he was apprehended, he had a hit list of 45 more Democratic officials. Trump did not denounce the killings, he did not attend or draw attention to their funerals, he did not call for peace, and he did not put the flags at half mast. It was as though, to him, they never existed. In contrast, for Kirk, Trump has already ordered flags to be flown at half mast, he has vehemently denounced this killing, will likely attend and extensively publicise his funeral, and is set to propagandise his death. Trump will make Kirk a martyr.
Trump is sending a clear cultural message to the world. You are not human or worthy of any respect if you do not support me. This double standard is soft but powerful. It will take the already broken political discourse of the US and turn it up to eleven, particularly if the killer is never identified, as it will enable Trump and his supporters to connect this act to other totally unrelated acts or spread misinformation. You only have to glance at Fox News to see they are already attempting this, throwing around unfounded statements like “They are at war with us,” when there is a reasonable likelihood the call actually came from inside the house.
I have seen people calling Kirk’s death a turning point. It isn’t; the US has been tumbling down the fascism pipeline for years now. This is just one more step towards the inevitable.
But ultimately, there is something we all need to remember. Resisting fascism isn’t just dissenting against oppression; it is resisting the violent actions that the opposition goad you to take in order to avoid playing into their hands. That is why Gandhi said, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” That is the only thing that can stop this nightmare. If you want to end the violent actions that took Charlie Kirk’s life, or you want political discourse to return to reality and respect, you need to be that change.
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Sources: CBC News, Will Lockett, Will Lockett, Will Lockett, Will Lockett, Will Lockett, GR, OJP, NY Times, Deseret, KJZZ, The Conversation, You Gov, PRW, BBC, The Guardian
Kirk did a 180 on the Epstein files, not a 360.
This comment brought to you by Dr NitPick. Do not invite him to parties.
As a German, well aware of Karl Popper's Tolerance Paradoxon, it is almost physically painful to witness how according to a very loud minority, no one stood for freedom of speech as much as a 31-year-old racist, sexist, white-supremacist.
A privileged individual, who financed his livelihood with ad revenue and donations from the same man-hating ilk of anti-enlightenment, that justifies divisive oppression as a theological necessity, never even so much as flinching at the infamy of their life-choice of double-standards.
And not for instance a country's society, which not only enabled the paradoxical blimp of his existence, but openly tolerated it with overwhelming consensus.