Charlie Kirk and the Shame of the ‘However’ Progressives | The American Spectator

In the dark days following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, like millions of my fellow citizens, I have been trying to gauge the significance of this horrifying event. As a moderate conservative with classical liberal inclinations, I have been scanning across the political spectrum searching for perspectives and insights, and have been struck most forcibly by the reactions on the progressive left. Overall, it is not a pretty sight.

In its more radical environs, a raft of reptilian figures have celebrated the cold-blooded murder of a young man with a wife and two young children who was airing his views in political debate. Seemingly in competition to raise the bar for vicious, abhorrent behavior, they have said things such as, “I hope the bullet is okay after touching Charlie Kirk,” or posted crude cartoons of Kirk with blood spurting out of a gaping neck wound with a caption, “Debate this!” All bluster and bravery while hiding behind a social media screen, these despicable creatures succeed only in displaying shattered moral compasses. They deserve nothing but contempt from decent people. (RELATED: Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Exposes a Generation in Crisis)

Almost as distressing, however, are the much larger numbers of mainstream progressives who have followed a carefully calibrated rhetorical formula that ostensibly denounces political violence while implying, at the same time, that it is justified. In numerous social media postings and public statements, such declarations follow this structure: “Of course, I would never endorse political violence. However, we all need to remember that Kirk was a racist, sexist, homophobe, and transphobe, White Nationalist bigot and hatemonger.” The careful inclusion of however speaks volumes. It clearly suggests, while avoiding the bad form of actually saying so, that Kirk had it coming.

In my locale, for instance, one progressive posted of Kirk’s murder,

I wonder how many advocates of gun violence and White Supremacy, akin to him, will mention the verse from the so-called Christian Bible, the Bible they regularly bastardize — the passage from Galatians about ‘reaping what you sow.’ I mourn ALL victims of gun violence regarding the manner of death. But I will not miss the hatred, the cruelty, disseminated by Mr. Kirk while alive.

Similar statements have proliferated on the national stage. Mathew Dowd of MSNBC, upon learning of the shooting, lugubriously intoned that Kirk was “constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech aimed at certain groups … And I always go back to [the idea that] hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.”

Ann Marie Cox, in The New Republic, suggested that progressives should adopt a tougher tone in responding to Kirk’s murder. “Obviously, I am not advocating outright delight in someone’s demise,” she wrote. “The tone I’m envisioning is callous, perhaps, but short of cruel. Something like, ‘I’m sorry his family is suffering. I wish his message would die with him.’ Something like, ‘No one deserves to die an untimely death, even Charlie Kirk, a supporter of policies that have killed people far more innocent than him.’” (RELATED: The Trigger on Charlie Kirk’s Slow-Motion Assassination Was Pulled Before His Birth)

A prominent pastor in Alexandria, Virginia, spoke similarly. “Charlie Kirk did not deserve to be assassinated, but I’m overwhelmed seeing the flags of the United States of America at half-staff, calling this nation to honor and venerate a man who was an unapologetic racist and spent all of his life sowing seeds of division and hate into this land,” proclaimed the Rev. Howard-John Wesley from the pulpit. “I am sorry, but there’s nowhere in the Bible where we are taught to honor evil. And how you die does not redeem how you lived. You do not become a hero in your death, when you are a weapon of the enemy in your life.”

On the political sweepstakes front, a pair of 2028 Democrat presidential aspirants modified the “however” formula. In this rendering, expressions of condolence are quickly followed by blaming him from whom all public problems supposedly flow: President Donald Trump, the man Charlie Kirk had supported enthusiastically.

Governor JB Pritzker of Illinois offered his sympathy to the Kirk family and then immediately pivoted to contend that Trump and his MAGA movement were the culprits responsible for the “ratcheting up of political violence.” Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut drew a similar lesson from Kirk’s assassination after noting that it had “horrified” him. “Pay attention. Something dark might be coming. The murder of Charlie Kirk could have united Americans to confront political violence. Instead, Trump and his anti-democratic radicals look to be readying a campaign to destroy dissent,” he posted on X. “I hope I’m wrong. But we need to be prepared if I’m right. That means everyone who cares about democracy has to join the fight — right now. Join a mobilization or protest group. Start showing up to actions more. Write a check to a progressive media operation.” (RELATED: We Are Charlie Kirk, And We Will Not Be Silenced.)

These many “however” statements are deeply disturbing because of their prevalence in leftist circles, and shameful because of their inhumanity and cowardice. They tiptoe up to the nutcase call for celebration but refuse to say forthrightly what they clearly imply — people like Kirk deserve such a bloody fate. They crack open a door to reveal a progressive heart of darkness wherein conservative opponents are viewed not as wrongheaded or misguided but as depraved monsters. And even schoolchildren know that monsters must be battled and brought down.

Conservatives Debating Ideas v. Progressives Demonizing Speech

What fuels this moralistic rage among “However Progressives,” who see only a specter of evil lurking among their conservative opponents? The evidence indicates two impulses at work. First, for decades, progressives have cultivated the misguided notion of hate speech. They insist that critical words presumably involving so-called “marginalized groups” — those with identities based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or sexual identification — are discriminatory and cause deep personal and social harm. As such, they must be prohibited or silenced. Witness the proliferation of highly restrictive “speech codes” on college and university campuses, where progressives dominate. (RELATED: Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Is Evidence of Spiritual Warfare)

In practical terms, this paradigm means that, by definition, any political ideas or rhetoric that question the tenets of social justice progressivism are unworthy of expression. Progressives label conservative political positions they dislike — defenses of traditional notions of the family, gender based on biology, religion, law and order, ethnic assimilation; criticism of illegal immigration, affirmative action, urban crime waves, single-parent households, DEI programs, biological men in women’s sports and bathrooms — as hate speech.

The First Amendment, of course, protects all speech, even if offensive, unless it incites violence or unlawful action, but progressives neatly circumvent this problem. Under the aegis of critical theory, they argue that hate speech is not just verbal expression but a form of violence. As a reflection of existing power structures and social hierarchies, it normalizes discrimination, inflicts acute psychological harm, and dehumanizes its targets. Thus, it undermines democracy and encourages atrocities. According to the well-known phrase, such assaultive speech consists of “words that wound.”

This progressive line of reasoning makes for a neat, if chilling, formulation — conservative words are hate speech; hate speech is violence; such violence must be curtailed. For too many on the left, the killing field in Utah is an understandable, even defensible, upshot.

But the ideological rationale for the progressive “however” has a second, more fundamental source. Charles Krauthammer, the legendary political commentator whose classical liberal principles transported him from the Democrat to the Republican Party, put his finger on this deeper impulse when he announced his “fundamental law” of modern American politics: “Conservatives think liberals are stupid. Liberals think conservatives are evil.” With tongue partly in cheek, Krauthammer explained that while conservatives denounce liberal naivete regarding human nature or economic forces or cultural traditions, liberals truly believe that conservatives are “soulless,” “heartless,” “cruel” and only differ on “how many orphans they’re prepared to throw into the snow so the rich can get their tax cuts.” At bottom, liberals demonize conservatives as depraved.

As with all such generalizations, there are exceptions to Krauthammer’s axiom (such as the right’s moral absolutism on abortion), and it doesn’t explain everything about the divide between left and right. But his shrewd observation tells us much about progressives’ “however” reaction to Kirk’s murder, as well as other issues.

It is hard not to notice how liberals often deploy a moral calculus to denounce conservative views, while conservatives tend to insist that liberal approaches just don’t work. This difference is important. If stupidity is the problem, education and information, and clear thinking can correct things. If evil is the problem, the only moral course of action lies in eradicating it.

Thus, for decades, a significant portion of American leftists has betrayed a latent attraction to forcibly removing evil-doers from the political arena. This progressive impulse emerged full-blown in the 1960s with the dictum “by any means necessary.” This guideline for bringing down an oppressive system was first promoted by Malcolm X and Black Power advocates and then adopted by many New Leftists and anti-war radicals. In subsequent decades, a similar ethos fueled the “heckler’s veto” epidemic that swept through college campuses where large contingents of leftist students pressured administrators to disallow conservative speakers, shouted them down if they did appear, and sometimes engaged in mob actions to achieve their goal.

More recently, polling and social science studies reveal a contemporary progressive inclination to endorse violence as an acceptable method for cleansing the public square of evil people and ideas. In April 2025, the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI), associated with Rutgers University, surveyed nearly 1,300 people to gauge their support for political violence and found that “tolerance — and even advocacy — for political violence appears to have surged, especially among politically left-leaning segments of the population.”

For example, 56 percent of those identifying as left-of-center reported that the murder of President Trump would be at least “somewhat justified,” while 50 percent said the same for Elon Musk (within that grouping, 14 percent and 11 percent, respectively, said such murders would be “completely justified”). Among self-identifying right-of-center respondents, 20 percent could at least somewhat justify the assassination of Trump, and 14 percent of Musk. The overall figures are horrifying, of course, but the ideological contrast is even more so.

A 2025 study of approximately 68,000 college students by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) yielded similar results. While in 2020 about 1 in 5 students said it was acceptable to use violence to stop a speaker, that number has since risen to one-third. After breaking down the statistics, the organization concluded, “Those students who are the furthest to the left have been the most accepting of violence for as long as we’ve asked the question. That includes very liberal and democratic socialist students. But a rising tide of acceptance of violence has raised all boats. Now, regardless of party or ideology, students across the board are more open to violence as a way to shut down a speaker.”

The search for meaning in the reaction to the assassination of this young political activist raises serious, even existential, issues regarding America’s political future. Regarding Charlie Kirk himself, do I support everything he advocated? No, maybe 60 percent tops. Did his outspoken advocacy of conservative principles sometimes bleed into brashness, contentiousness, and insensitivity? Yes, it did. But much more often Kirk embraced the ethos emblazoned on his merch — “Prove Me Wrong” — as he entered the leftist lion’s dens on college campuses hundreds of times over the last decade to debate vigorously, and usually with patience, good humor, and success, the left-wing students determined to prove him the fool. He urged those in the audience who disagreed with him to “come to the front of the line” for a rhetorical tussle over ideas. Kirk’s joyful embrace of this quintessentially American political practice was his most attractive public characteristic.

We should agree that words do not constitute violence, nor should anyone react to them with violence. Free political expression forms the bedrock of American life, and the clash of political ideas, even those notions we disagree with or even loathe, must occur unhindered. Characterizing conservative political opponents as fascists, Nazis, and vicious authoritarians and then murdering them constructs the road to perdition.

We might keep in mind Kirk’s frequent reply to such accusers, “I’m a pretty lousy Nazi if I sit here for hours listening and arguing with you.” Political violence, in a perverse revision of Krauthammer’s fundamental law, is both deeply wrong and deeply stupid. It violates basic American principles and, tactically, likely creates a furious backlash that will swamp its perpetrators.

Given the disgraceful comments of many “However Progressives” regarding the Kirk assassination, illumination in this dark scene comes from an unexpected quarter. Senator Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist whose political views I oppose nearly across the board, provided a model of humane judgment and patriotism in his remarks the day after the sickening event of September 10. They deserve to be quoted at some length:

I want to say a few words regarding the terrible murder yesterday of Charlie Kirk — someone whom I strongly disagreed with on almost every issue but who was clearly a very smart and effective communicator and organizer — and someone unafraid to get out into the world and engage the public. My condolences go out to his wife and family.

A free and democratic society, which is what America is supposed to be about, depends upon the basic premise that people can speak out, organize and take part in public life without fear — without worrying that they might be killed, injured, or humiliated for expressing their political views. In fact, that is the essence of what freedom is about and what democracy is about. You have a point of view, that’s great. I have a point of view that is different than yours, that’s great. Let’s argue it out. We make our case to the American people at the local, state and federal level, and we hold free elections in which the people decide what they want. That’s called freedom and democracy….

If we honestly believe in democracy, if we believe in freedom, all of us must be loud and clear. Political violence, regardless of ideology, is not the answer and must be condemned.

Sanders has it exactly right. Unlike the shameful reaction of so many progressives to the cold-blooded murder of a conservative activist by a progressive zealot, Sanders holds up a standard around which all decent, honorable, truly patriotic people can rally. In a constitutional republic where free speech and debate are sacrosanct, where elections and the rule of law determine our public life, some actions are so repugnant that they should be condemned without qualification, with no “howevers” in sight. If America means anything, the assassination of a political opponent for his speech surely must be one of them.

READ MORE from Steven Watts:

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Steven Watts is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Missouri and the author of eight books on American culture and politics, including Citizen Cowboy: Will Rogers and the American People (2024).