I Have Never Been More Pessimistic About Politics Than Now

In my first week of my new job as a lawyer, I saw the alert on a news app on my phone that Charlie Kirk had been shot at an event at Utah Valley University. I was still at work, so I had my phone silenced, but a group chat I was in was buzzing about the killing of Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte earlier in the day by a homeless man on a train, and the subsequent reaction by right-wing Twitter.

I kept my phone silenced because I was finishing the tail end of the workday, but I saw more notifications speculating on whether Kirk could have survived. Friends who saw the graphic video of the shooting said something like “there is no way he could have survived.” After work, I scrolled through X and saw the video. I had to watch it several times because I was initially confused about what happened in the commotion, but I agreed with that interpretation, and a few hours later, Charlie Kirk’s death was confirmed.

I realize there is nothing I can say about the killing of Charlie Kirk without upsetting someone, and every instinct I have tells me it’s better to say nothing at all because of the sensitivity of the issue than to make any comment. I think you will still get the sense that I am trying very hard to thread the needle and still make everyone happy, where on this particular issue, it might just be impossible, where there seems to be no middle ground. So if this feels like a mess where I’m trying to be careful to also seek clarity in a moment where there is little, then it is, but that’s the clarity I am trying hard to seek right now.

Much of the eroding public discourse on this topic might have to do with who Charlie Kirk was or the fact that so many people, including myself, saw the video of his assassination in a way they wouldn’t have 20 years ago, which makes it feel so much more personal.

His death has made me so much more pessimistic about politics and genuinely believe that this is the closest the American right and left have gotten to real civil war, especially with so many leaders in the country seeming to sanction the use of the federal government to retaliate against the left and scapegoating the left. I have had a busy last several days with starting my new job and social events in my personal life, but Kirk’s killing and the reaction to it have been ever-present on my mind the last few days.

I have found it somewhat difficult to concentrate at my new job with the world seeming to burn down around me. I felt this way after the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent protests, as well as the January 6th riots. But this time, it has felt different in the escalating level of vitriol and breakdown of civic engagement that makes me scared to say anything about this moment, for fear of both personal and professional repercussions. I don’t think anything I say should be controversial, and I have better standard, mainstream views similar to many leaders in the Democratic Party, and that exact feeling is something I know I should push back against right now.

One distinction I think is important to note is that many Republican leaders have blamed the left and called for retribution like Trump. Immediately, Donald Trump blamed the attack on the “radical left” and blamed the left’s rhetoric as “directly responsible for the terrorism that w’ere seeing in our country today.” Elon Musk tweeted, “the left is the party of murder.” Stephen Miller said that, under Trump’s leadership, he was planning on dismantling “the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence” and that these organizations were “formenting riots, that are doxxing, that are trying to inspire terrorism.”

Meanwhile, Democratic leaders like Gavin Newsom, Barack Obama, Kamala Harris, and Joe Biden have condemned the violence.

But on social media, it was a different story than our political leaders, and thus, the dichotomy we see in leadership is a bit unfair since the whole left is being tarred by its online fringes. Unless they are public figures like Trump or Musk, I will largely just comment on what I have seen on my feed. I will also avoid drawing attention to anyone’s particular posts for fear of more widespread attention than they bargained for. In the era of people facing widespread personal and professional repercussions for their political views, I don’t want to contribute to that chilling effect most of us feel right now.

I saw people who I had never seen a political post about before grieve for Charlie Kirk as someone who clearly meant a lot to them and who was a hero. I saw a lot of people posting about how Charlie Kirk is resting in Heaven and how it’s important to keep carrying on his mission. I had an immediate instinct to speculate about people’s politics based on what they posted, given that I am in progressive spaces where liberals are usually outspoken and comfortable sharing their beliefs, and conservatives are usually tight-lipped.

I am not conservative, but I did understand it on an emotional level: Charlie Kirk was to many on the right, particularly younger, more Gen Z voters, he was like what AOC is to many of us on the left, or who Obama is to many in the more mainstream left. I felt sorry and prayed for Kirk’s family and the people who followed him. I understood that the grief was not just limited to Kirk’s family, but also a lot of people who were influenced by him.

This was similarly dismayed by the people on my own side on the left who seemed to celebrate Kirk’s death on social media. There was a more subdued version that said, “I don’t think he deserved to die but I feel no sympathy,” followed by reasons why that person didn’t like Kirk with a couple Charlie Kirk quotes about his views on the Second Amendment, trans people or people of color, or exhortations that the killings of Minnesota lawmakers or the school shooting the same day or the continuing humanitarian disaster in Gaza did not receive the same attention or outpouring of sympathy. The nastier posts were more celebratory, and my heart sank every time someone seemed to suggest Charlie Kirk reaped what he sowed, and I feared how these posts could be used by the right and fan the flames of this vitriol.

The last time I remember a response this lacking in empathy for someone’s killing and assassination in cold blood was the significant celebration of the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson by Luigi Mangione. Now, let me qualify that statement to say that the glee and celebration I saw was much more pronounced about Thompson than Kirk, and there was no right-wing blaming of the “radical left” when Thompson was killed than Kirk.

The reason is that Thompson was not a household name, and prior to his killing, few people knew who he was. But Thompson, despite his killing in cold blood, became a symbol of a health care system that leaves far too many without coverage, a symbol of rife capitalism gone wrong. I saw dozens, if not hundreds, of comments about personal stories of being denied coverage and having adverse health outcomes — sometimes by UnitedHealthcare.

I saw the lionization of Mangione as a folk hero and a commonly shared quote criticizing those decrying violence being wrong — something about America always being a violent country and how we were built on violence, including the genocide of Native Americans. I don’t like the health care system either. I have had family members denied coverage by UnitedHealthcare, too.

But here were a bunch of friends, acquaintances, and strangers on social media celebrating the killing of a man that left a woman widowed and two children without a father. In private circles, I called out that I think murder is wrong, and it was wrong that people were celebrating and making jokes about Thompson’s death.

One person called me out of touch and privileged for making that comment for empathy about Thompson, and yes, I have been relatively privileged in terms of my health, but I immediately perceived that I would only get backlash for calling for reason and a lowering of the temperature following Thompson’s death. To express that “murder is wrong” was to signal privilege and an allegiance to capitalism’s robber barons, to a space in the left I often occupy. To make a comment about “the real perpetrator of violence” being United Healthcare based on denials of coverage, was to signal being a champion of the working class and downtrodden.

This tendency to shame and purity test is present on both sides, with the right purity testing based on allegiance to Trump, and the left purity testing based on ideological conformity on various issues. Again, I do think one side is worse than the other because one is backed by the full might of the federal government and state action, whereas the other is more defined by its fringes.

They’re not exactly the same, but I do think the killings of Thompson and Kirk both bring out the worst in these social media fringes. Kirk is different in that he was a right-wing hero and is bringing a response from various right-wing leaders, but let me be clear in what I believe: murder is wrong, and the killing of Charlie Kirk for his beliefs was wrong.

Perhaps this is just how social media algorithms work, but it actually wasn’t the fact that people celebrated Kirk’s death that disheartened me the most — it was the fact that most of these posts had dozens, hundreds, even thousands of likes.

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I stumbled upon one New York Times article about Kirk, where the second top recommended comment said something to the effect of “it’s a shame America is grieving the death of a White Supremacist.” I would only see one or two comments on these posts, typically with far fewer likes or fanfare, that these celebratory posts were in very bad taste. I agree that these posts are in very bad taste, particularly so soon after Kirk’s death. And as someone who is a free speech absolutist on not only government action, but the way we engage in the public sphere, I have been similarly dismayed that people making these posts are losing their jobs based on their inflammatory posts about Charlie Kirk.

Charlie Kirk did not deserve to die. I did not like Charlie Kirk, agree with much of what he said, or like his tactics to “own the libs” or make college students look stupid. I also did not pay that much attention to him before his shooting, only hearing about him vaguely from interviews with Gavin Newsom, so part of my more spectator-like reaction and dismay comes from simply not feeling that strongly about Charlie Kirk like his ardent fans or his deepest critics.

Before and after 22-year-old Tyler Robinson was caught and revealed to be the shooter of Kirk, I was dismayed at the speculation of which side was responsible for Kirk’s death. I understood that at a certain point, the facts didn’t matter and people would take whatever fact fit their narrative.

I have seen many on my own side point to Robinson’s conservative family and the fact that he wore a Trump costume on Halloween in 2017 as proof that he was a Trump supporter, or speculate that Robinson was affiliated with alt-right groups inspired by Nick Fuentes of the Proud Boys. I have seen many on the right point to the engravings on the bullets of “bella ciao,” the Italian phrase from an Italian antifascist song, and another bullet saying “Hey fascist! Catch!” as confirmation that Robinson was indeed a radical leftist.

I was shown now, more than any other time, the extent to which we on the left and people on the right seem to get their news in completely different ways, to the point where we may as well be living in different realities. I was shown how much people cling to whatever facts or logical connections fit best with their narrative and side, or the extent to which some people might completely deny facts for a political narrative. I personally think Robinson was just someone who was very online and played a lot of video games, and we will never really get a clear picture of his politics to say for certain.

I have to remind myself that social media is not real life, that the nastiness people have shown in either celebration of Kirk’s death or seeking retribution against the “radical left” and seeking to use the tools of the state to suppress the left are not the majority of people I will encounter face to face every day. I have to remind myself that most people are still good people, and are a lot more than their political beliefs.

And as hard as I try to remind myself of these things, I cannot shake this very unsettling gut feeling I have that something is very wrong, that politics and political discourse have fundamentally changed. Perhaps that is the mastery of social media keeping me “hooked,” but that is why I am struggling to look away from the news, from social media. I hope I am wrong, that yes, this is a flashpoint in how we engage, and as someone on the left, I do fear what tools of the state this administration may use to suppress its perceived enemies as a reaction to the death of one of the right’s biggest figures.

My job is in Washington, D.C., and I have to commute in and out of D.C. every day. A month ago, President Trump deployed the National Guard to D.C. to fight perceived violent crime. I have only seen them in places that actually have a high concentration of tourists so far — the National Mall and Union Station. So far, I have only seen the National Guardsmen talking to each other and not really doing anything, which is probably as good a situation as most can hope for at the moment. However, it is the feeling of what could happen if things escalate, if the administration calls for a greater show of force, if the administration calls for the suppression of a protest it does not like.

That situation and possibility is far less tenuous than the possibility of more political violence against public political figures, of continuing erosion of discourse online. I worry about a cascade of political violence, especially if there is the retribution right-wing figures are talking about.

There is very little I can look at or do online to give cause for optimism right now. I hope time will cool things down, and I will continue to lay low until it does, but the only words of solace I found were the words of Governor Cox after Tyler Robinson was apprehended. Cox urged Americans to “choose a different path” and urged young people to build a whole different culture. He said it was a “gruesome” killing that was “not good for us to consume.”

“Social media is a cancer on our society right now…And I would encourage people to log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member, go out and do good in your community,” Cox said.

I want to believe that we are above this as a country. I want to believe that most people think political violence is wrong, that killing someone just because you disagree with them or because they are a healthcare CEO is wrong.

I want to believe that most people are not the ones calling for retribution or glee on social media, that Trump and Musk do not represent the actual feelings about liberals of the majority of people who voted for Trump (I think this hope can engender the most backlash). I want to believe that even people who post crazy things on social media, either calling for retribution or celebrating a man’s assassination, are not like that in real life, that social media and the Internet are just bringing the worst in them.

This last point is one I know to be true. I have seen people who celebrated the death of Kirk and Thompson on social media to be kind, compassionate people to everyone they meet in real life. I never bring up the fact that I saw what they posted on their Instagram stories or on Facebook, and it made me uncomfortable, but I have to disconnect people’s online presence from their real life personas, just like I have to do for the hardcore MAGA Trump supporters in my life, including the few that have called for punishment and retaliation against the left on social media.

I may be naive. But I still need to press forward with hope, even if it’s a blind hope. I will not find that hope on Facebook, Instagram, or X (or at least not my feed as it exists now). I will not find it listening to my New York Times podcast. I can only find it through putting the phone away, living my life, still engaging with what I believe is right and wrong in real life, but maybe not through social media anymore.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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