America Mourns Charlie Kirk

Opinion|America Mourns Charlie Kirk

The assassination of Charlie Kirk — the founder of a youth political movement that helped revolutionize modern conservatism — at Utah Valley University on Wednesday is a tragedy. His killing is also part of a horrifying wave of political violence in America.

Since last year alone, a gunman killed a member of the Minnesota State Legislature and her husband and shot another Minnesota politician and his wife; a man set fire to the home of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania; and a would-be assassin shot Donald Trump on the campaign trail. In 2022, an attacker broke into Representative Nancy Pelosi’s home and fractured her husband’s skull. In 2021, a violent mob attacked Congress, smashing windows and brutalizing police officers. In 2017, a gunman shot four people at a Republican practice for the congressional baseball game, badly wounding Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana.

While the motives of Mr. Kirk’s killer are unclear, Mr. Kirk was a prominent political figure speaking at a political event. His killing is political in its consequences.

Such violence is antithetical to America. The First Amendment — the first for a reason — enshrines our rights to freedom of speech and expression. Our country is based on the principle that we must disagree peacefully. Our political disagreements may be intense and emotional, but they should never be violent. This balance requires restraint. Americans have to accept that their side will lose sometimes and that they may feel angry about their defeats. We cannot act on that anger with violence.

Too many Americans are abandoning this ideal. Thirty-four percent of college students recently said they supported using violence in some circumstances to stop a campus speech, according to a poll from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression published a day before the Kirk shooting. Since 2021, that share has risen from 24 percent, which was already unacceptably high. Surveys of older adults are similarly alarming.

This editorial board disagreed with Mr. Kirk on many policy questions, and we are unreservedly horrified by his killing. We grieve for his loved ones. We mourn his death. Amanda Litman, president of the left-leaning group Run for Something, offered an appropriate response: “Political violence is meant to scare and silence — it is absolutely never acceptable. We don’t have to agree with someone to affirm they have a right to speak their mind without fearing for their life or safety.” Many prominent Democrats and Republicans offered similar sentiments.

Whatever the killer’s motives, it is clear that political violence is a problem that extends across ideology. Prominent conservatives, moderates and liberals have all been victims in recent years.

The intensity of our political debates will not disappear. The stakes are too high, and the country disagrees on too many important questions. But we Americans have lost some of our grace and empathy in recent years. We too often wish ill on our political opponents. We act as if people’s worth is determined by whether they identify as a Republican or a Democrat. We dehumanize those with whom we differ.