The gleeful reaction to his killing proves that identifying as left-wing does not make you a good person.
I bumped into an old acquaintance, a man who proudly calls himself an ‘old lefty’. I knew him well once, well enough to remember that he was never especially kind, never particularly loyal, and not exactly a model brother or friend. But none of that seemed to matter, because he believed he carried the ultimate moral insurance policy: he was on the left.
For too many people, politics has become a kind of secular baptism, a ritual washing away of sins. You can be careless with those closest to you, even cruel, and still believe yourself virtuous. All it takes is spending a Saturday on X hurling righteous abuse at ‘right-wing bigots’ and, hey presto, you’re absolved.
That smug worldview might look harmless when it is just an old pal excusing his shabby behaviour. But since last week, we have witnessed the same mentality on the global stage, after American conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated for his political beliefs.
And what was the response from the ‘Be Kind’ brigade? Not outrage. Not grief. Not even the faintest curiosity about how the alleged gunman could come to find Kirk’s conservative and Christian beliefs so dangerous that he believed those who advocated for them in public needed to be shot.
