It’s still dominating headlines several days after it happened, but just in case you’ve been living under a rock, conservative influencer, troll and activist, Charlie Kirk, was shot and killed this week by 22 year old Tyler Robinson, while hosting a debate on an Orem, Utah university campus. Through his conservative movement, Turning Point USA, he travelled to campuses across the US, engaging youth in the political process and hard-right conservatism.
For people like me, Kirk’s views and rhetoric were both deplorable and dangerous. His debate style was one of provocation, and often talking over and down to those he disagreed with, much like the President he was so fond of.
In no particular order, he:
- considered trans-gendered people to be mentally ill
- was anti-vaccine/mask, and opposed gun control
- didn’t believe in climate science
- felt American civil rights legislation “got it wrong”
- believed abortion should be illegal, even in cases of rape
- supported Israel’s genocide and starvation campaign in Gaza
- and on it goes, ad nauseam
He was essentially a walking cliché of hard right views and talking points. You can read the source for the bullets above in full here.
He was a staunch supporter, ally, and personal friend of Donald Trump, and likely had a large hand in getting him elected to a second term by getting out the young, conservative, (largely) male vote. And yet, as dangerous as I believe he was, he didn’t deserve to die. We should be able to disagree politically, even vehemently, and not fear for our lives. And, given that there are no shortages of young men (in particular) like Kirk, his murder won’t change the trajectory on which America currently finds itself. In Kirk’s case he was ultimately a victim of his own violent rhetoric.
“It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment”
I somehow doubt he felt likely to be one of those gun deaths at the age of 31, but unfortunately for him, his widow and children, live by the gun, die by the gun proved to be the ultimate truism for Kirk. And it’s certainly dismissive to refer to nearly 47,000 gun deaths (2023) as some, when those numbers make it clear America is awash in an epidemic of gun violence. I found something he also said at the time even more telling. He connected the idea of gun deaths to protect the second amendment to ensuring Americans’ other God-given rights. This, in spite of the fact that absolutely no rights are given by god, only man. The question I keep coming back to here, is, What kind of god would want so much death?
This, however, is the key reason why debate is usually pointless. The conservative world-view is to credit god with what is actually done by men when it suits purpose or talking point, then to claim that many things that happen as a result (like many gun deaths, unwanted babies, climate change disasters, etc) are acts of god and unpreventable. Chalking up things that suit you politically to god’s will and shrugging your shoulders when you can take concrete steps to reduce violence, poverty and many other societal ills is cowardly. And it invariably affects minorities and disadvantaged populations far more than others.
Kirk’s death is a tragedy, as any unnecessary death is, but it is also a byproduct and a symptom of a very broken nation. Donald Trump spews violent rhetoric every day, and people like Kirk take up his mantle and run with it. To be clear, Kirk certainly made his own choices, but a failure to recognize the danger in what he was promoting, and to recognize he was simply a pawn in Trump’s autocracy, also proved fatal.
Trump views any political opponent as an enemy, any rule he wants to break as unfair and any attempt to hold him to account as a witch hunt. Charlie Kirk – and particularly his death – is the logical, tragic extension of the President’s various grievances, as the violence he incited worked against, and not for, him. By staunchly supporting and amplifying Trump, he unwittingly had a hand in causing his own death.