Photo via OPB
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Political assassinations have always been a part of America’s history. America has gone a long time without them, but as long as there is politics and man, there will always be evil, and there will always be violence.
Of course, there are degrees and a spectrum to the violence, but the more polarized a country, the more violence there will be. As Abraham Lincoln said, quoting scripture, “A house divided against itself cannot stand.” If a country is divided to a significant enough degree, there will inevitably be trouble and violence.
America is living through unprecedented, polarizing times. Social media has transformed the world with social dysfunction at an all-time high, while, at the same time, the Overton window of what is considered acceptable conduct has vastly widened (and continues to widen).
Social media has also undoubtedly widened the largest ever gap between conservatives and liberals in history. The right is more right and the left is more left than ever, and there has been a serious erosion of morality and a lack of national solidarity that has metastasized in the country. Because of social media, the country is radicalized, and everything feels politicized. Accordingly, a comparable period to today is the 1960s.
In the 60s, the beloved 35th president, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22nd, 1963. Meanwhile, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King Jr., the two civil rights heroes of the era, were murdered in cold blood in ‘65 and ‘68. Finally, Robert F. Kennedy was gunned down by Sirhan Sirhan on the first anniversary of the 1967 Six-Day War. If not for Sirhan, it is possible he would have been president.
The political juggernauts of the time were assassinated. In tandem, the war in Vietnam raged, and rapid political change and conflict hemorrhaged the country. As Vietnam and the battle for civil rights unfolded, the country—conflicted on two bloody, systemic issues—was polarized.
As much as LBJ was a civil rights hero, Lyndon B. Johnson started a tradition of leading America politically and morally down the drain with his rhetoric vis-à-vis Vietnam and his harsh, manipulative leadership. Still, some of the 1960s may have been unavoidable. As LBJ himself said, “What did you expect?… When you put your foot on a man’s neck and hold him down for 300 years, and then you let him up, what’s he going to do?” The answer: “He’s going to knock your block off.”
I do not think the political violence of today is unavoidable. The problems of today are entirely avoidable, and if America does not combat its extreme polarization, it will continue to worsen. It already has in some respects.
It did in part on July 13th, 2024, when Donald Trump was almost assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania, on the campaign trail. With a last-second tilt of the head, he survived.
However, on September 10th, 2025, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, an organization that has registered tens of millions of young Americans to vote, was shot in the throat by a sniper from over two hundred yards away at Utah Valley University, a college campus. Kirk was permanently silenced.
The murder was visceral. It shook the nation and invoked a growing fear among Americans that civil war is no longer out of the question, as a small, vocal minority has reacted to the murder with indifference and glee.
Steven Bonnell, otherwise known as Destiny, has, since Charlie Kirk’s murder, mocked Charlie Kirk and his grieving wife. He tweeted, “ending every conservative debate callout I do in 2026 with ‘don’t dodge, bro, that’s not what Charlie would have wanted,’” and has reiterated, from a CNN interview, that Kirk is “a satan spawn.” Worst of all, Mr. Bonnell mocked Erika Kirk for tagging her dead husband in an Instagram post featuring her grieving beside his casket.
On the day of Kirk’s funeral, Bonnell said it was “indistinguishable from a Nazi rally” and declared, “fuck anyone who wants to pretend it’s not.”
Well, Charlie Kirk’s funeral was not a Nazi rally. Was it dangerously bordering on Christian nationalism? Yes. Has the right turned the temperature down? No. But that does not mean it was a Nazi rally.
Other figures have demonized Mr. Kirk while the blood is still fresh. TMZ laughed at his death. The president of the Oxford Union debate society posted on WhatsApp when he found out what happened to Mr. Kirk, “Charlie Kirk got shot, let’s f-king go.”
At NYU, when the university’s College Republicans set up a vigil for Kirk, protesters came. One sang, after the College Republicans’ president said he would pray for the protesters’ salvation, “I want you to fucking die.” Another sang “Bella Ciao,” one of the messages engraved on the assassin’s bullet casings.
Meanwhile, at Texas State University, a student crudely mimicked Kirk’s murder. Even right when Kirk was murdered, a man in the crowd pumped his fists in the air and cheered. In Arizona, a young man, wearing the same clothing as the assassin, vandalized a Kirk memorial only four days after the assassination.
Popstar Bob Vylan celebrated Kirk’s death at a concert, joyfully remarking, “The pronouns was/were. ‘Cause if you chat shit, you will get banged. Rest in peace, Charlie Kirk, you piece of shit.”
These were not isolated incidents. The reaction to Charlie Kirk’s murder is a part of a much larger trend. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), 1 in 3 college students thinks violence is acceptable to silence a speaker. The Buckley Institute at Yale University has reported that 39% of college students responded in the affirmative to the resolution, “If someone is using hate speech or making racially charged comments, physical violence can be justified to prevent this person from espousing their hateful views.”
There have been hundreds of professionals who have been fired from their jobs for celebrating or minimizing Kirk’s death. There have been many on social media who have ghoulishly danced on Charlie Kirk’s grave. Even liberal TikTokers, such as Dean Withers, who feel bad that Kirk was assassinated, can’t help adding the caveat on the day of Kirk’s murder that Charlie Kirk was “a bad man.”
In general, since Charlie Kirk’s death, he has been viciously demonized ex post facto. Matthew Dowd flippantly remarked on MSNBC the day of the assassination, “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions,” justifying Kirk’s murder. Medhi Hasan’s company, Zeteo, posted 17 quotes from Charlie Kirk just two days after his murder, in an attempt to further vilify Charlie Kirk.
Charlie Kirk was a human being. He was thirty-one years old, and his life was still just beginning. He had a wife who loved him and two young children who will now grow up without a father. He inspired millions of Americans and was a fundamentally good, God-fearing man. He was nothing if not good-spirited. The vast majority of people can see these things to be true by the way he engaged with the world around him.
Charlie Kirk was not an extremist. He was not perfect, but he was not an extremist. Disagreements may exist concerning his views, but his death should be mourned nonetheless because he was a human being and because he deserves grace. That’s all.
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This article was edited by Anna-Rose Barnes.
Lauren Gracia 
Cooper Toland 
Anita Boniface