Different rules apply. After an act of violence, Democrats must be gracious, empathetic and call for calm on all sides, while Republicans can mock the victims, blame only one side and demand more violence. And there’s a further asymmetry: a single post from a random, anonymous user online will be treated as a statement from “the left”, while the outpourings of the right’s most powerful voices, in politics or the media, and including the president himself, somehow get a free pass.

As part of this etiquette, it’s become poor taste to point out Kirk’s actual views. It’s as if the belief that no one should be killed for their opinions requires you to withhold any judgment of those opinions. But Kirk did not hold back. He was happy to tell people that he would be nervous getting on a plane flown by a Black pilot, and to talk of “prowling Blacks”; to tell Taylor Swift to “Reject feminism. Submit to your husband … You’re not in charge”; to deny the truth of the 2020 election; to recommend that children should watch public executions; and to suggest “Jewish dollars” were to blame for the spread of “cultural Marxism”.

Many liberal luminaries have swerved past this back catalogue, preferring to express their admiration for Kirk’s willingness to debate and his genuine gift for engaging the young. That has left the field clear for the right to redefine Kirk not as the extremist he was – and was proud to be – but as a paragon of civic participation, one who merits a posthumous presidential medal of freedom and a lowering of the flag. While the liberal left is observing the conventional pieties, the right is swiftly sanitising Kirk’s views and canonising him, hailing him as a martyr for the cause of what they insist is “simple common sense”. As a result, it will have moved the Overton window yet further in its direction.

These are dynamics Kirk knew well and that he was adroit at using to his advantage. He understood that a culture war inherently favours those willing to disregard the rules. It is a lesson that liberals and the left are, rightly, reluctant to learn – but that reluctance comes at an increasingly high price.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/12/us-era-political-violence-donald-trump-charlie-kirk