It wasn’t the greeting I used to be anticipating from my dad once I stopped by for lunch Wednesday at his Anaheim house.
“¿Quién es Charlie Kirk?”
Papi nonetheless has a flip cellphone, so he hasn’t sunk into an infinite stream of YouTube and podcasts like a few of his associates. His sources of stories are Univisión and the top-of-the-hour bulletins on Mexican oldies stations — distant from Kirk’s conservative supernova.
“Some political activist,” I replied. “Why?”
“The information stated he obtained shot.”
Papi stored watering his roses whereas I went on my laptop computer to study extra. My abdomen churned and my coronary heart sank as graphic movies of Kirk taking a bullet within the neck whereas talking to college students at Utah Valley University peppered my social media feeds. What made me even sicker was that everybody on-line already thought they knew who did it, regardless that regulation enforcement hadn’t recognized a suspect.
Conservatives blamed liberalism for demonizing one among their heroes and vowed vengeance. Some progressives argued that Kirk had it coming due to his lengthy historical past of incendiary statements towards points together with affirmative motion, trans individuals and Islam. Both sides predicted an escalation in political violence within the wake of Kirk’s killing — fueled by the opposite facet towards innocents, after all.
It was the web at its worst, so I closed my laptop computer and checked on my dad. He had moved on to cleansing the pool.
“So who was he?” Papi requested once more. By then, Donald Trump had introduced Kirk’s demise. Text messages streamed in from my colleagues. I gave my dad a short sketch of Kirk’s life, and he frowned once I stated the commentator had supported Trump’s mass deportation desires.
Hate wasn’t on Papi’s thoughts, nevertheless.
“It’s unhappy that he obtained killed,” Papi stated. “May God bless him and his household.”
“Are politics going to worsen now?” he added.
It’s a query that family and friends have been asking me ever since Kirk’s assassination. I’m the political animal of their circles, the one who bores everybody at events as I yap about Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom whereas they need to discuss Dodgers and Raiders. They’re too centered on elevating households and attempting to prosper in these arduous occasions to submit a sizzling tackle social media about political personalities they barely know.
They’ve lengthy been over this nation’s partisan divide, as a result of they work and play simply high-quality with individuals they don’t agree with. They’re bored with being instructed to detest somebody over ideological variations or blindly worship an individual or a trigger as a result of it’s supposedly of their greatest pursuits. They won’t have heard of Kirk earlier than his assassination, however they now fear about what’s subsequent — as a result of a killing this outstanding is often a precursor of worse occasions forward.
I wasn’t naive sufficient to assume that the killing of somebody as divisive as Kirk would deliver Americans collectively to denounce political terrorism and forge a kinder nation. I knew that every facet would embarrass itself with horrible takes and that Trump wouldn’t even faux to be a unifier.
But the collective dumpster fireplace we obtained was worse than I had imagined.
President Donald Trump shakes arms with moderator Charlie Kirk, throughout a Generation Next White House discussion board on the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House advanced in Washington, Thursday, March 22, 2018.
(Manuel Balce Ceneta / Associated Press)
Although conservatives brag that no riots have sparked, as occurred after George Floyd’s homicide in 2020, they’re largely staying silent because the loudest of Kirk’s supporters vow to crush the left as soon as and for all. The Trump administration is already promising a crackdown towards the left in Kirk’s identify, and no GOP leaders are complaining. People are dropping their jobs due to social media posts important of Kirk, and his followers are cheering the cancel cavalcade.
Meanwhile, progressives are flummoxed by the fitting, but once more. They can’t perceive why vigils nationwide for somebody they lengthy forged as a white nationalist, a fascist and worse are drawing 1000’s. They’re dismissing those that attend as deluded cultists, hardening hearts on all sides much more. They’re posting Kirk’s previous statements on social media as proof that they’re right about him — however that’s like holding up a sheet of paper to dam the Mississippi.
I hadn’t paid shut consideration to Kirk, largely as a result of he didn’t have a direct connection to Southern California politics. I knew he had helped flip younger voters towards Trump, and I loathed his noxious feedback that often caught my consideration. I appreciated that he was keen to argue his views with critics, even when his model was extra Cartman from “South Park” (which satirized Kirk’s school excursions simply weeks in the past) than Ronald Reagan versus Walter Mondale.
I perceive why his followers are grieving and why opponents are sickened at his canonization by Trump, who appears to assume that solely conservatives are the victims of political violence and that liberals can solely be perpetrators. I additionally know {that a} related factor would occur if, heaven forbid, a progressive hero suffered Kirk’s tragic finish — means too many individuals on the fitting could be dancing a jig and cracking inappropriate jokes, whereas the left could be whitewashing the sins of the deceased.
We’re witnessing a partisan ardour play, with the most important losers our democracy and the silent majority of Americans like my father who simply need to reside life. Weep or critique — it’s your proper to do both. But don’t drag the entire nation into your tradition conflict. Those who’ve navigated between the Scylla and Charybdis of proper and left for too lengthy need to sail to calmer waters. Turning Kirk’s homicide right into a modern-day Ft. Sumter when we aren’t even sure of his suspected killer’s motives is a assure for chaos.
I by no means answered my dad’s query about what’s subsequent for us politically. In the times since, I preserve rereading what Kirk stated about empathy. He derided the idea on a 2022 episode of his eponymous present as “a made-up, new age time period that … does plenty of injury.”
Kirk was mistaken about many issues, however particularly that. Empathy means we attempt to perceive one another’s experiences — not agree, not embrace, however perceive. Empathy connects us to others within the hope of making one thing larger and higher.
It’s what permits me to really feel for Kirk’s family members and never want his destiny on anybody, regardless of how a lot I dislike them or their views. It’s the one factor that ties me to Kirk — he beloved this nation as a lot as I do, even when our views about what makes it nice have been radically completely different.
Preaching empathy is perhaps a idiot’s errand. But at a time once we’re entrenched deeper in our silos than ever, it’s the one means ahead. We want to know why wishing sick on the opposite facet is mistaken and why such discuss poisons civic life and dooms everybody.
Kirk was no saint, but when his assassination makes us take a collective deep breath and work out the way to repair this fractured nation collectively, he could have actually died a martyr’s demise.
