Charlie Kirk’s Assassination is Latest Evidence That US is Suffering an Epidemic of Leftist Violence

By Miranda Devine

We are suffering through an epidemic of leftist violence.

The ruthless assassination of conservative youth leader Charlie Kirk, 31, at a crowded campus event in Utah on Wednesday is the latest manifestation of the hateful rhetoric aimed at President Trump and his MAGA movement.

It’s a sad irony that Kirk’s shockingly public murder happened the day before the trial begins of Ryan Routh, one of the alleged assassins who tried to rub out Trump during the 2024 campaign.

Prescient as always, Kirk understood the consequences of the escalating violent rhetoric of the left, as he and Trump kept winning the hearts and minds of a new generation, especially young men, with logic and common sense.

“Assassination culture is spreading on the left,” he tweeted two months ago. “Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump.”

In California, activists are naming ballot measures after alleged CEO-killer Luigi Mangione.

“The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response.”

Contrary to the narrative pushed by left-wing media and fanned by President Joe Biden and his administration, the political violence is almost exclusively from the left.

Dem encouragement

Setting the scene were the deadly BLM-Antifa riots that engulfed the country in the summer of 2020, which were tacitly encouraged by Democrats like Kamala Harris and Tim Walz as a way to destabilize then-President Trump and then project their own culpability and motivations onto the J6 Capitol riot by Trump supporters one afternoon.

Then, of course, Trump was the target of two assassination attempts last year, including almost having his head blown off, but miraculously tilting it at the right moment for the bullet to nick his ear instead.

There was also the arson and vandalism against Tesla dealerships to intimidate Elon Musk and punish him for his support for Trump.

A few months ago, Israeli Embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and fiancée Sarah Lynn Milgrim were assassinated, allegedly by a Palestinian activist, outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC.

UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was assassinated in December 2024, allegedly by a wealthy leftist spouting left-wing critiques of corporate greed and health care inequities.

There was the assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his Maryland home by a deranged abortion activist, and of course the leftist who shot up Republicans at a congressional baseball practice in Virginia in 2017.

Even the arson attack on the home of Pennsylvania’s Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro, which pundits like Jake Tapper try to cite as an example of bipartisan targets, was perpetrated by a left-wing, pro-Hamas, anti-Israel activist.

Charlie Kirk’s answer was civil discourse. Contrary to the lies spread by MSNBC and CNN on the day of his death, he was not “a divisive figure” and he did not engage in “hate speech.”

He reached across the aisle and engaged young people respectfully in dialogue. He was never personal or nasty. He was courteous and civilized. He was kind and patient.

He would tour universities under the banner “Prove Me Wrong,” encouraging students to challenge him with any question. He put forward his views calmly and with a smile — capitalism is better than socialism, there are only two sexes — and was happy and courageous enough to debate anybody in good faith.

That’s why he won hearts and minds on campuses and galvanized a generation. It’s what made him such a potent political force, helping Trump win in 2024.

It’s why his political opponents had to lie that he was hateful and divisive. It’s precisely because he was neither of those things that young people listened to him.

Plainspoken truth

He was not afraid to be plainspoken. He didn’t sugarcoat uncomfortable facts. He told the ugly truths that America tries to bury.

A protective father and husband, he was particularly exercised by the random stabbing murder of 23- year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a light rail car in Charlotte, NC.

In one of his last tweets, he wrote: “If we want things to change, it’s 100% necessary to politicize the senseless murder of Iryna Zarutska because it was politics that allowed a savage monster with 14 priors to be free on the streets to kill her.”

“This was one of the … coldest, most senseless murders I’ve ever seen,” he said in an interview. “This whole criminal justice reform stuff has been a complete failure.”

He knew that the lies the Democrats and the media told about George Floyd’s death in 2020 are what got Zarutska killed.

The lies are what drove disastrous criminal justice reforms, like cashless bail and emptying prisons, that were predicated on systemic racism, a nonexistent problem designed to drive a wedge between black and white Americans.

Kirk called out that rancid, divisive lie for what it is. He held up a mirror to Democrats and made them see themselves as they are: the party of projection, accusing others of what’s in their own hearts.

When Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) proposed a prayer for Kirk on the House floor Wednesday afternoon, a dozen Democrats reportedly protested.

You could hear them shout “No!” and “Pass some gun laws!”

“America will never be the same,” Kirk wrote Tuesday night in his final tweet about Zarutska.

It was accompanied by a photo of the young woman, just after she was stabbed, wide-eyed, terrified, in shock as she looked around at her killer, hand to her mouth, knees pulled up in the fetal position, before she slumped to the floor and bled out.

Kirk wasn’t to know that 12 hours and 35 minutes after he wrote those words, he would join her in death.

No, America will never be the same.

But Kirk’s death, like his life’s work, is a turning point.

Look at what he accomplished in 31 years.

Imagine what he might have gone on to do. In his short life, he formed a future generation of leaders who see the world as he did, clearly, logically, with reason tempered by compassion, and with faith in Jesus Christ.

In death, he may yet accomplish more than he already has. His mode was to be strong, brave and resolute. Live your values. Get married, have children, make the world a better place, with courage and grace for your fellow man.

That’s his legacy, and it’s up to all Americans of goodwill to take up his mission.