Charlie Kirk, head of the young Republican juggernaut Turning Point USA, was shot and killed today in Utah during a public forum.
I want to emphasize that verb before I move any further. Shot. Killed. This man was not merely “shot,” or “killed.” This has all the markings of a political assassination, and I feel free to say that despite the incomprehensible fact that — as of now — the shooter remains at large. (A suspect initially taken into custody at the scene has reportedly been cleared.) The nightmare continues onward.
Others will write the obituary for a man who worked his ass off for the young conservative movement, performing that unique arbitrage between the kids and the Establishment, starting at age 18, I recognize and appreciate the importance of the work he did in his young life — and yes, Donald Trump’s reelection is proof of its effectiveness — but I cannot focus on that right now. I am too fired up.
Right now, I am angry.
I am grinding metal and shooting sparks in my mind, trying to process something that feels utterly senseless. Words fail me. I am better at this when there are happy endings to celebrate. I keep thinking of the overwhelming wave of relief I felt last summer when Trump faced a similar threat in Butler, Pennsylvania — and survived. But today, that relief collapses into horror as I replay, in my mind, the harrowing videos I have seen from this morning’s events. (Do yourself a favor: avoid them.)
But if I am not angry, I want to be defiant. Turn sorrow into purpose. Yes, I am aware that this sounds like the same note I usually criticize when it comes from the left — “just do something!” — but this is different. This was a political assassination. A deliberate attempt to silence someone simply for showing up in the public arena and speaking their mind.
When I saw Charlie Kirk sitting there answering questions before the moment came, I felt a chilling recognition: that could have been me. Or you. Or anyone. Shot dead for nothing more than taking part in public discourse. This was meant to intimidate people. And yes, it does put the fear of God into you, quite literally.
But it will not intimidate me. And it should not intimidate anyone else who believes in freedom and in public participation. The less said about the person who carried out this attack, whoever he turns out to be, the better. I do not particularly care about his motivations. (And yes, I suddenly find myself softening on my usual anti-death penalty stance.) What matters is the larger, terrifying pattern: a political generation increasingly enamored with the idea of the “Propaganda of the Deed,” where the deed is always bloody, profane, and public.
Something wicked this way comes, indeed. And yet, in this moment of despair, I want to offer more than my usual counsel of gloom: Charlie Kirk did not die in vain if we all get out there and speak our minds.
What is the point of politics? What’s the point of constitutions, elections, and the rule of law? What’s the point of free speech, public debate, and the right to assemble and petition our government?
We have these things — our civilization has painstakingly developed them — because the alternative to politics is violence. The alternative is the pursuit of power at the edge of a sword, at the point of a gun. When a man shot Charlie Kirk on the campus of Utah Valley University today, America witnessed the assassination of a citizen who had done nothing but voice his opinions and organize an assembly to discuss matters of public interest.
My prayers are with his wife, his two children, and his friends and colleagues. They are also with our country.
We cannot become numb to this. It does not matter what Kirk’s politics were, what political causes he supported, or which politicians he associated with. Defending, excusing, or justifying the murder of a fellow citizen — as some online trolls and cable news personalities have attempted to do — is the mark of a black heart and a disordered mind.
We are staring into the abyss. The moment Americans of goodwill abstain from entering the public arena — as politicians, as activists, as citizens — will be the moment we forsake our God-given right to govern ourselves. If we allow violence and the threat of violence to silence us, we are no longer free.
I have spent most of my adult life following politics, observing it as both a spectacle and a responsibility. And I have learned one immutable truth: fear is contagious, but courage is contagious too. If we hesitate, if we shrink back in terror, if we allow the prospect of harm to silence us, we are complicit in a slow death of democracy. Charlie Kirk’s death is proof, painfully, that the risks are real. But it is also a call to action.
Charlie Kirk built a movement from nothing. He did not wait for someone to grant him permission. He did not sit quietly while the world passed him by. And while his politics are not the point here, his example is: he engaged, he acted, he showed up. That is exactly what we must do. Not because it is easy, not because it is safe, but because it is necessary.
The idea that a political debate should be deadly is anathema to everything this country stands for. Debate is the lifeblood of democracy. It is the mechanism by which we hash out differences, challenge authority, and pursue justice. To be silenced with a bullet is to reject the very essence of our shared civilization. And yet, that is precisely what someone tried to do today.
We will not let them succeed. Not in our generation. Not in our public spaces. Not in our schools, in our forums, in our town halls. We owe it to Charlie Kirk, and to ourselves, to step into the arena, to speak, to organize, to vote, and to engage.
I will not pretend that this is easy. Every one of us knows the pang of fear when standing up for what we believe. But courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is moving forward in spite of it. Every time we choose to engage politically, we honor the memory of those who were silenced for doing the same.
Charlie Kirk’s life was short, but it was consequential. His death is shocking, horrifying, and unacceptable. But if we allow grief to paralyze us, if we allow anger to fade into helplessness, the assassins win. The responsibility now is ours: to keep showing up, to debate passionately, to listen, to organize, and to refuse to allow fear to dictate our actions.
This is not hyperbole. This is the stark reality of the world we live in. Violence is rising as a political tool, and it will continue until citizens assert, unequivocally, that violence has no place in the democratic process. If we fail, we are complicit. If we succeed, we honor the principles that Charlie Kirk, for all his flaws and all his convictions, embodied in his work: participation, courage, and persistence in the face of adversity.
So I write this not merely as a lamentation, but as a call. A call to action, a call to defiance, a call to courage. Let Charlie Kirk’s death be the spark that reignites our commitment to the messy, imperfect, vital process of civic engagement. Let it remind us that free speech is not a theoretical privilege but a daily responsibility. Let it remind us that democracy is not a spectator sport.
Do not be numb. Do not look away. Do not whisper condolences in the quiet of your home while avoiding the public arena out of fear. Stand. Speak. Engage. Debate. Organize. Vote. Live the life of active citizenship, so that none of us, and certainly not Charlie Kirk, dies in vain.
Because this is exactly what the assassins want: a quiet, fearful population that retreats from the arena. That will never be my choice. And it should never be yours.
Today, Charlie Kirk was shot. Today, he was killed. But tomorrow — if we rise — his legacy will live on, in every public forum, every town hall, every debate where citizens refuse to be silenced by fear.
And that is the only proper answer to this horror: to engage, to persist, to live out our right — our duty — to participate in the democracy he fought so hard to shape.
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