Charlie Kirk built a career on hate and division, but the left cannot afford to celebrate his death. If we embrace the same violence we condemn, we risk becoming indistinguishable from those we fight against.
Last night, I was alerted to the news that Charlie Kirk had been shot. It would be a lie to say that for a minute I didn’t feel a little satisfied, a small sense of justice bubbling to the surface. This is a man who spent years inciting hate towards my community – women, people of colour, queer people. A man who advocated for and influenced masses to hate alongside him. A man who, in many ways, widened the political gap and fuelled a disturbing, violent ideology. Kirk himself once said: “it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given right.” And, with irony, his last words were about gun violence.
This is also the man who called abortion the “genocide of the unborn”, while describing Palestinians – people who are born and suffering through a real genocide – as “savage animals.” He spent years being openly racist, once implying that Black women “don’t have the brain processing power” needed to be “taken seriously.” Even as a pacifist, I cannot dismiss the depth of hate I felt for this man. I have revelled in debates that exposed him, like the recent viral Cambridge debate with political academic Tilly Middlehurst, because calling out his behaviour matters. It proves that what he spouted was not rooted in truth, but in unfounded hate.
And yet, my satisfaction quickly turned to horror as the news unfolded. The graphic video of the shooting made me and my partner recoil. It suddenly became very real. I realised I had done what we all do too easily online: disconnected from reality, I got swept up in the online excitement of a big story, forgetting that an actual human being might die. It complicated everything. Did I hate everything this man stood for? Yes, with my whole chest. Did I want him to die? No. Being faced with it, watching such a gory and distressing act made that very clear to me. The presence of his wife and children only made that clearer. For a fleeting second, I felt empathy – for a man who once said empathy was “made up by the left.” Though, I admit that feeling didn’t stay long. My compassion ran out as quickly as it came, as I battled with the reminders from my brain of the multitudes of horrendous things he has said, and with each update and comment, my feelings changed and changed again.
And still, I winced at comments like “rest in shit,” yet nodded when I read the testimonies of Black creators explaining they felt no sympathy for a man who directed so much hatred towards their community, that even being able to feel grief for him was a privilege. “Yes, absolutely, that’s valid,” I found myself saying. I frowned when Trump called Kirk a “martyr for truth and freedom,” and felt anger when he blamed the “radical left.” I am still feeling unbridled rage at the way he is being heralded as a heroic symbol for freedom of speech. Quite honestly, it will probably take a while for me to sort through my thoughts on this.
Very quickly, our peers began posting. I’ve seen countless posts already saying Kirk is getting too much coverage, that the media jumped on his death, but doesn’t show the same urgency for other killings and tragedies happening in the world right now. I understand where that frustration comes from, but I also find it problematic. As a journalist and owner of a media outlet, let me say something that many forget or don’t want to hear: consumers dictate the news. Yes, the BBC and others are complicit in bias, and yes, some decisions are corrupt. But more often, outlets chase what sells. Clicks, ad revenue, bounce rates – this is what keeps them afloat, whether they’re trying to fund what they see as honest journalism or just chasing profit.
Why do you think my team work as volunteers? We are constantly turning down unethical brands that want to advertise with us, because we put good journalism above clickbait. And yet, our most important work – our coverage of Tigray, Sudan, Palestine – gets the least engagement. That doesn’t mean we’ll stop, but mainstream media does not care about awareness; it cares about views. So when news broke about Kirk, every outlet – mainstream, independent, or creators – jumped on it. They want the views. To say otherwise would be dishonest, and the consumers must be able to acknowledge their complicity in this as well as the media.
The other issue with this argument is that it leans into whataboutism. It assumes you can’t care about or discuss multiple things at once. That’s simply not true. Before Kirk, our last three posts were about Palestine. It is possible to have balance, to hold different priorities at the same time. And more than that, lumping every outlet together as “the media” and making sweeping claims adds no value. At worst, it feels like people are leveraging the suffering of others for their own online engagement – because, be honest, we all know that whataboutism drives engagement; it’s a quick way to grant people the dopamine hit they get from righteous indignation and moral superiority. To be clear, there are absolutely stories out there that deserve more coverage, and that’s something I will continue to advocate for, but whilst we use pivotal political moments to shout ‘but what about this?!’ into an echo chamber, the far-right are mobilising, and we (the left) are disconnecting from each other.
Despite the knot in my stomach at the looming dread that Kirk’s far-right martyrdom will likely create, I do think his death should be discussed. What we are witnessing is the further entrenchment of fascism in the West. This cannot be ignored. More than ever, we need to ask ourselves: where do we stand? Are we for the political violence we so often condemn? Are you willing to say it is sometimes necessary, just as Kirk did about gun deaths? No? Where does that leave us? Is what you are commenting online helping our community, or is it giving the far-right ammunition? Because make no mistake, they will weaponise it. The more we meme, the more we disconnect from our humanity, the more we become like our oppressors.
I hate how fickle it becomes to be a morally conscious and grounded person in a community that tries its hardest to be on the right side of history, because what we are faced with is always having to be the bigger person. To try and agree that there is no place for political violence, whilst the far-right do not show us the same courtesy. In fact, Republican government officials in the US have mocked the deaths of Democrats.
Scrolling through the comments of a post announcing his death, there are multitudes of comments condemning his death, and I know deep down I agree, but I can’t help but feel frustrated that this same courtesy is not given to our community; it is not given to the children shot on the same day as Charlie in Colorado. And yet, despite our political and emotional exhaustion, we must continue to be the bigger person. It’s unfair, and frankly, it sucks, but we must stick to our values.
We can sit with the hate we feel for a man who never showed compassion for us, while also condemning the violence that killed him. Both can coexist. Many are hoping this will force the right to reconsider the Second Amendment, but I believe it will more likely fuel their rhetoric. The left have already been blamed, despite no one knowing who the shooter is. The truth is, Charlie Kirk’s own views permitted his death – views the right still champion. And he was, ironically, killed because of his political views too.
What terrifies me most is that this may not be an anomaly, but the new normal. Political violence has been building for years. We’ve seen it in the US with assassination attempts and rallies that turn violent. We’ve seen it in the UK with the recent far-right riots and protests. Debate is turning violent, people get excited about videos titled “influencer gets owned” by loud, verbally aggressive ‘debate lords’. Kirk’s death almost feels inevitable.
Perhaps this is the question we must now face: are we willing to live in a world where political violence is normalised? Or will we draw a line, not for Kirk’s sake, but for our own? Because unless we rethink how we engage – online and off – this is the world we are heading toward. And I am not sure it’s one I want to live in.
