If you don’t know what to say without equivocating, say that.
I didn’t much care for Charlie Kirk. In the nexus of conservative talkers and campus warriors, Kirk was never at the top of my list. I’ve always enjoyed the motormouthed takedowns of Ben Shapiro, the soothing theology of Ross Douthat, and the tin foil hat takes of Tucker Carlson. If there’s time in a day for Glenn Beck or Brett Cooper, I spread the love, but Kirk wasn’t my thing.
After graduating college in 2014, and starting work as a grassroots organizer for a conservative nonprofit, Turning Point USA was our competition on campus for young people interested in free speech, lower taxes, and entitlement reform. Kirk’s TPUSA outperformed us everywhere. Their message was better, and Kirk’s presence was massive.
When news broke on X on September 10, 2025, of Kirk being shot in the throat on the campus of Utah Valley University, I made the mistake of watching the most up-close video circulating online. Verification was important to me.
What I didn’t expect, as someone who knew plenty about Kirk but felt entirely neutral about his «Prove Me Wrong» booth schtick and the viral videos, was that I’d break down into tears at my desk. The feeling was overwhelming.
Feelings are not voluntary; they visit you like uninvited house guests wearing masks, often not revealing their true nature until you sit with and interrogate them.
For all of our «friends» and acquaintances collected on social media, moments of national horror present a pressure to react. No one person enforces that we all post our thoughts on mass shootings, floods, or political assassinations, but social media’s hive mind creates a culture of «personal press releases» being the norm. Comedian Ryan Long demonstrated this with almost embarrassing clarity.
There is a reason we joke about how a celebrity’s «silence is deafening.
