I have heard it said that Charlie Kirk was all of us. To some extent, that’s true. Charlie and I had a lot in common: he was only a year my senior, he was a Christian, he was a husband and a father, and he was obsessed with ideas, especially the ideas that made this great nation so great. But there are several significant differences, too: Charlie was a far kinder man than I am, someone far more understanding, someone far more willing to extend the benefit of the doubt. He spent his time entering into good-faith arguments with anyone, anywhere. He was animated not by a need to be right, nor by a desire to crush his opposition, but by a seemingly genuine love of the truth and, upon finding it, a desire to share that truth, to invite others to join him in the truth as though it were a meal or a party.
Yet despite Charlie’s kindness, his goodwill, his good faith, many of us will forever be haunted by that split second of a video that made the rounds on social media Wednesday, that image of his neck bursting open and a stream of crimson pouring forth. Many of us (especially fathers, and especially fathers of little girls) will have difficulty sleeping at night, knowing that Charlie’s three-year-old daughter was there and ran for her daddy because she was afraid of the noise of the gunshot. Many of us have already shed tears, just reading Charlie’s old tweets or seeing videos of him hugging his wife and children, knowing that he’s gone forever. (RELATED: Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Is a Turning Point for the USA)
But while those on Charlie’s right (myself included) often did little more than debate philosophical minutiae online, Charlie debated hundreds of thousands of college students and won over a great many.
Charlie was also a moderate and often took flak from those on his right for not being far enough right. But while those on Charlie’s right (myself included) often did little more than debate philosophical minutiae online, Charlie debated hundreds of thousands of college students and won over a great many. While the rest of us were hoping that our niche, extremist political essay might make it past ten thousand likes on X/Twitter, Charlie was bringing tens of thousands of ex-liberals, ex-libertarians, or even just non-political people into the fold. While the rest of us were making memes that might be seen by a hundred people and only really enjoyed by ten, Charlie was registering thousands to deliver President Donald Trump the first Republican popular vote victory in decades.
Charlie’s gift was that he could and would debate anyone; he would dialogue with anyone. He would sit down and have an earnest conversation with the blue-haired barista with a septum piercing and a “Shout Your Abortion” t-shirt, with the morbidly obese they-them studying for a degree in the history of genderfluid interior decoration, with the arch-libertarian who doesn’t understand the moral difference between a 41-year-old smoking a cigar and a 14-year-old smoking a joint — and Charlie would treat each of these people with care and respect. He would articulate his own position clearly and concisely, and he would never treat error as truth, but he would never denigrate or deride his interlocutors. I can barely control my frustration in a heated debate with my own family members or lifelong friends, but Charlie extended to perfect strangers the same degree of courtesy and kindness that he did to the president of the United States.
Yet Charlie was killed, shot in the throat in front of hundreds, including his own daughter. His only crime, his only offense was wanting to talk, wanting to dialogue, wanting to have a conversation. And he was killed for it. Charlie Kirk was the last debater.
The rest of us watched Charlie die. Even if any of us — after a decade of being smeared as racists, bigots, fascists, and Nazis — after a decade of being ostracized, deplatformed, debanked, investigated, and even arrested in some cases — after being locked down, watching our businesses forced to close, losing our jobs for not wearing a mask or not being bullied into taking an experimental mutant form of the flu shot — even if any of us felt inclined to talk, to dialogue, to have a conversation, we don’t anymore. (RELATED: Charlie Kirk Must Now Be Made Immortal)
It wasn’t just Charlie Kirk who was killed on September 10: every moderate conservative, every conservative willing to talk, every conservative who thought he could find common ground with the Left was killed. Charlie was all of us. Every single young conservative man saw himself die when Charlie did. The wives of every single one of those young conservative men saw their husbands die when Charlie did. There is no going back. September 10 was a turning point. The last debater is gone now. The next Charlie Kirk will not be a debate club moderate but the sort of cold, fascistic nightmare that leftists have spent the last decade fearing without cause. Now there is cause.
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