Those reading this as approval of Kirk’s killing are reading words that aren’t there. I don’t want to live in a world of normalized violence. Charlie Kirk spent his life ensuring we all have to live in such a world. We do everything a disservice to elide the reality of that.

The most piercing judgments of Charlie Kirk I see today are the ones that simply quote his words for all to hear. What a legacy he earned.

Charlie Kirk woke up every day and made a conscious decision to be the Charlie Kirk we all saw. That’s the meanest thing I can think of to say about pretty much anyone, and it also happens to be completely true.

We can remember what he did, and we can remember who he did it to.

And we all know that’s true, because that’s all he did. Ultimately, that’s all he was, because he never bothered to be anything else.

And now he’s gone, so let’s do him the honor of remembering him with accuracy.

The truth of the matter is that if anyone but Charlie Kirk had been killed at today’s shooting, then Charlie Kirk would be out there right now using the shooting as pretext to deliver arguments designed to make sure that the next shooting would happen, and the next one, and the next, and the next.

I think there’s real tension in the administration between a faction that wants a thousand year Reich and another faction that wants to run a Simpsons Monorail scheme and it’s creating a lot of confusing strategy