Charlie Kirk and Democrat Impotence

I do not condone political violence of the kind that ended Charlie Kirk’s life, for both moral and strategic reasons, and my sympathies lie most importantly with his two young children who were made to witness the public assassination of their father. Violence begets violence, and for a stable democratic society to endure, individuals have to trust that their life will not be in danger for sharing their opinions, unfortunately, even those held by Kirk himself.

Reading the coverage of Charlie Kirk’s murder, however, I cannot help but think that we are living in an episode of psychosis even further detached from reality than usual. A casual reader could not be blamed for thinking that Charlie Kirk was simply a right-wing commentator who toured college campuses holding good-faith debates on controversial topics. The prevailing depiction of the public figure is that of a ‘defender of freedom of speech’, and a ‘god-serving family man’ dedicated to his political cause and to the betterment of his country. None of this is true. 

If Charlie Kirk was one thing, it was hateful. His career was built on a foundation of dehumanising the queer community, frequently stating that their existence is a sin, and that the biblical punishment of stoning gay people was ‘God’s perfect law when it came to sexual matters’. Similarly, he has advocated for the deportation of Zohran Mamdani, a New York citizen, called him a ‘parasite’, proudly repeated Nazi slogans in public, and said the Civil Rights Act was a ‘mistake’.

I could list off many further instances where Charlie Kirk dehumanised, vilified, and incited violence against his political opponents and those he disagreed with, but I believe the point has been made. I am not happy about Charlie Kirk’s death, but I am not particularly emotionally affected by it either. Incidentally, neither would the man himself be. In a now viral video excerpt, Kirk condoned the deaths of thousands of children every year in school shootings if it means preserving the Second Amendment. I doubt he saw himself on the receiving end of that statistic, but then again, that would have required a level of empathy his worldview could not endure.

It is a tragic irony, the views Kirk defended resulted in his death. While I feel the need to repeat here that I believe the killing of Kirk is absolutely reprehensible, it is naive to assume that the hatred that he cultivated, in a society whose arming he defended, would not have its consequences. As Malcom X said of JFK’s assassination, ‘the chickens came home to roost’.

What has been most frustrating in the political response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, notwithstanding the expected Republican whitewashing campaign and free-speech crackdowns, has been the Democrats’ impotence to shape the discourse. 

The Republican disregard for truth and civility is very well established and understood by those who have been keeping up with the US news even at the surface level. Most sane, well-adjusted members of the public basically lost any remaining hope in the Republican Party’s political decorum after the January 6th insurrection and subsequent election denial. The mocking of Nancy Pelosi's husband after he was attacked in his home, and the lack of sympathy given for the deaths of Melissa Hortman and her husband reaffirm the GOP’s disregard for human life on the other side of the political aisle. 

Why, then, are Democrats and liberals in general tripping over themselves to join in on the Republican cries of mourning for a man who would have made light of Democrats’ own deaths? When Stephen King rightfully called Kirk out for his advocacy of capital punishment for gay people, the right wing machine shamed him into backing down, which he promptly did. Even Gavin Newsom, the Governor of California and many people’s favourite for the 2028 Democrat presidential ticket, tweeted that we should ‘continue the work’ of Charlie Kirk, in reference to his brand of ‘spirited discourse’. The cynic in me would say that this is due to the fact that, in actuality, the Democrats are not so different to Republicans as their PR consultants would like the public to believe, but this is going overboard.

The reality is that this current episode of Democrat impotence comes under a broader trend of the Democratic party being unable to organise against the wave of authoritarianism taking hold in their country. My personal favourite episode in this current saga of the American left, was when House Democrats held signs reading ‘false’ and ‘save medicaid’ during one of Trump’s speeches in congress as a supposed show of strength. The President’s policies, including his Big Beautiful Bill, were passed regardless, whether through legal or illegal means.

Trump and his Republicans have realised that they can practically do and say whatever they like, and their opposition is too weak and ineffective to answer their challenges. The response to the murder of Charlie Kirk is yet another example of the American left being sucked into the whirlwind of the American right, both on rhetoric and policy. As the GOP looks to crack down on political dissent in the aftermath of the Kirk shooting, the Democratic party’s response will be interesting to follow. If it is anything like their response to Trump’s despotism so far, it might become their last chance to respond at all.

Image: Flickr/Gage Skidmore

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