Politics at the brink: Charlie Kirk’s murder and what may lie ahead | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Charlie Kirk's death underscores rising political extremism and violent rhetoric.
- Politics is religion and sport for many, and they believe the worst about the other side.
- Media, influencers and algorithms amplify division, fueling radical responses.
The murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk is gruesome enough, and it only gets worse when you consider this: It probably won’t be the last.
Oh, we’ll talk about stepping back from the precipice of political violence. And it should be noted, so soon after the horrifying death of a 31-year-old father or two in Utah, there’s much we don’t know, facts that could influence what we take away from this long term.
But odds are that it will happen again because, for far too many people, politics has become all-encompassing. It is religion, sport and entertainment. It must be infused in everything. It is a lifestyle; you indicate your tribe with a surgical mask or a red ballcap. You signal your virtue — and, by definition, the vice of those who disagree with you — by smugly posting a photo of you getting your ninth COVID shot or a Bible verse that, if you squint, seems to justify everything you believe.
When people are that invested and the influencers and algorithms constantly feed them what seems like evidence that the country is in mortal danger, some small segment of the population — and thank God that it is, in fact, a tiny portion — will decide that extreme action is justified.
After all, if the next election will end the country as we know it or lead to dictatorship, how could it not be?
Both Obama and Trump were painted as messiahs
Whether the tint is positive or negative, it’s the escalation that’s the point. The notion that Barack Obama was the one we’d been waiting for suggests that anyone who gets in his way is interfering with a messiah. The belief that Donald Trump was touched by God to save America implies that anyone who opposes him wants America destroyed.
If you’re that committed and at least a little unhinged, what other conclusions can you draw?
Then, politicians and activists exploit those feelings to extract attention, time and money. Comparing Donald Trump to Hitler or saying the left wants America overrun by immigrants and sharia does not communicate, “Come with us, we have a better way.” The message is: “The other guys are evil.”
Too many people are dependent on the likes, ratings and influence that feeding the machine brings. “News” content is tailored to press your particular buttons, and if today there isn’t a real reason to be upset, by God, let’s find one. It’s the Information Age version of William Randolph Hearst’s famous (and perhaps apocryphal) exhortation to an illustrator who found no fighting when Hearst sent him to Cuba to cover an uprising against the ruling Spanish: “You furnish the pictures. I’ll furnish the war.”
Tote boards that attempt to prove which side started or escalated it solve nothing. Liberals want to start the clock with Trump and, particularly, the Jan. 6 Capitol riots. Conservatives point to violence that followed the killing of George Floyd. Each side unfurls a list of well-nurtured grievances that would make a Costanza blush.
Meanwhile, in the past 15 months, we’ve seen two serious attempts made on Trump’s life. We’ve had Democratic politicians shot in Minnesota. The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania was targeted in an arson attack. A Palestinian-rights supporter killed two innocent young Jewish staffers in Washington.
Now, it’s Charlie Kirk, a commentator and organizer. A provocative one, to be sure, but hardly one whose work should drive anyone to violence.
Our history drips with political bloodshed. The American founding, while based on ideals that have made the world a much better place, was itself a violent uprising. Slavery was enforced with violence and ended by violence. The 1960s and ’70s brought regular assassination attempts and bombings.
Sept. 11 is reminder of last true unity in U.S. politics
On Thursday, we’ll honor the memories of those killed in the Sept. 11 attacks. That assault 24 years ago came from the outside, and it was the last time we truly united for longer than a few news cycles. But it didn’t last as long as any of us would like to remember. Battles over civil liberties started nearly as soon as we began to grapple with how to root out terrorists in our midst. When the Bush administration’s attention turned to Iraq, the political fight was on.
Unity is largely unobtainable and, in a robust democracy, not universally desirable. Unless we agree on the boundaries and keep politics in proper perspective, though, we won’t just disagree — we’ll be torn apart.
Would that we could honor Charlie Kirk’s memory and offer some small solace to his family by swearing off apocalyptic politics. But it’s hard to get likes and raise fresh rounds of campaign cash with that.
Ryan Rusak is opinion editor for McClatchy’s Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
This story was originally published September 10, 2025 at 9:07 PM with the headline "Politics at the brink: Charlie Kirk’s murder and what may lie ahead | Opinion."
