Reflections on Charlie Kirk's assassination

I had other plans for today’s newsletter, but decided to push them back to say a few words about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Kirk’s death is a big deal. He was perhaps the most influential young voice in MAGA when he was gunned down brutally at 31 yesterday at Utah Valley University. He hosted an an news show that I watched regularly because of his large reach and the prominent guests he booked, and his Turning Point USA group played a key role in turning out young voters for Trump.

As I write this Wednesday evening, there’s a lot we still don’t know, including the shooter’s identity and motives. But that didn’t stop the president from leaping to conclusions in a reprehensible (but depressingly unsurprising) statement.

I obviously found Kirk’s authoritarian and intolerant brand of politics to be loathsome, but I can’t help and feel for him and his loved ones on a human level. He leaves behind a wife and two young children who won’t grow up with their father.

It’s also a difficult thing to process for me personally, coming less than two weeks after a mass shooting at my kids’ school (and a couple months after the assassination of Melissa Hortman, who I knew a bit personally, not far from where I live). Whether I’m reflecting on my own life or the state of American society more broadly, it feels like the external world is coming unglued. Shootings that were unthinkable when I was growing up in the 1990s are no longer so in this time of great destabilization. Yesterday’s violence will make it worse before it gets better.

But for things to get better, we need a future where Americans can partake in politics without fear of having their homes invaded or getting shot while speaking in public. That will require defeating the fascist movement that Kirk devoted his professional life to promoting. And that means doing the distressingly difficult work of persuading Americans to reject demagogues who relentlessly hunt for scapegoats.

Beyond politics, yesterday left me wanting to hug my kids and spend time with my family. Recent events around me served as a sobering reminder that you never know when your time is up. Our gunsick culture is a political problem, but it produces personal tragedies.

Charlie Kirk didn’t deserve to die like that. His family doesn’t deserve the pain they’re feeling. And we all deserve better than a society where incitement and the political violence that ensues have become normal.

These are my quick thoughts, but I’m curious to hear from readers. Share your perspective in the comments and we’ll chat about it.

And finally, the edition of the newsletter I originally planned for today will now run tomorrow, and we’ll publish a special Saturday edition this week too. Thanks for reading and for your support.

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