Michael Fanone

I am not going to cheer Charlie Kirk's death, nor will I condemn it, but I found Kirk's methods abhorrent. These appearances were not really "debates." They were opportunities for Kirk to advance his despicable agenda, while applying a (very thin) veneer of "free speech" to his toxicity. He would often rudely talk over his "debate opponents" and not even respond to what they were saying. The "debates" were just a ruse to try and convince other young people of the "rightness" of conservatism, while targeting faculty and anything else he disliked. There was nothing "sincere" about Charlie Kirk.

My Statement to the American People on The Death of Charlie Kirk

Michael Fanone - Substack

Charlie Kirk is dead. Shot in the middle of a speech at Utah Valley University.

I am not going to sugarcoat it: I have nothing but contempt for Charlie Kirk’s politics. He made a career out of poisoning young minds with grievance, conspiracy, and hate. He profited off division. He defended the indefensible. He celebrated cruelty. I don’t grieve for his ideas, and I won’t sanitize what he represented.

But here’s the thing: violence has no place in American politics. None.

I know what it’s like to be on the business end of political violence. 

I felt fists, flagpoles, and tasers on January 6th. I heard men scream that they were going to kill me in the name of Donald Trump. 

That day taught me something too many of us are still trying to ignore: once political violence becomes acceptable—once you decide that your enemy isn’t just wrong but expendable—you don’t control where it leads.

If you cheered this shooting because you hated Kirk, you’re no better than the mob that chanted for Mike Pence’s hanging. If you shrug it off because it happened to the other side, you’re part of the same sickness that’s rotting this country.

The truth is, we’re running out of safe spaces for disagreement. Universities, statehouses, even the Capitol itself—each one has been marked by the threat of blood. 

Democracy doesn’t survive in that environment. Free speech doesn’t survive. We don’t survive.

Charlie Kirk’s death doesn’t make him a martyr. It doesn’t redeem his politics. But it does mark another line we’ve crossed in this country—a line that should never have been crossed in the first place.

I’ll say it again: violence is not politics. And if we don’t reclaim that principle right now, we’re going to lose the very thing that makes this place worth fighting for.

Original.