This country has a long history of honoring its martyrs, from those who died in our wars (including my uncle) to people killed on the front line of political change. Assassination holds a special place in our culture. It’s an American apotheosis, the closest thing to sainthood in our secular society. The left has no shortage of martyrs, and the right gained one this week.
The bullet has a special and venerated place in this tradition. I felt it was my duty to watch Charlie Kirk’s shooting before writing about it. My strong recommendation: unless you have a reason to see it, don’t. I’ve seen more than a few videos of gunfire deaths in my life, and I’m always struck by their banality and tawdriness. There’s nothing romantic about a bullet striking human flesh. It’s vile.
As I write these words, we don’t know who killed Charlie Kirk or why. But we already know two things about his death—one moral, and one societal. Jewish and Islamic scriptures both say that whoever commits murder has destroyed an entire universe. Secular law and ethics are equally firm in rating murder as the worst crime an individual can commit.
His family must now live with their loss. His audience—which, like most audiences, felt it knew him personally—is also in pain. Perhaps we can agree on this: let’s set aside the cult of the gun. Politically-motivated murder is still just murder. It’s cheap, brutal, and stupid, like all murders.
And who does it help? someone for their speech, however heinous you think it is, corrodes the fabric of civil society by shutting down open debate. A lot of people have already said that about Kirk, of course, but they’ve left out an important addendum: this will shut down open debate even more than it already was. Many voices are already marginalized and silenced. This killing is likely to make that even worse.
The tragic dimensions of Charlie Kirk’s death are with us, now. They were with us in June, when two Democratic lawmakers and their spouses were shot (one couple died). They were with us when a gunman killed an abortion doctor and when another shot up a Unitarian church. They with us when three Muslim students were murdered in Chapel Hill and a six-year-old Muslim boy was stabbed to death by his landlord. They were with us at the mass murders in a Charleston church and a Pittsburgh synagogue.
They are always with us.
That’s why I’m critical of headlines like this one: “Charlie Kirk’s death shows political violence is now a feature of US life.” It’s been a feature of US life for a long time—from the Civil War and the long decades of lynching and anti-Black violence to the murders of JFK, Malcolm X, Dr. King, the Black Panthers, to the vigilante killings of Black Lives Matter protesters by Kyle Rittenhouse. (Kirk hosted Rittenhouse at two events.)
Today we’re hearing a familiar refrain: “Don’t politicize this tragedy.” The right says it whenever a mass shooting is committed by someone who arguably shouldn’t have a gun. The left says it when, as now, they know they will be blamed for the actions of a lone individual.
But every death is political. Sure, some are more openly political than others. But an estimated 68,000 people die each year from inadequate medical care in this country. These deaths are political, too, the result of deliberate policy choices. More than one million Americans died of Covid, a disease whose spread and fatality rate were determined by political decisions.
Smoking deaths and environmentally-caused cancers are political, as our government confronts (or doesn’t) the health effects of corporate activity. A study in the Journal of American Medical Association found that nearly 200,000 Americans died from poverty-related causes in 2019—and what is poverty if not political? The burden of loss for these deaths is felt in Red states and Blue states, by left and right, among young and old alike.
The people who died on 9/11 were the victims of political choices, too. They were murdered because Al Qaeda made the brutal, tactical, political decision to provoke the US into widespread war—a decision prompted by earlier choices by the US. Bin Laden cloaked his choices in religious terms, but he was perverting faith in pursuit of political power. (That’s a familiar pattern here, too, isn’t it?) We played into his hands, and the resulting wave of deaths in the Middle East was political, too.
And what are the horrifying deaths in Gaza, if not political? I don’t which is worse: the Republicans who pander to religious extremists and big donors on this issue, the Republicans who are religious extremists—or the Democrats who are just following the money.
Even the “good” deaths are political. We read about world leaders dying at advanced ages. (Queen Elizabeth, George H.W. Bush, and Jimmy Carter come to mind.) My own parents lived into their mid-nineties. These deaths all occurred as the average American lifespan was falling, not rising. Why? Because all these long-lived individuals had excellent health care. (My mother’s first-rate coverage came via her teacher’s union.)
None of this is meant to diminish the loss of any single life. It is an entire universe. Perhaps we can use this tragedy to broaden our understanding of political violence and pledge to end it in all its forms. The president has ordered that flags be flown at half-mast for Charlie Kirk. I don’t object; in fact, I think every needless death should be commemorated.
Every political death is the result of choices we make. Every one of them is needless.