Regardless of your politics or beliefs, Charlie Kirk’s murder makes you less safe. It makes me less safe, too.
Political violence is all that’s needed to destroy freedom of speech. And without freedom of speech, there is no democracy.
As many people have noted, Kirk did what citizens in a democracy should do—he debated. He organized. He persuaded.
But as many others have noted, Kirk was not “moderate” in any way. He tried to ruin as many lives as he could.
He called the Civil Rights Act of 1964 “a huge mistake.” He advocated for stopping immigration entirely. He claimed there is “no factual data to back up global warming.”
Kirk called to limit the integrity of American universities, and to destroy the already-tenuous separation of religion and government. He spread rumors about a “cultural Marxist” conspiracy of liberals, Jews, educators, and intellectuals who want to destroy America’s moral structure. At a Trump election rally in Georgia, he said that Democrats “stand for everything God hates.”
Kirk promoted a “Biblical model” of relationships: a female partner focusing on being a wife, homemaker and mother, and a male partner who leads and protects. He said that America “is a Christian state. I’d like to see it stay that way.’”
SEXUAL OBSESSION
Like many religious people, Kirk had a special obsession with sexual purity. He described contemporary sexual norms—non-marital sex, non-traditional sexual arrangements—as “sexual anarchy,” and said that “God’s law” dictates what is acceptable sexual behavior.
He believed that rape victims—even children—should be forced to carry their pregnancies to term. He called for banning all trans-identity affirming medical care, even for adults. He said “monogamous heterosexual marriage should be a prerequisite to adoption.” He said that being gay is an “error,” and he opposed gay marriage, “Because they are not happy just having marriage. Instead, they now want to corrupt your children.”
I will give Kirk the ultimate compliment: he was so effective that he was dangerous. But he was not “moderate.”
Many people on the Right are now calling for EVERYONE to calm down their rhetoric, hate and violence. With a President who spews hatred and vows revenge (most recently at a dinner with King Charles!), this is clearly impossible.
Trump doesn’t see Kirk’s murder as a time to call for healing, tolerance, and compassion. Rather, he sees it as a moment to call for more hate and more violence. He has no concept of sincere disagreement, or of a loyal opposition. He consistently demonizes the Democratic Party, judges who rule against him, the media, and everyday citizens, calling them traitors, scum, criminals, and the radical left.
The Attorney General says she will criminalize speech that “hates the government.” Trump says he will “destroy” “disrespectful voices;” “We have radical Left lunatics out there, and we just have to beat the hell out of them,” he said. Federal Communications Commission chair Brendan Carr says the government will challenge the broadcast licenses of stations whose programs criticize the government. There ARE NO comparable threats to democracy coming from the Left.
Deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller said, without any evidence, that an “organized campaign” was behind Mr. Kirk’s death, and that the federal government will crack down on what he called a “vast domestic terror movement” on the Left: “We are going to use every resource throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people.”
COOL DOWN “EVERYONE’S” VIOLENCE?
While cooling down everyone’s rhetoric would be a good idea, we don’t need for EVERYONE to cool down their VIOLENCE—only the Right. There ARE NO left-wing militias; there was no left-wing attack on the Capitol when Trump was re-elected; there are no left-wing survivalists stockpiling firearms; no left-wing religious group has declared “Holy War” on its opponents; there isn’t one single non-MAGA politician riling up their base with calls to “eliminate” the opposition.
When it comes to violence, there is no moral equivalence between the Right and the Left. There is right-wing violence, promoted by a right-wing president who is dehumanizing his opposition—making violence more likely. I’m not aware of any other president who has ever declared the government will “beat the hell” out of the opposition.
Federal troops in American cities—sent there and under command of President Trump, not local mayors or governors—will, presumably, soon be involved in violence.
THE LEFT COOPERATED WITH CHARLIE
The American Left has, unfortunately, cooperated with Charlie Kirk in one grave respect. Kirk believed that the voices of some faculty members and campus speakers should be eliminated. Unfortunately, half of all college students of ALL political positions believe this, too. Every survey reveals that today’s students demand to be protected from hearing viewpoints with which they disagree.
Ideas like trigger warnings on course outlines, policies against “micro-aggressions” and “cultural appropriation,” and demands that “offensive” speech be eliminated all started on the Left—and play right into the plans of Charlie Kirk to aggressively refashion (and narrow) American culture.
De-platforming speakers is always a mistake. EVERYONE needs to hear points of view with which they disagree—if only to sharpen their thinking in response to being challenged.
And the Left needs to articulate its critiques better. Name-calling—“transphobe,” “TERF,” “Karen,” “colonialist,” “privileged,” “old white male”—are NOT thoughtful critiques, whether they’re hurled at opponents on the Right or insufficiently pure (former) allies on the Left.
CANCEL CULTURE
The basic message of left-wing Cancel Culture is (1) Absolute purity is the only standard for allies to work together, and (2) We on the Left are too frail to engage in robust discourse, or to hear words we don’t like; we have no resilience.
If we’re horrified by the way Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel got cancelled simply for speaking their truth, we should be equally horrified when a Right-wing speaker (or Israeli, or Palestinian, or anti-vaxxer) gets cancelled.
Some misguided fool (or mentally ill person) just de-platformed Charlie Kirk big-time. No matter how dangerous Kirk was—and he was very, very dangerous—his murder is more dangerous than he was.
When the acceptability of violence or cancelling depends on the content of the speech, everyone’s rights are diminished and jeopardized. And far more difficult to protect.
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