The evil of political violence

Charlie Kirk’s tragic murder reveals how ideology can devour the human soul.

The cowardly murder of Charlie Kirk marks a moment of huge significance. We still lack details about the killer or his motives, but one truth is clear. Years of indulging political violence have led us here. In any civilised society, ‘political violence’ ought to be an oxymoron.

Charlie Kirk died because of his opinions, and because he was principled enough to open up the discussion to those he most opposed. The impact of his murder has been amplified by those keyboard warriors who have taken pleasure in this utterly senseless tragedy. The sheer number has been chilling. We are not talking about a handful of sociopaths on the internet, but whole hordes of the seemingly amoral.

I could spend the rest of this article quoting example after example, but it would only infuriate anyone with an extant moral compass. For those who can stomach it, a quick online search will expose the magnitude of the problem. In particular, a cursory browse through Bluesky – a social media platform that has been embraced by those who believe themselves to be ‘on the right side of history’ – will reveal an overwhelming number of users gleefully celebrating the slaughter of a fellow human being. At times like these, Bluesky seems like a symposium of the soulless.

What does it all mean? In the wake of this appalling act, there should have been universal condemnation on all sides of the political spectrum, but instead we have experienced a harrowing glimpse into the dark void of ideological thinking. Predictably, the most contemptible reactions have come from the far left. But even in mainstream political discourse, we have seen yet again that a significant proportion of the left has an acute tendency towards the normalisation of violence.

That is not to say that no such issues occur on the right, but there can be no denying that it is especially pronounced among those who self-identify as ‘progressive’. It’s about time this was acknowledged by leading leftists so that they can get their house in order.

Those who take delight in the murder of their political opponents have not been effectively socialised. That some of these people genuinely believe they can be a force for good while occupying this moral vacuum suggests that there is no short-term remedy. We are dealing here not only with mindless tribalism, but widespread radicalisation and a concurrent erosion of those essential qualities that make us human.

We saw this in the aftermath of the murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, and the virtual canonisation of his killer Luigi Mangione by many commentators on the left. We likewise saw this following the failed assassination attempt of Donald Trump in which a member of the public, Corey Comperatore, was killed while trying to shield his family from the bullets.

The endless TikTok videos of young people gloating about Charlie Kirk’s death is beyond disturbing. If it were only a handful we might brush it aside as a few hotheaded youths who will soon grow up and look back on their behaviour with embarrassment. But the scale of the cruelty, authoritarianism and infantilism in the mainstream left is now impossible to dismiss.

This latest atrocity has left me thinking that it might be the case that the extent of radicalisation is too broad to be remedied. It may just be that there are now two factions; those like Charlie Kirk who value discussion, debate and free speech, and those who are sufficiently solipsistic to believe that if anyone who deviates from their worldview deserves to die. It is difficult to envisage how this latter category can possibly be reasoned with.

If you take a moment to watch some of Charlie Kirk’s university appearances on YouTube, you will be impressed by his determination to offer a platform to those who despised his opinions. He was always cordial and respectful, even in the face of – it has to be said – some genuinely unhinged fanatics. His belief in the power of free speech was unshakable. He knew, like John Stuart Mill, that we must be open to hearing our detractors. If we demand silence from those who take an alternative view, we only harm ourselves. This is how Mill put it in On Liberty (1859):

‘But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.’

Since the murder, there has been some astonishing victim-blaming. Within half an hour of the shooting, the political analyst Michael Dowd was claiming on MSNBC that it was Charlie Kirk’s ‘hate speech’ that prompted the violence. ‘Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words which then lead to hateful actions,’ he said. ‘You can’t keep saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place’.

This lack of basic humanity is now commonplace among many sections of the political and academic class. Consider the example of Steven Shaviro, a professor at Wayne State University in Detroit, who wrote on Facebook in March 2023: ‘So here is what I think about free speech on campus. Although I do not advocate violating federal and state criminal codes, I think it is far more admirable to kill a racist, homophobic, or transphobic speaker than it is to shout them down.’ Shaviro must be aware that terms such as ‘racist’, ‘homophobe’ and ‘transphobe’ are mostly applied to people who are nothing of the kind. But even when the terms are accurately used, the idea that murder is an acceptable form of criticism is simply not morally defensible.

And this is where I begin to despair. I have always known that there are those who hold that violence is an acceptable response to another’s free speech, but I had no conception of how many were embracing this new form of fascism. The innumerable examples I have seen since yesterday of left-wing accounts joyfully cheering on the murderer suggests that this worldview is far more prominent than I had supposed. ‘Evil’ is often an emotive term, but I can think of no other way to describe the act of taking joy in the death of an innocent man simply because you didn’t approve of his politics.

I typically write these articles with the intention of suggesting some ways in which a problem might be tackled. But the murder of Charlie Kirk has left me feeling as though it might be too late. Perhaps we have to accept that there is now a significant proportion of the population who have become so intoxicated with their ideology that they have surrendered their basic human empathy. Perhaps they are lost in this abyss of their own creation, and there is simply no hope of pulling them back.

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