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Charlie Kirk became one of the most powerful figures in politics because he did something extraordinary in today’s world.
He went to college campuses and conversed with young people.
Kirk debated folks who vehemently disagreed with him. The devout Christian publicly had good-humored exchanges with a dude dressed in a satanist costume and a number of trans-identifying young adults. He fearlessly welcomed any and all speakers to the microphone.
After all, there’s no Block button in the real world.
The 31-year-old aimed to persuade and challenge the lefty status quo on college campuses because he knew that intellectual friction is not only entertaining, but necessary to forge a healthier nation.
“When people stop talking, really bad stuff starts,” he said when asked by a student why he bothered.
He didn’t do this behind a screen, nor did he wear a mask like the cowardly radical types on the progressive far left.
Despite becoming a political rock star who could have stopped touring, he continued to show up — vulnerable, which gave an evil assassin a deadly opportunity on Wednesday, at Utah Valley University. Kirk was gunned down while doing what made him so famous: speaking to other humans.
And boy, does it feel like America has crossed the Rubicon into a very dark place.
So much of it began to fester with the twisted battle cry of the 2020 BLM riots that decimated cities and killed people: Words were violence, but actual violence was simply justice.
It’s more difficult to hate someone in real life, to their face. But, unlike Kirk, a majority have buried their heads in the online world — where realities are dictated by algorithms tailored to our very specific interests and echo chambers.
Are we even sharing a world anymore? It’s dystopian.
Social media are a grim place. It’s true that many establishment Democrats and media figures have taken to X and Instagram to express sympathy for Kirk’s family and disavowed political violence. Yet there’s also a heavy outpouring from loony lefties posting deranged celebrations of Kirk’s death — and receiving an overwhelming amount of likes and positive comments.
But we have seen, over and over again, how delusion in the virtual world begets casual violence in the real one.
What did we expect when we unplugged ourselves from meaningful human interaction? Relying on entertainment from our phones, delivery from Amazon and AI to answer every question, even outsourcing love to apps, where we mindlessly swipe.
The society we’ve cultivated is desensitized and detached.
Everything is disposable, from the frivolous — a $14 dress from Shein — to the more sinister: other people’s lives.
We are bottomless pits, quenching our cravings and then moving on to the next hit.
That’s more evident than anywhere else with our rapidly moving news cycle, where big stories live for five minutes, until we’re distracted by something else. We scroll mindlessly through truly heavy stories about human loss, violence and injustice, and give an apathetic “Seinfeld”-esque appraisal: “That’s a shame.”
We don’t actually feel the gravity of what’s transpired. Hot-take social media have given us dangerous ADD.
Just a few days ago, many online were on the rabid hunt for the Phillies Karen, demanding she be found, doxxed, fired, banished from polite society. They wanted human sacrifice.
Then our attention was diverted by a real horror. Video footage of Decarlos Brown Jr. stabbing Ukraine refugee Iryna Varutska on a Charlotte, NC, train. We saw her die, right there.
On Wednesday afternoon, our heads swiveled to another sickening crime with the killing of Kirk.
As a colleague lamented on Wednesday evening, “This week, we’ve seen two gruesome murders on Twitter.”
It’s time to log off from the snuff films and the death cheers and speak to real people. Share a meal or a cocktail and argue with them in real life.
Forge new human connections: That’s the only thing that can save us from the brink.