Charlie Kirk and the Value of Empathy

Conservatives mock compassion... until they need it.

Charlie Kirk’s murder was a brutal, reprehensible, vile act.

It is the kind of despicable disregard for life that all decent human beings should (and largely did) condemn.

From the moment news of Kirk’s shooting first surfaced, I witnessed a massive outpouring of genuine care and concern for him and for his family from both the Right and the Left, even as MAGA extremists rushed to weaponize the moment as an indictment of the supposed carelessness and cruelty of the latter.

Conservatives' performative calls for compassion in the face of Kirk’s assassination were strangely striking, precisely because they have spent countless hours letting us know that they believe compassion is a character flaw and a cultural danger; something to drive out and to rid ourselves of.

Kirk himself had recently stated:

"I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new-age term that does a lot of damage."

And yet, as the unthinkable events unfolded in Utah, that empathy was exactly what his supporters came to the nation in need of—and what most of it responded with.

Yes, there were, of course, the sickening, inhumane responses that social media breeds in all circles, but by and large, liberal politicians, pastors, and content creators expressed sincere hopes for recovery, and when that did not materialize, heartfelt condolences to his wife and his children and his family.

Because this is the whole point for the Left: compassion is the better path. It is not some woke weakness or moral failing; it is the highest aspiration we have, the antidote to every ill that afflicts us, regardless of our political affiliations, moral codes, or theological beliefs. We all want to know that our pain matters to someone else.

The Right has long ridiculed the supposed bleeding heart Liberals across the aisle, with many Conservative preachers going so far as to declare empathy a sin even as Jesus’ entire life overflowed with it. And yet, when the abject horror of gun violence hit home and someone they cared about was in the balance between living and dying, that empathy was the first thing they asked for—and received.

That’s because we who are labeled weak for how deeply we care about other human beings understand that empathy is the single greatest way to honor the humanity we recognize in someone else: to see the commonalities between us, to feel internally altered by another person’s pain, to fully grieve when life, any life, is squandered.

The empathy that Conservatives joke about and condemn is the same empathy they came looking for today.

It’s the empathy we wished they’d shown Melissa Hortman and her husband.

It’s the empathy we should feel for terrified immigrants, for bullied trans teens, for school shooting victims, for fathers deported without cause, for children starving half a world away.

It’s the empathy that all imperiled human beings should be greeted with when pressed up against the myriad of terrors visited upon them by circumstances and other human beings.

I genuinely grieve for Charlie Kirk’s wife, for his children, for his family, for those whose lives are impacted by his violent and premature death. Regardless of the fact that I opposed almost everything he stood for and said and did with his platform, I understand that he was a human being whose existence mattered. The damage I believe he did to so many vulnerable people and to millions of young minds here does not render me incapable of lamenting his murder or of mourning for his loved ones.

Because true empathy transcends tribal loyalties, it reaches beyond surface affinities, and it values every human.

I so wish Conservatives would realize the irony of so desperately seeking a human kindness that they work tirelessly to withhold from others, a gentleness and decency they so often turn into a punchline.

We can talk about Charlie Kirk’s legacy in the coming days, as that too matters. And, we can discuss gun violence someday soon, as this is but another grievous example of the reality that no one is safe, no one is immune, no one is spared in our nation’s love affair with weapons of rapid carnage.

But for right now, a family is grieving and when any family is grieving, we all should mourn that.

I fear that as the coming days unfold, Conservatives will forget what it was like to be in the throes of panic and pain, to look for confirmation that others shared their experience of being human and saw them, and to have received it.

Empathy isn’t a danger or a failing or a sickness, Conservative friends, it is the only thing that will save us.