As Charlie Kirk Assassination Sadly Demonstrates, Political Violence Is The New Normal

Wednesday is a dark day. For politics, the ability to speak freely, and for the future of our country. Charlie Kirk was assassinated in a politically-motivated shooting in Utah, speaking, as he so often did, to a huge group of fans, admirers, and college students. 

Reactions on the political right have ranged from devastation, to heartbreak, to frustration and anger. All are warranted, and many more. A young man, 31-years-old, a married father of two had the rest of his life taken from him. His family had the rest of his life taken from them. Our country had the rest of his life, the impact he would have had, taken from us. 

Reactions from the political left, however, have been wildly different. Yes, there have been prominent Democrats who condemned the shooting, political violence, and restated the importance of free speech and tolerance of opposing view points. But there have been plenty of Democrats who've reacted as you'd expect: with joy, celebration, mocking, denial, or attempts to blame President Trump for the death of one of his most prominent supporters.

RELATED: Clay Travis Addresses Charlie Kirk's Death: 'They Couldn't Defeat His Arguments'

The examples are endless. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker compared the shooting to January 6th. MSNBC wondered if the shooting could have been done by a supporter in "celebration." Matthew Dowd on MSNBC blamed Kirk, saying "You can’t stop with these awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and then not expect awful actions to take place."

One post on X with nearly 150,000 likes said simply, "Well guess he lost the debate." A vast swath of BlueSky users celebrated or expressed condolences for the bullet. What makes this all the more horrifying is that it's not uncommon. Not even a little.

Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk walks on stage on Aug. 23, 2024, at Desert Diamond Arena in Glendale, Ariz. (Imagn Images)

Threats Are A Fact Of Life For The Political Right

I rarely write directly to the audience, but Kirk's assassination has made it necessary. 

Starting in 2020, I went from a relatively anonymous Twitter user who worked in an unrelated field to building a large profile and significant following on what was then Twitter. Because I spoke out against COVID policies, created thousands of charts and graphs debunking masks, vaccine passports, and other mandates and policies. 

Because what I said contradicted left-wing consensus, I became, unintentionally, divisive. Disagreement is one thing, but anger is another. And anger is all too frequently, what I received.

Pro-lockdown and Fauci social media users flooded my replies with accusations that I was a "murderer" for speaking out against masks. Some made threats, or wished that I would die myself because I was critical of COVID mandates. We all remember how the left celebrated the death of anyone who disagreed with the then-consensus.

I didn't take them particularly seriously. But maybe I should have. It's just one small example, and I'm hardly someone anywhere remotely near the level of influence and importance of Charlie Kirk. But it shows how far gone the political left is. How common threats of violence have become. How the rhetoric from prominent left-wing voices, calling anyone who disagrees with them Nazis, or comparable to Hitler, has created this mindset. 

If that happened to me, imagine what it must be like for more prominent voices on the right. Charlie Kirk almost certainly dealt with threats, likely daily, because he supported conservative causes and worked to advance them. For the political left, there is no greater crime. Perhaps that's why this has been so personally difficult, to see the inevitable result of this type of inexcusable anger. Realizing it could happen to anyone they deem dangerous enough.

Politics has become their religion, and religion as a motivation for violence is one of humanity's most common traditions. Though it bears repeating that virtually nobody who's part of that pseudo-religious ideology has dealt with the hypocrisy of claiming to be the party of "tolerance," of "hate has no place here," of "in this house we believe," while being intolerant of any different views.

It's clear, with today's horrifying, devastating, soul-crushing tragedy, that threats of violence are not going away, because this specific ecosystem allows them and excuses them. It doesn't seem like they're going to stop.