Photo via Politics and Rights Review
***
Three Hundred Twenty Seven. That is the number of Americans shot every single day, on average. Of those 327, 117 will die.
On September 10th, 2025, a 31-year-old man was shot and killed in Utah, joining 116 fellow Americans whose lives were cut short by the horrors of gun violence. That is where the similarities come to an abrupt end, however. Gun violence has become so routine in this country that most fatal shootings barely make major news, never mind capture national attention for weeks. Steven Dettelbach, former director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), cites “acceptance and apathy” as the single biggest threats to public safety in America.
There was no apathy to be found for this act of gun violence. Quite the opposite, in fact. This shooting inspired a wave of national mourning, an immediate condemnation by the President, and a mass outpouring of social media anger. The only difference between this shooting and the 326 others? This 31 year old man fatally shot in Utah was named Charles James Kirk. Personal feelings on the provocative activist aside, it is impossible to ignore the level of emotion that the shooting triggered across the political spectrum. Few events in recent memory have inspired comparable division, outrage, and spectacle as the Charlie Kirk assasination.
Contrary to media coverage over the past few weeks, Charlie Kirk’s controversial takes did not break America. Charlie Kirk’s assasination did not break America. The reality is far more bleak: the Charlie Kirk saga is a symptom of an America that has been broken for years. An America that has completely lost sight of what truly matters in life and its core values. An America that has become trapped in a downward spiral of disconnection and disrespect. This is an America that desperately needs a political and cultural reset. Charlie Kirk is dead – no amount of mourning or celebration will change that fact. The only productive way forward is to use his death as a reset and restore the spirit of civil political discourse.
To understand the climate surrounding the Kirk assasination, the history of party politics in America must be studied. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan won re-election by a margin of 525 electoral votes to 13, which itself is absurd. The one state Reagan failed to win was Democratic nominee Walter Mondale’s home state of Minnesota, which he only managed to carry by 3,800 votes. The most remarkable note about the 1984 election is that 26% of registered Democrats voted for Reagan, the Republican nominee. In every subsequent election, the percentage of registered party members voting for the other party’s nominee has steadily decreased. Since 2000, it has not been higher than 10%; since 2012 it has barely registered 5%.
In today’s political climate, it is almost impossible to imagine any significant number of Republicans voting Democrat or vice versa, but Ronald Reagan’s overwhelming 1984 victory reveals that it was the norm not long ago in America’s past. For decades, a strong minority of the electorate consistently opted to follow their personal convictions rather than vote the party line. Today, this dynamic simply does not exist. It is not just voting: views of the party system have fundamentally shifted. Since 1994, the number of registered Democrats holding a “very unfavorable” view of the Republican Party has doubled. The number of registered Republicans with a “very unfavorable” view of the Democratic Party has tripled. Among Republican and Democratic leaning voters, the trend is even more pronounced.
Beyond opinions on the parties themselves, presidential approval ratings from voters of the opposite party have plummeted. From 1954 to 2000, presidents consistently enjoyed 30-40% approval from voters of the other party. Fast forward to 2020, and that figure has fallen to 7%. Taken together, this data is quite revealing. The hyper-partisan dynamic that has been accepted as a sad fact of life in American politics is not an inevitable reality; it is not even particularly long-standing. Incessant coverage and discussion of polarization and division has normalized these new extremes, which now appear to be unchangeable realities, even though a quick review of history handily refutes this assertion.
The 2016 election is often cited as an inflection point of sorts, the cycle that finally broke America. Worldwide, mass media reacted with horror. It seemed that everyone in the country had something to say on Facebook or Twitter, and nobody could agree on whether President Donald Trump’s election was the best or worst thing to ever happen. In the weeks, months, and years after polls closed on November 8th, 2016, it has become increasingly easy and convenient to blame all of America’s political ails on the election that, as CNN puts it, “changed everything” and ushered in a new era of unprecedented polarization. The narrative is simple, effective, and appears to explain everything. The only problem? It is debatable at best, and, moreover, completely misses the point.
This is not a new conclusion. A team led by Dr. Yphtach Lelkes, Co-Director of the Polarization Research Lab at the University of Pennsylvania, concluded that there was actually no empirical difference in polarization between 2014 and 2017. Yet, the 2016 election is still often seen as the “beginning of the end” of civility and productive political discourse. The explanation? 2016 did change everything – just not in the traditionally accepted sense.
It has been established that polarization is neither an indelible fact of American politics nor an unprecedented phenomenon ushered in by Donald Trump. It is instead most productively perceived as a steadily rising tide, and not the primary explanation for the post-2016 world. Thus, the question of what exactly happened in 2016 that made everyone feel like America had shattered as a cohesive nation is one of the most popular in political and social science. One of the earliest proposed explanations, and the one most readily and aggressively pushed by mass media, is that Trump was just really, really rude.
An influential paper suggested that Trump’s rhetoric was so charged (and so effective) because of his unique focus on resentment, catering to anger and self-perceived victimhood. The media usually kept the narrative even simpler: Trump employed personal attacks against everything and everyone. While certainly part of the explanation, Trump’s rhetoric alone can not possibly account for the degree of distress and disunity experienced by average Americans in recent years. Besides, it’s nothing new. In America’s first contested election, President John Adams was described as having a “hideous hermaphroditical character.” Adams supporters (at least allegedly) clapped back at Jefferson as a “a mean-spirited, low-lived fellow.”
In every election since, competition has invariably devolved into an ugly race to the bottom in personal insults. As Thomas Knapp, director of the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism bluntly asserts, “It’s ALWAYS been dirty, folks.” What was new in 2016, however, was social media. For the first time, American presidential candidates became Twitter warriors. In the year following his campaign announcement, Trump tweeted over 6,000 times. Hillary Clinton was no stranger to Twitter either. For the first time, Americans were exposed to the vitriol and personal ugliness of political campaigns 24/7, with no filter.
This exposure changed the nature of the election. Trump and Clinton were the two most disliked nominees since at least 1980 – and perhaps ever. Were they simply uniquely unlikable? Perhaps. Were they uniquely exposed and attacked by each other on social media? Absolutely. The impact of this personal rhetoric goes far deeper than simply stoking unfavorability. The social media campaign fundamentally altered how everyday Americans approach politics.
Two groundbreaking studies reveal the chilling effects of this hyper-personalized delivery of election rhetoric. In a series of surveys, supporters of Trump and Clinton were asked to describe those who held similar and opposite views of themselves. Voters from all areas of the political spectrum consistently and overwhelmingly reported that those who agree with them base their decision making on objective factors, while those who disagree are influenced by non-objective factors. In other words, those who voted for the “right” candidate arrived at that determination through knowledge of facts and history, careful consideration, and were acting in the best interests of the country. Those who voted for the “wrong” candidate fell for misinformation and propaganda and were acting in their own self interest.
When asked to describe the supporters themselves, participants overwhelmingly described supporters of their preferred candidate as warm, patriotic, and politically sophisticated. Supporters of the opposite candidate? Cold, gullible, and simple-minded. This is the nail in the coffin for America’s political discourse. It is not about polarization, it is not about the diverging ideologies of median Democrats and Republicans.
The missing piece that can explain the surreal aftermath of the Charlie Kirk shooting is far more personal. Americans have stopped seeing those around them as friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens. Instead they are political rivals, enemies, and supporters of America’s downfall. Or, if they support your chosen candidate, they are fellow soldiers in the battle for America’s future and soul. Driven by social media, politics has intertwined itself into the social and personal lives of Americans in an unprecedented manner. “Politics are not to be discussed in polite company” rings more like a cute relic of a bygone era than the implicit covenant of American politics that it was for centuries.
When politics becomes war, and life becomes politics, it suddenly all makes far more sense. To some, Charlie Kirk is a martyr, a slain hero whose killing was one of the greatest tragedies of the 21st century. To others, it was a form of great poetic justice; the killing cleansed the world of one of its most evil inhabitants.
But politics is not war (sorry Clausewitz) and life is not politics. Charlie Kirk was one of 117 gun violence deaths on September 10th, and nothing more. He was one of our fellow Americans. Love him or despise him, it is irrelevant. At the end of the day we are all humans, and politics is merely a small part of our world; an elaborate game for power. The assasination of Kirk laid bare everything that is so flawed in today’s political arena.
There is a way forward, and it involves detachment. Detachment from the 24 hour news cycle, social media politics, and the manufactured culture that the occupant of the Oval Office is somehow the single most important factor in daily life. Detachment from the personal attacks, the media echo chambers, and the constant debates. Most importantly, it must accompany a return to what truly does matter in daily life: family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, and all of our fellow citizens. A little bit of respect and civility will do wonders for our communities—let us make that the true legacy of Charlie Kirk.
***
This article was edited by Alissa Mili and Sofia Alvarez
Lauren Gracia 
Cooper Toland 
Anita Boniface