The killing of Charlie Kirk is a tragedy for all Americans, even those who disdained the charismatic clarion of young MAGA conservatives.
That’s because the single bullet that assassinated the 31-year-old father of two at a Utah college campus Wednesday was also a chilling assault on free speech and democracy — the only bulwarks against a quickening descent into self-perpetuating political violence.
And the risk is that America’s latest murder of a political figure will unleash unknown consequences in a nation that is angry and already confronting a fractured political era.
Kirk’s final act was a public meeting like many he’d held at colleges nationwide, inspiring young conservatives who sometimes felt marginalized on often-liberal campuses and debating young progressives who showed up to challenge him.
The Turning Point USA founder, who played a vital role in President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, was a controversial figure whose rhetoric had the capacity to insult many of his fellow citizens, especially on the left.
But he died seeking to persuade other Americans to join his political cause, using the very First Amendment to the Constitution that shields the freedom of peaceful assembly and speech even — and especially — if it is offensive to others.
“When someone takes the life of a person because of their ideas or their ideals, then that very constitutional foundation is threatened,” Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, said after Kirk’s passing.
Former President George W. Bush, in a rare statement, encapsulated the perils facing the nation after Kirk was shot by an unknown assailant who was still at large on Wednesday night.
“Today, a young man was murdered in cold blood while expressing his political views,” Bush wrote. “It happened on a college campus, where the open exchange of opposing ideas should be sacrosanct. Violence and vitriol must be purged from the public square.”
The latest horror in a fast-worsening cycle of violence
There is no word on a motive for the murder, and a manhunt for the killer was still underway on Wednesday night.
Kirk’s assassination marks the latest horror in an era when political disagreements have solidified into bitter enmity that divides the country.
Only a year ago, Trump escaped assassination by inches while campaigning in Pennsylvania. A jury was seated this week in the trial of a man accused of trying to kill him in a later incident in Florida.
In June, Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman, a Democrat, and her husband, were murdered in their home in what the FBI called a “horrific act of targeted violence” perpetrated because the victims were elected officials. Minnesota state Sen. John Hoffman and his wife were also shot but survived. Another Democrat, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro escaped, with his family, an alleged arson attack on the governor’s mansion in April.
American politics is notoriously prone to assassinations, shootings and violence. But there’s a horrible feeling things are getting worse.
“Political violence has been unleashed. We can talk about this attempt or that attempt or that assassination. It’s happening both on the left and right and rational people know that, they know what the data shows,” Juliette Kayyem, a senior CNN national security analyst, said on “Erin Burnett OutFront” on Wednesday. “The commonality we need as a nation is to understand that a free society only exists when people feel they can enter the political arena as Charlie Kirk did, and say things that people like, that they dislike, and not get killed for it. This is an attack on the United States as well as Charlie Kirk.”