Charlie Kirk’s murder: a turning point in the political drift of the West

USA

Charlie Kirk’s murder: a turning point in the political drift of the West

Charlie Kirk, one of the leading figures of the American conservative movement, was killed by an unknown assailant. However, the extremist tendencies of the American left, which incited his murder, are well documented. So too is the media's drift, which continues to demonise him even after his death by labelling him a 'climate denier', 'no-vax' and 'extremist'.

'Turning Point' is the name of the political association founded by Charlie Kirk in 2012, which played a key role in cementing the conservative coalition led by Donald Trump, particularly among younger Americans. However, today, with sinister assonance, we can say that Charlie Kirk's brutal murder, which took place during a meeting with students at the University of Utah, truly marks a negative turning point in the extremist and violent drift of American politics. This trend has already resulted in numerous acts of violence, beginning with the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in Butler last July, which failed by a whisker, and the subsequent thwarted attacks.

Similar events include the wounding of Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico and the killing of Colombia's centre-right presidential candidate Miguel Uribe last August. Not to mention the myriad attacks, intimidation and threats against Jewish students or those who do not align with anti-capitalist, anti-Western, anti-Christian and anti-LGBT rhetoric by far-left and pro-Islamist movements. While these incidents have various origins, they are all united by aggressive and delegitimising rhetoric that leaves no room for pluralistic dialogue and aims to physically eliminate the opponent.

As the circumstances surrounding Charlie Kirk's murder become clearer, it is becoming increasingly apparent that, compared to the attacks against Trump, we are facing a qualitative leap. The attack was not carried out by an unbalanced "lone wolf", however encouraged or incited, but was a genuine terrorist attack, the work of a professional killer supported by a network of backers. The target and location of the attack were also chosen with great care to cause maximum disruption.

Charlie Kirk was, of course, neither Donald Trump nor a politician holding institutional office. However, he was a highly influential cultural and social figure because he represented the most striking living refutation of radical woke progressivism through his character and work. Young, educated and highly effective in his use of the web and social media, he had a huge following, especially among young people. Through his widespread "preaching", he contributed to building a solid alternative to "politically correct" conformism, ideology and nihilistic relativism. Above all, Kirk was as far from a fanatic as possible, despite professing liberal-conservative opinions that were very different from the dominant ideological mainstream of the left. He accepted and sought dialogue with everyone, including those who held views most opposed to his own. According to the bold formula of 'prove me wrong', he valued pluralism of ideas and freedom of expression in mutual respect, which is as unbearable to the radicalised Western left, obsessed with censorship and erasure, as garlic to vampires.

By targeting Kirk, the intention was most likely to silence one of the most forward-thinking leaders of the US right who foreshadowed its future roots in common societal values. Whether the instigators of the murder are internal (organised extremist groups or obscure 'splinter groups' of the anti-Trump Deep State) or external (groups linked to Islamist terrorism or authoritarian regimes interested in destabilising the Western superpower), the aim is clearly to disperse Kirk's group of non-conformist intellectuals, to intimidate his followers and/or to provoke further radicalisation and widespread violence in a bid to dishearten them.

However, these expectations may backfire spectacularly, with the shock of Kirk's death becoming a catalyst for energy and a driving force for the young American right, as the enormous and widespread commotion caused by the tragic event would suggest. In any case, if the organisers of the crime can hope to achieve these objectives, it is essentially because the most openly violent fringes of the American and Western left are immersed in a vast 'breeding ground' of widespread opinion and media rhetoric that considers it normal to describe political opponents as absolute evil and their elimination as desirable. According to this narrative, positions that were once considered moderate and sensible are now deemed expressions of an 'extreme', subversive and dangerous right wing and must be suppressed by any means necessary.

For example, anyone who opposes unbridled immigration is branded a racist and supremacist; anyone who challenges transhumanist delusions and gender ideology is branded homophobic and transphobic; and anyone who contests the restrictions on freedom imposed in the name of a health emergency or socio-economic devastation imposed in the name of alleged anthropogenic climate change is branded a 'denier' responsible for the deaths of thousands or millions of people. Anyone who defends the right to life of the unborn in the name of Christian morality is branded a denier of the most sacred rights of women, and anyone who defends the right to life of Israel, the only liberal democracy in the Middle East, against fundamentalist fanatics who want to wipe it out, is branded a 'genocidal maniac'. They point the finger at Trump as a dictator with impunity, even though he is subject to the rules of a system of limited powers and checks and balances. They do the same with Elon Musk, branding him a paranoid techno-Nazi, and with Javier Milei, calling him a ruthless architect of 'social butchery'.

Amplified out of all proportion by the extremism of social media, even among seemingly 'normal' people, not bloodthirsty beasts, there have been widespread and revolting expressions of jubilation at Kirk's death or delusional judgements that he himself was responsible for the conditions that led to his murder. Even in the climate of emotion surrounding his brutal murder, Kirk could be described by mainstream media outlets as 'controversial' and 'divisive': the hypocritical labels regularly pinned on those who hold non-conforming views, insinuating that they are not much better than their opponents.

Once the framework for the systematic demonisation of any political figure who does not parrot the slogans of progressive 'big brother' has been created, the transition to inciting his lynching is very easy.

As Kirk rightly said, when people stop talking, violence begins. If the climate of total incommunicability created by the nihilistic leftist ideology is not dismantled and dialogue is not resumed, affirming plurality of voices as a treasure in itself, the fate of Western democracies will probably be a more or less creeping drift towards endemic civil war and authoritarian outcomes.