Posted on Friday, September 12, 2025
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by Horatius
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3 Comments
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When Charlie Kirk was assassinated, a flood of emotions inundated the nation. Disgust. Grief. Horror. Confusion. Anger.
We felt so much. But there was one emotion we didn’t have: surprise.
In the hours after—as the sickening videos circulated on the internet and millions dropped to their knees begging against the odds that Kirk would live, if only for his wife and kids—one phrase kept coming to everyone’s lips: “I’m not surprised.”
Nobody was surprised that someone would try to kill one of the most prominent conservative activists in America. Based upon the number of security guards Kirk felt forced to employ, he clearly knew the risk as well.
It only takes one psychopath. There’s enough incendiary rhetoric about the supposed triumph of fascism and the evils of the American right for any would-be murderer to rationalize his actions. We all feel a foreboding sense that it’s not a matter of if, but when something bad will happen next.
And that’s what makes this all the more terrifying.
Charlie Kirk. The Annunciation school shooting. The attempted assassination of President Trump. One can’t help but feel that demons have been unleashed.
Almost unanimously, mainstream figures have denounced this violence. Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders, and other Democrats all forcefully condemned Kirk’s murder, as they do other atrocities.
But there is no denying that left-wing ideology has provided abundant justifications for violence. Divorced from God, this philosophy tells young women they should be able to kill their babies, that the old should be able to have themselves euthanized, and that it may be better for the environment if people just stopped having children altogether.
If it’s acceptable to kill your child to avoid hardship and to have yourself killed to avoid pain, why would it not be acceptable to kill someone who you believe (or have been told) is a “fascist”? The majority of liberals reject political violence. But tragedy only takes one person drawing this dark consequentialist morality to its logical conclusion.
Unless Charlie Kirk’s murder inspires a rejection of both the ideology of death and the deranged voices that attack conservatism as an “existential threat,” there will be more violence. And each act of violence will fuel calls for retaliation, potentially sparking a dangerous and bloody cycle.
Don’t imagine that our country is immune from the same forces that have led other nations to devolve into widespread civil strife. When we start to see our political opponents as enemies rather than fellow men and women, it becomes easy to justify evil—as we saw firsthand on Wednesday.
Does some left-wing rhetoric create an atmosphere that encourages deranged people to act with violence? I believe so. But “the left” did not murder Charlie Kirk. “The Democrats” did not shoot President Trump. Collective condemnation will only fuel the flames of rage that have already taken the lives of too many innocent people.
It is right to be angry right now. But our righteous anger should be directed to good. It should be used to explore why transgender ideology has become the thread linking a growing number of recent atrocities. It should be used to utterly defeat a movement that condemns conservatives as tyrants and breeds a culture of violence. And it should be used to punish those people who demonically celebrate Kirk’s death—at a bare minimum by making them unemployable social outcasts, only allowed back into society after public repentance.
Righteous anger should provoke us to achieve justice. But we cannot let that anger drive us to hate.
St. Paul wrote, “Be not overcome by evil, but overcome evil by good” (Romans 12:21). It is not enough to reject evil. We must do the harder work of loving our enemies, even in the midst of our rage.
That does not mean we ignore those who support evil. That does not mean we refuse to fight the ideas and institutions that twist people into bloodthirsty Antifa animals and glory in the dissolution of America. It certainly doesn’t mean that we let up in our battle to remove every privilege and power from those who want to destroy Western civilization. But it does mean we refuse to hate.
It was hate that drove the killer to take Charlie Kirk’s life. If we let ourselves hate, then evil has won on every side.
There is so much we can do in the world to honor Charlie’s memory and advance the cause he died for. We will not let his death silence our movement. But to do any of it well, we must first win the battle in our own souls.
Charlie Kirk’s ideological opponents often hated him. When they attacked him or questioned his motives, he wouldn’t back down. He responded incisively, but at the same time, he never scorned his opponents.
Instead, Kirk loved the person across the table. He loved them enough to speak with them, to endure their attacks, and to try to convince them of the truth. He loved them enough to desire not their death, but their conversion.
What should we do after the murder of Charlie Kirk? We should try to be more like Charlie.
Horatius is the pen name of a writer who served in the first Trump White House and on Capitol Hill.
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