The Last Lesson of Charlie Kirk

Those of us old enough to remember the events of September 11, 2001, will recall the common belief at the time that the tragic events of that day had “changed everything.” America was going to be more serious, more patriotic, and having seen the sacrifices of the military, police, and firefighters, Americans would be drawn to these kinds of service. To refer back to the times, it’d be less Britney Spears, more Navy SEALs.

Peggy Noonan wrote a piece for the Wall Street Journal in early 2002 making these arguments, claiming that “everyone’s been shot” as a way of explaining the new sobriety. She was referencing a line from the movie Black Hawk Down, Ridley Scott’s film about the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. After 9/11, we all had the mentality of wounded veterans, our lives forever changed by our war experiences.

I am not sure how long it took for things to go back to exactly how they had been before those terrorist attacks. Perhaps it was when George W. Bush’s advice to the country was to go out and shop. That was October 11, 2001, one month after the attacks. Maybe it was sometime in the second half of 2003 when the nation began to figure out that the mission in Iraq hadn’t really been accomplished. Or maybe it was after the election of 2004, in which Bush rode the final fumes of 9/11-inspired patriotism to a narrow victory. Whatever the actual sell-by date, eventually the event that changed everything was found to have changed nothing. That it resulted not in a long-term change of heart but in a short-term rise in sentiment.

I confess that this is where my mind went after the assassination of Charlie Kirk. My first reaction was to believe it was an internet gag. That illusion was quickly dispelled. I am blessed that, even though the first place I came across the news cruelly included the video, I did not watch it. I never will. Call me conventional, but snuff films aren’t my thing. The nature of the wound, apparently, suggested that survival was unlikely. That was confirmed by late afternoon when the news that Kirk had died was confirmed.

Another shooting. Another death. Another event that we are being told will change America for good, coincidently occurring just one day before the twenty-fourth anniversary of 9/11. We even got another Peggy Noonan column claiming surely this time everything has changed. I am sorry to say that I think this is not true, at least not in the way many commentators think. If the assassination of Charlie Kirk changes America, I am afraid it will be for the worse.

Stoking a Culture War

For one thing, I don’t think that Kirk’s murder will change the tone of our politics. To be clear, I think it should change our tone. Yet, we got the “change the tone” advice when in 2024 Donald Trump avoided his own assassination by less than an inch. Then two months later another guy tried to kill Trump. In June of this year, Democratic lawmakers in Minnesota were shot in their homes. In 2017 only the bravery of Capitol police thwarted an attempted mass murder of Republican congressmen at softball practice. In 2022, a man was arrested outside of the home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, there to kill Kavanaugh and who knows who else. That event mattered so little that forty-eight hours after the news hit, I checked the homepage of various major news sites (including CNN, Washington Post, New York Times, all three major networks minus Fox, NPR). Not one contained a story about the attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice. But most of the sites found space to inform us of the marriage of Britney Spears.

If these events, along with the now incomprehensible list of school shootings, have done nothing to “lower the tone” of American politics, nothing will. And as noted above, we do need a change in tone.

Rod Dreher has noted the rise of a right-wing nihilism that is preying on our young men. Gary Saul Morson compares the contemporary left to the nihilists of Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed (or The Demons). By now we all know the statistics about Gen Z’s lack of dedication to free speech and the eerily large percentage of that generation that believes violence is justified against those with whom they politically disagree.

The normal rhetoric of politics has become poisonous. Just days before the Kirk shooting, Sen. Chris Murphy said we are “in a war to save the country.” A war against, whom, exactly? Sen. Chuck Schumer took criticism for heated rhetoric regarding Brett Kavanaugh and Neal Gorsuch before the attempt of Kavanaugh’s life. Of course, Donald Trump has waxed on about the good old days when we could beat up protesters at his rallies.

The rhetoric of the online world is about “destroying” the opposition, whom we are assured are a threat to the fabric of society. The Democrats turned the 2022 midterm election into a referendum on the Republican war on democracy, highlighted by Joe Biden’s creepy speech at Independence Hall. In the lead-up to last year’s election, Kamala Harris was unequivocal in labeling Donald Trump a fascist.

Not wishing to engage in banal “both sidesism,” still it must be pointed out that Trump has succeeded in part precisely based on his ability to insult and belittle his opponents. One cannot ignore his loose talk after the 2020 election, culminating in the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021. His rhetoric on immigration and crime often veers toward the demagogic (though it must be said that Trump 2.0 has contained less of this rhetoric). The language of the online right regularly compares the American left to Marxists and Communists, stressing how much the left hates regular Americans, how they are after our children, and how civility is simply unilateral disarmament.

For me, a dire trend is that of rising antisemitism. Violence against Jews has become commonplace. Even before the October 7, 2023, pogrom, we had the Tree of Life massacre in Pittsburgh and the “punch a Jew” trend in New York. The BDS movement targeted any business that works with Israel. And, yes, we had and have open antisemites in Congress. After October 7, antisemitism has gone mainstream. It is easy to point to the campus radicals and the vile “from the river to the sea,” “Hamas are freedom fighters,” “Go back to Poland” rhetoric. Shortly after October 7, a group of Jewish students were trapped in the library at the Cooper Union in New York by anti-Israel protesters. The library workers suggested that the Jewish students might be safe if they hid in the attic. Yes: in America, in 2023, Jews were told to hide in the attic (see pages 8 and 37 of the opinion in the hyperlink). Two young people were murdered outside a Jewish event in Washington, D.C., and pro-Israel demonstrators were set on fire in Colorado.

Just recently a group of Hollywood activists, including A-list actors like Mark Ruffalo, Joaquin Phoenix, and Emma Stone, published an open letter promoting an artistic boycott of any film institution with any connection to Israel, grounding their boycott on the hate-inspired blood libels of “genocide” and Israeli “apartheid.” New York City is about to elect an antisemitic mayor. A friend’s high school daughter reports “You’re a Zionist” has replaced “You’re a Nazi” as the go-to hate epithet of young people. That the old hatred of antisemitism is widespread in our most important cultural institutions—academia, arts and entertainment, politics—should send a chill up our spines. Of course, some would say that my focus on antisemitism it itself needlessly provocative and inflammatory.

I understand that Charlie Kirk, in his last days, did yeoman’s work fighting antisemitism on the right. More to his credit. His reinvigorated Christian faith taught him to honor the spiritual home of Jesus. His innate conservatism taught him that people should take responsibility for their own lives, not look to blame one’s condition on a “them” such as Jews.

Online Hate

The very-online life many of us lead contributes to political antagonism. Social media in particular presents a platform for an expression of the id. In the wake of Kirk’s murder, a right-wing response was to scan social media for tasteless responses to Kirk’s death so as to “cancel” those who made unfortunate comments. A college professor in my own state is now out of a job for just these reasons. Whatever the prudence or even legality of firing people who posted such comments, the comments are indeed foul and beyond the limits of acceptable discourse. These comments are themselves indicative of the cancer on our souls. Whatever one thinks of Charlie Kirk, it’s fair to say that roughly 40 percent of Americans were in basic agreement with his politics. If it is acceptable to shoot him, what does that mean for that 40 percent? How would you like to take a class with someone who says it isn’t so bad if someone murders a person with your political beliefs? Not what I would call an “inclusive” learning space.

But the internet allows us all to post our most ill-considered thoughts. John Podhoretz notes that we all have dark thoughts that zip through our brains from time to time. We have our little bigotries, resentments, hatreds. Most of us recognize those thoughts as distasteful and quickly control and dismiss them. Those of us with religious faith might ask God for release from such hateful thoughts. We certainly don’t publicize or indulge them. But, Podhoretz says, the world of social media allows us to easily broadcast thoughts we used to just keep hidden. In my review of the film Eddington (starring the aforementioned Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone, boycotters of the Israeli film industry) I note that the ultimate tragedy of the film is inspired by a character making a rash declaration online. Many people swim in these waters, veritably bathing in extreme rhetoric. Our worst ideas are not kept private and dismissed. They are publicized and encouraged.

This is the danger of the reckless political rhetoric of our time. Again, we all have our little resentments and bigotries. I drive a rusty old pickup truck that is rapidly becoming a piece of junk. Why? For now, it’s all I can afford. The same for the family minivan that is quite literally falling apart. I sometimes see people who don’t work as hard as I do yet who prosper and drive nice cars. Some of them are my students! There is a part of me that from time to time thinks, “I hate you, jerk.” But I know that this is wrong, that these are sins of envy and covetousness. Also, it is a failure on my part to thank God for the many things I do have.

Suppose a politician comes along and says my petty little resentment isn’t bad. In fact, it’s good. That guy is a jerk for having a better car than you. It probably is unfair. I should be mad. Next time you see him, flip him the bird. It’ll make you feel good. And it isn’t just that jerk with the better car. It’s all those who are like him. I should probably hate them all. I should vote for that politician, too, because he hates the same people I do.

I’ve just described demagoguery, which is now the default rhetorical mode of national American politics. One of our national needs is for a real statesman to talk about the danger of a politics of resentment. I think we need someone in particular to speak about the cancer that is antisemitism. And it can’t be a Jew. Some Gentile, who can’t be dismissed as a special pleader, has to explain why antisemitism is the proverbial canary in the coalmine of political violence.

The Inspiration of Charlie Kirk

Ideally such rhetorical leadership would come from the president. But Donald Trump is a product and sometimes purveyor of this kind of political rhetoric. The same is true of most every member of Congress. Those few who reject the politics of resentment have either left Congress or are dismissed as not being willing to “fight.”

J.D. Vance once seemed to have that quality. The author of Hillbilly Elegy showed flashes of becoming an eloquent interpreter of our times, perhaps even the kind of statesman we now lack. But Vance the political entrepreneur chose a different path. He discovered that “owning the libs” is the shortest route to power—and judging by his electoral prospects, he isn’t wrong.

America is in desperate need of something to hold us together. In times of rapid change—especially in an age of technological upheaval—we need what is sure, what is permanent, what is solid enough to anchor us. Yet we lack such an anchor, and we no longer seem capable of producing the statesmen who might forge one. Even if such a statesman arose, would the people recognize him? The latest NAEP report shows that one-third of last year’s high school seniors could not read at a basic level. In plain terms, they are functionally illiterate. How can a free people endure with such meager literacy? When TikTok is the medium of political discourse, snark and resentment reign. Somewhere, Thomas Jefferson is weeping.

Aristotle famously says that a polis is a community of friends that holds things in common. Can Americans make this claim? Just a few examples will do. If we cannot agree on when human life begins and what its value is, are we friends? If we disagree about what marriage is and what it is for, are we friends? If we cannot even agree on what a woman and man is, are we friends who form a political community?

Charlie Kirk might have been developing into the kind of figure we now lack. Like William F. Buckley in his youth, he began as a rabble-rouser. Yet over time Buckley cultivated himself into the erudite thought leader familiar to Firing Line viewers. Kirk seemed to be walking a similar road. Kirk started as a kind of ultra-MAGA influencer. Over time, however, he educated himself, reportedly completing dozens of Hillsdale online courses. His emerging religious faith appeared to steady him. He was becoming a serious man—one with a popular following, especially among the young, on a scale Buckley never attained. He might have become a popular educator of the citizenry, with a healthy dose of Christian evangelism at its heart.

We’ll never know, of course. My fear is that Kirk’s death will not cause us to reevaluate our rhetoric and political behavior. The early indications are that his murder is just another healthy quantity of vinegar on a gaping wound. Far from healing divisions, Kirk’s assassination has become a flashpoint in the culture war.

All the incentives are in the direction of extremism, demagoguery, and a politics of spectacle. An educational system that is actively antagonistic toward liberal education has left at least two generations culturally illiterate, giving us no historical memory to feed upon and made us easily susceptible to charlatans.

It is tempting to throw one’s hands up in frustration. I think of the character of Faber in Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451. Faber was there when civilization collapsed, as liberal education died from lack of interest. He laments that he did nothing. “Mr. Montag,” he says, “you are looking at a coward. I saw the way things were going, a long time back. I said nothing. I’m one of the innocents who could have spoken up and out when no one would listen to the ‘guilty,’ but I did not speak and thus became guilty myself.”

We cannot be Fabers. When the novel’s main character, Montag, is escaping his city, witnessing its annihilation, Bradbury writes, “Montag turned and glanced back. What did you give to the city, Montag? Ashes. What did the others give to each other? Nothingness.” It’s a question that should haunt every educator—teachers, parents, mentors alike: What have we given? Are we offering our young people something of real worth, something lasting, a pearl of great price? Or are we handing them what is cheap and disposable, easy to acquire and easy to forget? Are we handing them nothing, nihilism?

We dare not become like Faber, mourning in old age that when the chance to act was ours, we lacked the courage. What are we giving our cities? What legacy will we leave behind? May Charlie Kirk’s life remind us that the task is ours, and that we must not shrink from it.