To state the obvious: the assassination of Charlie Kirk was deplorable. Political violence has no place in a civilized society, and the death of Kirk – along with the lethal attack on Democratic legislators in Minnesota, the beating of Nancy Pelosi’s husband, the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, and the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise – underscore that the polarization of politics has reached dangerous levels.

But to deplore the death of Kirk doesn’t mean canonizing him. And it doesn’t serve as an excuse for Donald Trump and his followers to pledge retribution against their political enemies.

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Does Charlie Kirk deserve the special posthumous privileges and awards he has been given?

Kirk had an outsized influence in Trumpworld. He successfully encouraged young men to follow Trump, giving Trump a much-needed edge in last year’s election. He was close to Donald Trump Jr. and JD Vance; indeed, Kirk played a major role in setting Vance up as Trump’s running mate.

But most Americans, who have better things to do than follow politics obsessively, had no idea of who Kirk was before his assassination. From the mainstream media coverage, you would suppose he was engaged in Socratic dialogues with students around the country. “Charlie Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way,” New York Times columnist Ezra Klein declared. “He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion.”

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True, Kirk was touring campuses. He spent a lot of time dunking on liberal students and filming the interactions. The YouTube channel for Turning Point USA, Kirk’s organization, is filled with videos where Kirk “ANNIHILATES” or “DESTROYS” liberal students. Kirk was setting out to collect social media content to confirm that he was right, not to persuade people.

Kirk wasn’t just “practicing politics.” He was attacking some of the basics of democracy. He echoed Trump’s lies about the 2020 election being stolen. Indeed, he sent 80 buses to the January 6 rally that led to the insurrection at the Capitol. (He later pleaded the Fifth Amendment when questioned by a Congressional committee.)

Then there’s the hateful language. Kirk wanted someone to bail out the man who attacked Nancy Pelosi’s husband to prove the conspiracy theory that it was the result of a gay liaison. Kirk made attacking trans people a hobby. His last words were about how “too many” trans people were involved in mass shootings.

Yet somehow, Kirk is now being held up in the media as the epitome of free speech. As a reminder, he began his career by compiling a list of professors whom he felt were unduly liberal, some of whom received death threats as a result. His death is being used as an excuse to fire people, some of whom – but not all – weren’t sorry to see Kirk go.

It’s not surprising that Trump would seize upon Kirk’s assassination to go after his political opponents. In what was a threat that the media elided over, Trump said he would go after the “radical left” and, most ominously, “the organizations that fund it and support it.” For Trump, that would mean virtually anyone he doesn’t like.

Democrats showed once again that they failed to understand the political moment. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), himself the target of an antisemitic assassination attempt this year, ordered flags lowered to half-mast for Kirk. While Kirk denied being antisemitic, he fulminated against liberal Jews, complaining that “some of the largest financiers of left-wing, anti-white causes have been Jewish Americans.”

Is that the sort of man Democrats should be honoring? Shapiro wasn’t the only one. California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), who had Kirk on his podcast earlier this year, called on people to continue Kirk’s work.

Perhaps the more frightening question is whether the response to Kirk’s death is an indication of just how far we have come to accept the authoritarian, anti-free speech movement in American politics as part of a new normal. Power deodorizes, and the right wing is in power. The mainstream media, which is attuned to its need for access to power, goes along. Democratic politicians seem to think that extremism is just another version of politics to be co-opted, instead of something to be fought. Somehow, we just slid into this time. That may be the scariest part of all.

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