One of the first disturbing things I noticed on Twitter after Charlie Kirk’s assassination was the number of people willing to risk well-paying jobs in order to vent their rage over Kirk's “hateful” views by celebrating his death. How could so many supposedly intelligent people—doctors, college professors, etc.—be so reckless? The Washington Post fired columnist Karen Attiah for “gross misconduct” for her racially incendiary misquote of Kirk on Bluesky. MSNBC fired Matthew Dowd after he went on the air and implied (“Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions) that Kirk had it coming. Then, the cable channel’s senior political analyst went on to speculate about the circumstances of the shooting, saying: “We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration. So we have no idea about this.”
Jamelle Bouie wrote in his New York Times column: “From an empirical standpoint, to the extent that you can categorize stuff, it is the case that more political violence comes from what you would call the right than it does from the left.” Trump’s to blame, he wrote. I can only have so much confidence in the credibility of a left-biased Times columnist who refers to categorizing “stuff,” not to mention the fact that Bouie offers no corroboration for his dubious claim. From his point of view, however, there's no need to produce “empirical” evidence. His audience accepts his point as axiomatic.
But I can produce empirical evidence. Kirk's alleged assassin, despite what the media wants you to believe, is the lone lefty in a conservative Utah family. Engraved on one of his bullets was, “Hey fascist, catch.” Luigi Mangione, who assassinated United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson in front of a NYC hotel in 2024, has become a left-wing hero of sorts. Comedian Bill Burr, appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live!, exclaimed, “Free Luigi!”
The left-wing BLM riots following the death of George Floyd, who the Hennepin County Coroner said may have died of a fentanyl overdose, caused up to $2 billion in insured damages. Much of the damaged property of minority-owned small businesses was uninsured or under-insured. Moreover, history shows that the areas in which many of these businesses operate will be experiencing an economic downturn that could last for decades. On June 14, 2017, a gunman with a clear hatred of the GOP walked onto a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia and opened fire on a group of prominent Republicans practicing for a charity baseball game, wounding House GOP Whip Steve Scalise of Louisiana and four others.
There’s no doubt that left-wing violence is taking a toll on this nation. Charlie Kirk wasn't preaching hatred. He put himself in danger to reach out to the opposition. Particularly disturbing is the fact that, in the past, most political assassinations and attempted assassinations have been against elected politicians, rather than political activists. Perhaps the list of possible victims of such violence just got expanded. Who, on either the Left or Right, is now going to speak out in open political forums the way Kirk did?
Luigi Mangione, 26 when arrested for shooting a man in the back, is an Ivy League grad and the scion of a wealthy Baltimore family. Tyler Robinson, 22, came from a solid family upbringing and had a good reputation in the community. What’s happening now? Young men with good prospects in life are throwing away their lives by choosing to become murderers. One thing that's happening is that religion—specifically Christianity—is declining in the U.S. For generations now, each generation has been less religious than the previous one. Moral views are shaped in the absence of God and the Bible. Absolutes blur to shades of gray as longstanding concepts of justice yield to the empathetic demands of social justice.
The absence of a single guiding light distinguishing right from wrong has created a void that social media’s moving in on, which isn’t a comforting thought. The moral values of young people are now being formed in a twisted simulacrum of reality full of the mentally ill, violent misfits, and whiners claiming victimhood. Movements like BLM, climate consciousness, and LGBTQ+ advocacy are also informing the moral beliefs of the young, who are also turning towards harm-reducing ethical frameworks like utilitarianism—”the greatest good for the greatest number”—that devalue the rights of the individual. Those seen as a threat to the greater good are dehumanized as “fascists,” thus creating a permission structure for the use of violence against them. A scary percentage of online people on the Left believe that Charlie Kirk was a fascist whose murder wasn't morally wrong.
The problem is that the young mind is unable to form coherent moral views from social media’s toxic stew of musings, demagoguery, and rants. The result is that the young are moving towards an embrace of moral relativism, the incoherent belief that ethical behavior depends on context—e.g. Charlie Kirk was a bad person, so killing him isn't wrong. Such reasoning sets the stage for moral paralysis, anarchy, and tyranny.
While I'm no longer religious, I attended weekly Catholic mass until the age of 14. Although much of what I heard on Sunday morning sounded like gobbledygook to me, about five of the Ten Commandments always made sense. What is there to argue about with “Thou shall not kill”? Murder is murder. It's immoral and that applies to the death penalty as well. Can anyone argue against the claim that had Tyler Robinson subscribed to a code of moral absolutism, rather than allowing himself to be shaped by online culture, he'd be in much better shape right now?
Charlie Kirk, civil in his charged debates on American college campuses, wasn't a crazed far-right demon. He was a staunch conservative with an inkling of the fate awaiting him. On April 7, he shared polling data indicating that 55 percent of those leaning left felt that violence against Trump would be at least “somewhat justified.” Parents can't keep allowing social media to do their jobs. If they're not religious, they can still instill moral absolutes in their children.