It’s been a week since Charlie Kirk was silenced with a sniper rifle. I use that word—silenced—because he was murdered while engaging in public argument, literally debating all comers at Utah Valley University under a banner that read: Prove Me Wrong.
That phrase is haunting now—not just because of the violence that followed, but because so many of us have stopped talking to the other tribe. Charlie was right: The mutual enmity of our republic threatens to unravel it. We are meant to settle our differences through debate, not violence—ballots, not bullets.
But lately, the assassin has had his say.
It would be a mistake to imagine this is something new. Political violence has deep roots in America. As H. Rap Brown—currently serving a life sentence for murder—once said: “Violence is as American as cherry pie.”
