Sadness, Anger, Indifference, Warnings: Reactions to Charlie Kirk's Assassination

Charlie Kirk’s assassination was met with widespread condemnation and mourning from voices of all ideologies. Many expressed sadness for his wife and children, and decried the apparent attack on free expression. Some also criticized their adversaries for politicizing, justifying, or purportedly encouraging the murder, and many worried about what may come next.

Lamenting an Attack on Free Speech

• Kirk “did his ideological adversaries the favor of taking their questions seriously,” said the National Review’s Editorial Board (Right). “This alone was a significant contribution to our civil society.” 
• Ezra Klein (Left), writing for The New York Times Opinion (Left), said, “The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in politics without fear of violence. To lose that is to risk losing everything.”

Calls for Unity

• “Regular Americans need to fight back against the toxic idea that our neighbors are our enemies, or else that accusation will become a self-fulfilling prophecy,” said Noah Smith (Lean Left). 
• The Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board (Lean Right) remarked on President Donald Trump’s role: “As the President, as a survivor of a near-assassination himself, and especially as Kirk’s political ally and friend—he can help the country rise above this madness. He can say that this is the moment when the descent into political violence must stop, not least in honor of Charlie Kirk’s willingness to win by debate, not a resort to thuggery or violence.”

More Violence? 

• A Republican Virginia state delegate forecasted a “reckoning” and a “war between diametrically opposed worldviews which cannot peacefully coexist with one another.” 
• A writer for Slate (Left) predicted that Kirk’s followers “will seek vengeance” and “redouble their efforts to inflict Kirk’s poisonous vision onto our bodies and institutions.” 

Trading Blame

• A Guardian (Left) columnist criticized the “partisan, violent and ugly” reaction from some conservatives like Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC), who said Democrats “own” what happened to Kirk. 
• Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) called Kirk’s murder “a cowardly act of violence,” prompting some to recall when he cast blame on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) for the murder of two Democratic state representatives Democrats in June.

Justifying Kirk’s Death? 

• In some corners of the internet, people said Kirk "had it coming" or didn't deserve remorse. They pointed to previous comments from Kirk, such as, “empathy is a made up New Age term that does a lot of damage,” or when he said, “it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."
• Staffers for TMZ were accused of cheering when President Donald Trump announced Kirk’s death; it’s unclear why they were cheering.