Another Perspective on Charlie Kirk

Many of my writings last week on Charlie Kirk's murder started out ala "Let's not celebrate the death of this asshole".
 
My characterization was based on quotes and sound bites I'd been reading along along, and which people on the right insist were used horrendously out of context. And perhaps I've been spun. Perhaps we've been spun.

I never close the door to the possibility that I've been spun. Especially now, as extreme partisanship turns darker and inexorably violent. It's far easier to be spun when you're mad. And it's impossible to avoid being spun when no one out there is shooting straight. Truth is a casualty, and that's upsetting for me, because I like truth better than my own opinions. I like truth even when it makes me look bad.

The following was written by a friend of Andrew Tobias, one of my favorite writers and longtime DNC treasurer. To describe Tobias as anti-MAGA would be putting it mildly. But because I emulate Tobias both in my writing and in my (partially successful) efforts at intellectual integrity, I'll reprint this part of his column below.

None of it denies that Kirk had opinions many of us would find wrong, unpleasant, offensive, awful. But those adjectives describe opinions, not a person. That distinction, in 2025, is in desperate need of reinforcement.

You are almost entirely wrong in your characterization of Charlie Kirk. I knew him personally very well. He visited my home and office multiple times. I’ve given repeated donations to his Turning Point USA. He’s been in my office and home to speak with delegations of interested, intelligent, politically active people to discuss how to build a better future for all Americans.

Charlie Kirk was a loving person. He was not a violent person. He believed in and practiced free speech. He let his debating partners have their say and ask him any questions. He was civil and sought out rational dialogue with those with whom he disagreed.

Charlie knew I was gay; no big deal. He had other gay friends, donors and employees. He also knew that I was not Christian and he had many non-Christian friends, donors and employees as well. He had friends, donors and employees of every color and many nationalities as well.

Charlie had a positive vision for individuals and for America: it could be summarized as: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Charlie was a constitutionalist. He was a devout Protestant Christian. I respect all of those beliefs and traits. He was also entrepreneurial, charismatic, a great family man and very humorous.

Charlie was not a hater. He was not violent. He was anti-fascist, meaning he believed in individual liberty and limited government. He loved that the American ideal was small government and big citizens. He was very kind. He was not racist, sexist, homophobic, misogynistic, xenophobic, or any of the other charges leveled by his leftist antagonists.

He was, however, very effective, and that’s why the organized leftist power structure didn’t like him.

The snippets you have cited are mostly taken out of context, deeply misleading, or just plain wrong. I wish you could’ve known Charlie Kirk as well as I did. You and he would’ve disagreed on many political policy issues, and that’s fine. I also think you and I disagree on many public policy issues, but I still would consider you a friendly acquaintance, a very kind person, a valued classmate and a wonderful human being.

The world is deeply worse off because of his political assassination. I hope you and others will read his work more deeply and come to understand the wonderful human being that he was. Try with something easy – read his new book about observing the Sabbath which will be published posthumously. Charlie learned about Shabbat from Dennis Prager, a non-Christian.

I would urge a bit more grace and compassion for his ideas as well as those that you hold dear. We each have important things to say, we all believe things somewhat differently. We need to show more tolerance and greater respect for people with different ideas (expressed with respect and civility) rather than demonizing others so harshly.

Alan Sepinwall

TV critic Alan Sepinwall, who I frequently quote and link to for coverage of our "peak TV" era, was fired from Rolling Stone.

Please consider a paid subscription to his Ghost account (it's like Substack), which I'm confident he'll cram full of value.

In fact, for us—if not for him—this could be a good thing. It brings him back to his blogging roots, engaging with a smart community, before he began publishing from a glossy media perch.

Prequel

Dear Democrats, Republicans, Israelis, and Palestinians,

The fact that the other group is terrible does not justify your being terrible.

---

I can't listen to Israeli or Palestinian arguments anymore. It's always the same willful blindness: "Your last atrocity was a snapshot, frozen in time and without context. We merely responded, justified by long history and deep grievance."

America is looking more and more like the prequel.

Them and You; You and Them

Just because everyone seems to be flamboyantly complaining, raging, and/or grieving about what they're "going through", you should by no means get the impression that anyone would possibly give a fraction of a genuine crap about what you're going through.

If you know any kids, show them this. It's a synopsis of the missing instruction manual for the adult human world, and it will spare them decades of confusion.

Amusing and horrifying example

Brian Lagerstrom's YouTube Cooking Videos

I really like Brian Lagerstrom's cooking videos. He goes fast and breezy, but he develops the bejesus out of his recipes. Always some really smart twists I'd never seen before, but it's not just flashy shtick.

He'll use expedient ingredients and methods when he can get away with them, because he's not trying to set a high tone, but also tells you when to splurge. He doesn't pretend everything's easy just because it's easy for him (i.e. he tells you when to really pay attention and slows down the action so you know what to watch for).

While you can easily follow the general shape of his recipe without sweating the specifics (incorporating his hacks and twists), he also offers more precise info re: quantities and timings than most for people who are into that.

A lot of YouTube chefs go for a vibe, while Lagerstrom's 100% about results - yours, not his. Nary a nanosecond serves him; it's all for you.

Check out his NYC Pizza video and his shrimp scampi video.

21st Century America in a Nutshell

21st Century America in a nutshell:

Morality doesn't matter when you're super mad. And we're always super mad. And it's glorious.

The Omens

For over ten years I've wondered why, why, why don't moderate Republicans constrain their extremists, who've gone so far off the deep end? Why don't they say something? Do something?

And now with virtually everyone I know applauding political assassination, I'm saying and doing in the mirror universe. While I knew to expect rage and contempt, this time I feel like I'm on dangerous ground. Like maybe I should keep my voice down. Even from all the way here in Portugal. Something broke this week.

Moderate Republicans haven't spoken out all this time because they don't like being told to go fuck themselves, and they eschew personal endangerment. Easier to go along. Same for my temporarily insane friends who've suddenly decided a reasonable penalty for unsavory beliefs is violent death (I saw this coming in 2016).

For a long time, it was a lopsided assymetry, mostly because the Right was in power, and they had a personality cult to rally around. But the Left's applause of political violence this week has been like focusing a set of binoculars. Both lenses are now sharp and clear. The omens, it seems, are being fulfilled.

A Very Bad Week for Civilization

Nearly all my smart and reasonable friends are cheering political violence. This is a very bad week for civilization.

I'm actually agitated. I've been handling extreme turmoil (not just health) with calm gratitude. I really don't do agitation. But now I'm agitated. Consider me your canary in this coal mine.

The Left's reaction to Charlie Kirk is a drastic turning point, and they don't realize it. To them, it's just Friday. But for their hated and preferred-dead "enemies", they've just fulfilled the bullshit characterizations ascribed to them all these years by FOX, OANN, Alex Frigging Jones, and the rest of those mendacious goons. If you thought we enjoyed some padding between the current moment and a tipping point to civil war, look around you and behold nothing.

I try to make friends see it, but they rage at me (extremists hate sympathizers worst of all) or else blink hard and struggle to parse what I'm even talking about. We're just doing our thing! Fighting the fight! Manning the garrisons! What are you so freaked out about?

For them, it's all performative playtime—including, now, assassination. That's quite an expansion pack.

---

"I don't support political violence, but he brought it on himself" is not good enough. To quote a Facebook friend who prefers anonymity (sharing my feeling that this is a very dangerous moment):

"She said Prohibition was bad and didn't work, so it's pretty ironic and funny that she got killed by an angry drunk swinging around a broken bottle! Serves her right!"

"He thinks cars are a net good, so when someone runs him off the highway with a semi-truck, I guess that's just part of the cost of doing business, no sympathy."

"She told people that plane crashes don't mean we should stop flying planes, so it's actually fine that the missile intercepted her as she flew across the country."

This line of reasoning is not reasoning. It is an attempt to convert a cognitive dissonance into an easy snark that lets you feel smug about your sense of irony instead of being something you *should* have to sit with and think about, something that makes you uneasy with your sense of tribalism.

Doctors and the DMV

Fun! I just met with a new doctor, who spent a full hour going over my myriad medical issues. The six severe orthopedic conditions requiring immediate surgery which I'm managing via yoga. The severe ulcer from aspirin therapy + a series of profound gut infections; the osteoarthritis; the torn plantar plates which can prevent me from walking, the benign paroxysmal positional vertigo that keeps me dizzy, the exposed dental nerves I feebly manage with OTC pain cream. The pericardial effusion (like the one that killed my mom) which has left me hoarse and coughing, the 50% hearing loss, the vitreous detachment, the stent. The periarthritic calcified shoulders which, when bad (they're never great), send me into seizure from the pain. We discuss each in detail. Then she looks up from her monitor and asks "So how do you feel?"

"Pardon?"

"How do you feel, just going through your day? Any pain?"

I stare darts at her. She peers back, composed and crisp.

I begin to repeat my symptoms, and she interrupts to repeat: "But how do you feel?" I did not commit medicide. I got through it, somehow. But I went home and asked chatGPT to explain why the world seems insane (this time).

It replied, essentially, that she has a field to fill out in her report which requires choosing smiley-face patient, normal-face patient, or frowny-face patient. So, like a clerk at the DMV, she just needs me to give an answer so she can finish filling it out.

I'm beginning to understand the appeal of quacks and pseudoscience.

Power

My father—like a lot of fathers until about twenty five years ago, when most chose to be their kids' empowering, enabling, and emotionally uplifting best friends, averse to tarnishing their own lofty self image via unpleasant friction from hardened stances, irrespective of the entitled, deluded little humans they inflicted upon the world—was a bit of a tyrant.

Nothing awful. But he leaned into it sometimes. When a certain type of person notices power in a relationship, it's sugar to be devoured rather than medicine to be rationed with mature prudence. A house full of kids reliant for food and shelter seems like a captive audience; an experimental laboratory; a flattering array of shiny mirrors.

It was mostly tolerable. He was not a bad man, so he made real effort to constrain his considerable fury. And, per above, "yes, and..." might be a great way to do improv comedy but it's no way to raise kids. But he could get a tad drunk on petty power, and I found it scary to have no means of constraining him. An eleven year old may be immature, but he's not larval. He's a person. And those who bear power should bear in mind that personhood under unchecked authority is a harrowing experience.

I sensed that there might be a magical statement I could break out under particular duress, but couldn't quite articulate it. It seemed to radiate toward me, amid much static, from my elder self as a message in a bottle (not surprising, because I was at the same time sending messages forward to that same elder self, many of which I've cataloged here). It was tantalizingly close at hand, but I couldn't make out the words.


In one's 60s, one re-processes one's childhood issues and confusions. And, as I do so, I find myself imagining saying this to my father:

Our roles will flip. You will decline, and may require my help and support. The dependency curve will reverse. You imagine you have unchecked authority, but your actions have consequences. Never forget that the tables will turn, and that I will remember.

Because I can be slow and foggy, it took a few years for me to realize that my occasional repetition of this polished spell was like a radio beacon broadcasting who-knows-where in time and space.


Anyone feeling powerless might take heart from that same broadcast. Tables turn. Dependencies flip. Your day will come.