Nothing Good Can Come of Charlie Kirk's Killing

When I first learned that Donald Trump had been shot, my immediate response was that he had just won the 2024 presidential election. Surviving an assassination attempt fed into Trump’s delusional sense of himself as a uniquely successful businessman who gave up a perfect life of wealth and privilege with a family and wife who absolutely adore him to save our country.

The performative defiance of Trump getting shot in the ear and then pumping his fist and resolving to fight made him look like the tough guy he pretends to be. It made him seem strong and macho and resilient in the face of violent death instead of a gossipy little bitch who loves drama.

It's not coincidental that that was the moment Mark Zuckerberg decided to go full MAGA. In July of 2024, Trump ranted incoherently at/about Zuckerberg, "Republicans must pass the Save Act, or go home and cry yourself to sleep. Non citizen Illegal Migrants are getting the right to vote, being pushed by crooked Democrat Politicians who are not being stopped by an equally dishonest Justice Department. Our whole voting system is under siege. Harmeet and David, go to court and get this stopped, NOW. The Dems can’t win on their policies, the only way they can win is to CHEAT. They do it at every level of government, and they do it well. That’s how they get an incapacitated moron like Joe Biden elected. Get tough RNC (Michael W!), Speaker Johnson, and all State and Local Republican politicians. The Justice Department is CORRUPT and won’t do a thing to help. They have no shame! All I can say is that if I’m elected President, we will pursue Election Fraudsters at levels never seen before, and they will be sent to prison for long periods of time. We already know who you are. DON’T DO IT! ZUCKERBUCKS, be careful!”

In words he will hopefully never live down and will have to answer for on judgment day, Zuckerberg gushed that Trump’s response to the assassination attempt was“one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life.”

How can you not admire a man who regularly vomits up word salads like the one above?

In an interview with Bloomberg, Zuckerberg said of Trump, “At some level, as an American, it’s hard not to get kind of emotional about that spirit and that fight. And I think that’s why a lot of people like the guy.”

It’s true that assassinations and assassination attempts make people emotional in a way that is not conducive to restraint, logic, or common sense.

That helps explain the overwhelming sense of anger and aggression that greeted the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Incidentally, when people refer to what happened to Kirk as an assassination, I'm reminded of Chris Rock’s line about how 2Pac and Biggie didn’t get assassinated, they “got shot! Shit, I love Tupac, I love Biggie, but school will be open on their birthday.”

On a similar note, Kirk did not get assassinated. He got shot.

In the aftermath of Kirk's fatal shooting, many of the leading lights of the MAGA movement responded not with sadness or despair but rather with violent, antagonistic rage.

Kirk didn’t merit the meaningless “thoughts and prayers” that are lazily doled out to the families of children slaughtered in school shootings by conservatives in place of meaningful action. Instead, Kirk’s killing demanded vengeance. It called out for revenge. Somebody would have to pay for this crime.

Conservatives did not know who was responsible for the assassination attempt, but that did not keep them from laying blame where they always do: the left.

Kirk’s killing fed into a series of false narratives that Trump and his minions have been aggressively promoting despite being patently untrue.

The false narratives begin with a purposeful misrepresentation of who Kirk was and the legacy he leaves behind. Kirk was not a hero. He was not a martyr. He didn’t travel the country engaging in good-faith debate like a Truth Social Johnny Appleseed. He spread hate. He spread division. He trafficked in casual and not-so-casual racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia that have come to define the Republican Party under Trump. By paving the way for Trump’s ascendance, Kirk single-handedly made the world a worse place.

The idea that people should lose everything for criticizing Kirk is antithetical to the concept of free speech the Turning Point USA was ostensibly espousing.

The killing also feeds into the right's fierce contention that political violence is overwhelmingly, if not exclusively, a left-wing phenomenon disproportionately involving the trans community.

That is statistically just not true, but the Alt-Right's feelings don't care about facts if they don't support their worldview. Acknowledging that most shooters are gun-loving, excessively online cisgender white men with anger issues like the man who killed Kirk goes against the conservative conviction that all of our problems are caused by foreign-born brown people who worship Allah yet are also somehow trans.

Trump is incapable of self-reflection. He’s the king of projection, so a man who has done more than other president in history to sew division and demonize the other side saw no irony immediately blamed the ostensible division and demonization of the left for Kirk’s death.

I remember a time when the parties at least attempted a baseline level of civility, when we at least pretended to respect each other, even as we had decidedly different ideas on how the country should function.

That ended with Trump. In Trump’s estimation, they’re not just wrong or misguided, but evil, insane, overflowing with jealousy over his incredible achievements and deeply contemptuous of our country, its values, and ideals.

Trump routinely portrays people who disagree with him as subhuman, as parasites poisoning our bloodline who don't deserve due process or dignity or rights. Yet the administration doesn't have a problem aggressively pursuing action against anyone who is insufficiently deferential towards Kirk.

I fear that Trump will use Kirk’s death as an excuse to ramp up his attacks on Democratic cities, Democratic mayors, Democratic governors, and leftist writers, television personalities, and activists on the dubious grounds that they're so violent, out of control and consumed with hatred that the only thing that could bring order is an overwhelming show of military force.

Even before Kirk's killing, Trump seemed eager to incite a civil war against Democrats he sees less as an opposition party than a criminal organization solely responsible for Kirk's death and everything else bad that has ever happened.

I shouldn’t need to explicitly state that killing someone with a gun is a very bad thing, regardless of what you think of them. Yet I fear that what’s about to come, in the name of law, order and Charlie Kirk’s memory, will be far worse. When I first learned that Donald Trump had been shot, my immediate response was that he had just won the 2024 presidential election. Surviving an assassination attempt fed into Trump’s delusional sense of himself as a uniquely successful businessman who gave up a perfect life of wealth and privilege with a family and wife who absolutely adore him to save our country.