I LOST A FRIEND OVER CHARLIE KIRK’S DEATH And that may seem odd that I am making this about me, but hear me out. I was on the air a year ago when the news broke that conservative thought leader and activist Charlie Kirk had been shot. In disbelief I sought out the video that was already circulating of the moment the bullet ripped through his neck. I regret watching that to this day. I said on the air after watching it that I didn’t believe someone could survive that sort of gunshot wound. I was right. On the same day we also had yet another school shooting, this one in Evergreen, so I found myself in my least favorite position, covering a breaking news story where parents in Evergreen had no clue if THEIR child was the one who had been shot, with our news department and I having no real good information to share. I hate those days. Thankfully those two children survived though with serious injuries, and unfortunately the troubled young man who shot them killed himself. He was a kid. Kids often do dumb things, but in these days we have kids doing things with permanent and undoable repercussions. But he was still a kid.
The man who took it upon himself to shoot Charlie Kirk was also a young person, though already a man. Somehow his brain decided that to protect his trans lover from mean words he needed to kill Charlie Kirk. That seemed like a good idea. An idea that perhaps if he’d said it out loud to himself he may have realized how crazy it was, but he remained silent as he put his plan into action. In one sense, he was successful. Turning Point USA, the organization Charlie Kirk created in his mom’s basement when he was a teen himself, is in disarray. Former allies like the vile Candace Owens have made a good living spreading lies about his wife and death. The killer stopped one of the most effective and efficient voices for freedom and goodness in this country. And for that he faces a possible death sentence. I hope it was worth it to him now.
I generally speaking don’t feel a person I don’t know’s death on a deep personal level. Not that I’m glad they died or anything, but I save my despair for the people close to me. But this was different. This was a person who in a sense did what I did, only up close and personal. And he did it in a way that was far less inflammatory than I have in the past. He just talked to people. I just talk to people. But now talk was being used as an excuse for murder and people on the Left were CELEBRATING his murder. It was the grossest, most disgusting display I’ve ever seen. People wearing Halloween costumes as Charlie with blood covering the top of the shirt as if they’d been shot in the neck. Celebrating the death of a man with a wife and young children who now have no father. I saw comments about how lucky his two little girls were to not have him be their dad anymore. It was the most vile display I can remember. Over politics. It made me wonder what we had become.
Enter my oldest friend in the universe. She and I had been friends since 4th grade, and she lives in New York and is a reliable Democrat, as most in NYC are. That had never been an issue for me, because we simply didn’t talk about politics. I hate talking about politics with my friends and family because frankly, I am far more informed than they are because this is what I do for a living. I’m not being arrogant, it just is. It’s like a surgeon saying they know more about surgery because it’s what they do for a living. Or an accountant knowing more about accounting. It just is. And that, I thought, was okay with her. After Charlie’s death, I admitted to her and another friend in our group chat that I was NOT okay. That I was deeply affected and upset and not sure what to do. And my longest friend, who is also a therapist by the way, decided to take that opportunity to tell me he was an awful person and I shouldn’t be sad. Oh, and that my job had made me something awful and I should quit my job because I used to be “so cool”. That being steeped in right wing politics was horrible and that she was afraid, and this one rattles around in my head, that I was “driving the bus that was destroying our country.”
She’s known me for 40 years. I don’t know that she had ever listened to my show, or even read my blog. But with 40 years of history, she decided I was on the wrong side and in her arrogance decided this was her shot to “fix” me I guess. I don’t need fixing. I need friends who don’t judge.
And that’s why I realized with great clarity that the political Left really doesn’t care about understanding the political Right. And I’m aware that there are those on the Right who don’t care about the policial Left, but I’ve never seen the depths of cruelty from the Right that I saw about Charlie Kirk. The glee at the death of a young father. And it changed the way I view our political system. I am far less likely to try to seek out any positive intent in the Democratic party. I now see clearly that Democrats in Colorado don’t really care that by every measure they have made Colorado demonstrably worse, and they only care about forcing what THEY believe onto the rest of us. For most of my life I was told that Republicans wanted to be in your bedroom but Democrats wanted to be in my wallet. I no longer believe that. Democrats want to control every aspect of your life, in every room, and if you dare to think differently you are to be destroyed. Say the wrong pronoun? Off with your head! Have a coffee shop with Christian principles? They will protest and harass customers outside your business! Express support for a Republican idea? You must be destroyed financially. Try to talk to young people about freedom and why it’s so important to protect? You get shot in the neck.
The worst part is I hate feeling like this. I work very hard to judge people on who they are and how they treat others. Are they kind? Are they funny? Are they hard workers who want to take good care of their families and themselves? Do they treat their parents well? These are the standards I used to use. Now I start with one: are they active in today’s Democrat party? If so, I’m not sure I can be friends. Fool me once, shame on you and all that. But what does this mean for the country?
Back in the Reagan years Tip O’Neill used to have dinner with the political opposition on a regular basis. They would argue on the floor of the House and then head to Old Ebbit Grill for crab cakes. Those days are so far behind us now. We live in a world where politics is Blood Sport and people have made their political party their entire identity. Too many on the Left and Right have nothing in their lives but politics. It shows. Civility in daily life feels like an outdated concept. Personal responsibility is quaint. People are constantly angry and the worst part is our policians are doing a TERRIBLE job on both sides of the aisle. Their overspending is leading us to disaster, social security is on the ropes, and they are arguing about the dumbest, most inane things possible to distract and divide us against one another. But here I am, not calling for unity. Why not? Because I don’t believe the other side would treat me the same way I would treat them. I now know with certainty that there would be people on the Left who would celebrate my death if I got hit by a bus today. And I don’t know how to fix this.
The only thing I can do is remember Charlie Kirk and try to be more like him. To seek understanding and conversation and debate in the hopes that I can help someone understand who I am and how I think. He often said “when people stop talking, that’s when you get violence”. He was wrong. But he spoke often of being courageous in your beliefs. Perhaps I should have talked to my friend about politics years ago. Perhaps I should have been more virulent about my opposition to the idiotic policies she endorsed and more passionate about the policies I endorsed. But I genuinely believe that would have just cut the friendship off much sooner. Because when I did try to talk about it, we ended up here. RIP, Charlie Kirk, you are deeply, deeply missed.
Exactly Mandy. Keep on doing what you do. We need the voice of common sense and reason out there or they will shout us down.
Thank you Mandy for putting into words what so many of us are feeling these days. It is indeed a very sad day as we remember the light that Charlie could shine on any conversation, and the hope that he made blossom in people who never imagined the change of heart they would feel when he helped them bump into truth. I miss him. . .alot.