Thousands of people pressed together in the hot sun to hear one man speak. Cheering and shouting rang out as he stepped onto the stage. Soon after, bewildered young observers saw him slump in his chair, a bullet having passed into his neck.
Charlie Kirk was 31 years old. The husband of a beautiful young woman and father of two children, aged one and three, Kirk seems to have lived a blessed life. At the age of only 18, he had founded an organisation, Turning Point USA, which would encourage hundreds of thousands of young conservative Americans to speak up and out about their views, to debate their opponents civilly, and to attempt to persuade them by the force of the arguments. The real impact that Turning Point had on the political landscape of the US is difficult to overstate. Not too long ago, conservatism was the philosophy of the elderly and the hopelessly outmoded. Charlie Kirk managed to reintroduce a new generation to a movement going the way of the dinosaur, and by this managed to achieve what seemed impossible: he made it cool to be conservative. Kirk showed the youths of college campuses across America that the best way to embrace the rebellious spirit and stick it to the man was not to follow the politically correct consensus ideology, but to re-embrace tradition.
Kirk was brutally gunned down around noon on the 10th September 2025, shortly after coming out to perform one of his signature debates with college students of differing views. Reports have it that his 36-year-old wife and two children were in attendance at the moment Kirk was shot.
It would be an understatement to call this story sickening. That a man with so much life left to live, and who has done so much good in this world, could be considered fit for murder by anyone is beyond comprehension. Nevertheless, we must understand why this happened, if we are to learn from it.
The past few years in political discourse have been turbulent to say the least. The turning point might be 2015, when Donald Trump started his first campaign for the presidency. Make no mistake: there was plenty of heated political conversation before this point, but, for one reason or another, Trump’s run opened the gates of hell. Perhaps it was Trump’s abrasiveness, or perhaps it was simply his unapologetic and insensitive willingness to call it as he saw it, but the political Left reached an unseen level of hysteria over his nomination and election. This was the period when the now-infamous phrase, “literally Hitler”, began to catch on. It only got worse from there.
The year 2020 saw the President fall out with his running mate and right hand man, and the storming of the Capitol by outraged voters in Washington D.C. It saw the election of a man who even then was not mentally fit for the office of the President, and whose condition only worsened until became impossible for his party to hide it anymore. In 2024, we saw perhaps the most important and intense American presidential race in modern history, with a party coup against the sitting President to make way for his unqualified and charmless former running mate, and two very nearly successful assassination attempts at the main competitor. All the while, the dialogue was heating up. “Nazi”, “Fascist”, “Marxist”, “bigot”, “misogynist”, and other such derogatory terms were being tossed like missiles. However, the political discourse reached its boiling point last Wednesday, with the death of Charlie Kirk.
While Trump’s shooting in July 2024 came as a shock, it was not really a surprise. Attempts on the life of someone about or trying to become the most powerful man in the land are predictable. That is why even Presidential candidates get Secret Service security protection. This is not to condone such attempts, but one can hardly suggest that they are inherently unlikely. On top of this, President Trump is the most controversial person in modern history. Never in the past century has there been a person who has created such a divide between almost-worshipping supporters and vehemently and hysterically hateful opponents. It was hardly a wonder, then, when someone decided to take a shot at him during his campaign. Kirk’s horrific assassination is an entirely different case.
Charlie Kirk was not the President of the United States, nor did he have any kind of power. He did not have access to the nuclear codes, or the FBI’s files, or the military control room. Charlie Kirk was, in many ways, an altogether ordinary conservative, who became successful for the reason that he was an ordinary conservative who was not prepared to apologise for it, and was willing to walk into opposition territory as a spokesman for the Right. Kirk was not a polarising figure like President Trump: he did not call his opponents names, he did not levy tariffs on foreign countries, and he did not engage in diplomatic relations. He was a man who wanted the youth of America to live in a country where they could speak their opinions unafraid. He wanted to build a country in which young people could exchange and challenge ideas in a spirit of goodwill and self-improvement. He did not hate people, and he did not promote violence. It was in fact his calm normality that attracted so many Americans, who could finally hear a public figure promoting regular opinions and common sense intelligently and without fear of backlash. He was an ordinary man, who made an extraordinary difference to his country.
This is why his death is all the more tragic, and all the more concerning. If the US has now come to a point where a 31-year-old husband and father whose greatest offence was calmly debating college students on politics is brutally murdered for millions to see, then it is in a dark place indeed.
Ultimately, I believe this can be attributed to the aforementioned overheated political discourse. As I have said before, the Left has a tendency to blanket-label all its opponents into one oversimplified and generally completely inaccurate umbrella group. Once it had been agreed that President Trump was “literally Hitler”, the natural conclusion was that all his followers and supporters must be Nazis. In this frame of mind, harmless and genuinely good men like Charlie Kirk suddenly become a national threat – a threat which it is justified to eliminate, by any means necessary.
There is only one person directly responsible for Kirk’s death – his yet-unidentified (at the time of writing this article) killer. However, those who peddled the view that Kirk was some kind of threat to the United States or its citizens share a real part of the blame. Those who called Kirk a Nazi, a transphobe, or a bigot, while not responsible for killing him, undeniably contributed to forming the political climate in which his assassination happened. There has been very little accountability for the mainstream American news outlets, and as a result, they could promote radical and blatantly untrue ideas about Kirk and his ilk without concern for any kind of repercussions.
Words cannot express the tragedy of Kirk’s death, and I do not dare to imagine the inexpressible pain and suffering that his wife and two pitifully young children are experiencing in this moment. Kirk should never have been ripped away from them in this manner, and the world is noticeably worse off for his passing. All I will ask is this: are we taking our words seriously now? Are we finally going to consider the consequences of the constant labelling of political opponents? When will we stop demonising our opponents and start considering them as human beings?
Charlie Kirk is not only an American hero, but a champion of free speech around the world. Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon him. May he rest in peace.
Amen.
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Patrick Vincent writes from Dublin