First, there is the cowardice of the loathsome young man who shot him. May he receive the death penalty, and quickly.
But there is another kind of cowardice that contributed to Charlie Kirk’s death: the cowardice of the right.
For years, everyday people on the right have stood by and done nothing as the left has continuously flouted the fundamental precepts of civil discourse. People on the left have not sought to persuade those they disagree with to come around to their side, but to punish and shame them, for nearly as long as I’ve been a politically conscious person.
As a teenager in high school, I knew that publicly expressing my support for Donald Trump in the 2016 election could have dramatic personal consequences. In college and then in law school, I lost several so-called “friends” for having conservative political beliefs. Now it is impossible to avoid the crescendo of voices on social media cheering for the assassination of Charlie Kirk and other right-wing figures. These are not the voices of a couple of far-left radicals. These are the voices of a large portion of the American left, and they are echoed by a mainstream media that callously eggs them on at every turn. That is unconscionable. It is intolerable. It has no place in our society.
As conservatives, we have to reckon with ourselves at this moment in time. Right-wingers have always chosen to hide our beliefs from friends, colleagues, and family members. The attitude from many people on the right is “go along to get along.” Pretend to be a liberal if you have to. You don’t want to piss people off. You don’t want to lose friends. You don’t want your professor or a potential employer or college admissions officer to know what you really believe. This attitude has become so prevalent that 88% of people on college campuses pretend to hold more progressive views than they actually hold to succeed socially or academically.
The time for that is over. Conservatives have lost much over the years to the far-left mob — our jobs, our social media, even our bank accounts. As we now know, our cowardice is beginning to cost us our lives.
Enough is enough. Protecting people on the left from having to confront the fact that so many vehemently disagree with them on sensitive political and social issues has not made our lives easier or safer. It has made them much harder and much more dangerous. This is only driven home by the fact that many people on the left who celebrated Kirk’s death imagined him as a far-right zealot, while in right-leaning circles, Kirk was known as a moderate. These people have become so isolated from dissenting opinions that they have no idea what the vast majority of Americans even believe, and that’s partially why they feel emboldened to mock and hurt people who have good-faith disagreements with them.
So go ahead and post that Instagram story about your beliefs on abortion, immigration, or crime. The next time somebody voices a progressive viewpoint as if it’s the only viewpoint that matters, tell him politely but firmly, “I disagree.” And support our fellow conservatives who dare to raise their voices, too. If you have to lose a few of your friends, so be it. Guess what: They were never really your friends anyway.
Charlie Kirk’s assassination was a wake-up call. It’s time to answer it.
