Charlie Kirk was shot and killed yesterday. His wife, Erika, lost her husband yesterday. His two children, both under the age of five, lost their daddy yesterday. Lord, have mercy.
I was on Twitter yesterday between when he was shot and when he was pronounced dead, looking at how people were responding, and I saw exactly what I expected. There were a few left-leaning people saying really ugly things—celebrating that he got shot, or saying that he deserved it. There were some right-leaning people saying ugly things about left-leaning people as a whole—that they’re all celebrating this, that shooting people for their ideas is what the left does. But the vast majority was left-leaning and right-leaning people both saying that nobody deserves to be a victim of political violence, naming Charlie’s and his family’s humanity, and hoping he would survive.
We have real, weighty disagreements with one another in this country—on abortion, and on any number of other extremely important things. It’s important not to minimize or ignore that. But it’s also vitally important to see what we do have in common. If you lean right politically, hear a fellow conservative say: Left-leaning people abhor shooting people for their political beliefs just like we do. That’s not a left thing or a right thing, that’s a human thing.
There are a few crazy people on the left who like political violence, and a few more who say things that sound like they like it because they want to be edgy and get views. There are also a few crazy people on the right who like political violence, and a few more who say things that sound like they like it because they want to be edgy and get views. Don’t let the crazy people pit the rest of us against one another. We have enough things to be divided over without adding this one vital thing that we’re actually on the same side on.
