In the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination last week, I’ve been watching the dialogue on all sides of the political spectrum. And the more I watch, one thought has risen to the surface for me.
No matter what happens in the world these days, more and more people use that event (literally any event) to further prove that the thing they already believe is true.
You’ve got conservatives and liberals both claiming Kirk’s death is more proof that liberals or conservatives (depending on who’s speaking) are the root cause of the problem. You’ve got both sides laying the blame for all the country’s woes at the foot of the other. And you’ve got people lined up on both sides to believe every single word of it.
And yes, I’m well aware of false balance (or bothesidesism) and the paradox of tolerance, but today’s post isn’t about that.
It’s about me. And, hopefully, about you.
I’m trying to take a look at myself and see what things I can change. And I’ll be honest: when Kirk was killed, I had absolutely no idea who he was. I didn’t even recognize his name. These days, I’m more inclined to ignore anything coming out of the mouths of Republican leaders, so my knee-jerk response was listen to those on the left side of the aisle, and there were plenty of people ready to call Kirk all sorts of things. Neo-nazi. Misogynist. Homophobe. There were certainly quotes from him that would support the accusations.
What caused me to pause was the response to Governor Cox’s statement in the aftermath of the shooting: “For 33 hours, I was praying that if this had to happen here, that it wouldn’t be one of us — that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country… Sadly, that prayer was not answered the way I hoped for.”
So many people spoke up to accuse him of bigotry. To say he wanted nothing more than to blame the shooting on a person of color, or a liberal, or literally anyone different. And while I can understand that argument, I think it takes a willful misunderstanding of his words to give it too much credence.
Because I felt the same thing. When I saw the shooting and had to face what had happened and where, I wanted the shooter to be a monster. Someone who was clearly different than me or anything I believed in. Why? Because I didn’t want to believe someone like me could do something like that. I think that’s a natural response. And when it did turn out to be someone like me in multiple ways, I had to face that. Utah has to face that. All of us have to face that.
Right now, Kirk’s killer is being lobbed around like some sort of human hot potato, with all sides of the political spectrum pointing to different parts of his past to (once again) show how their side is right and the other side is wrong. But none of this happened in isolation.
If you can’t take a look at your own arguments and beliefs and recognize if you have been shortsighted or less-informed, then you’re part of the problem. If nothing can happen that would change your mind or get you to at least admit some doubt in what you believe, then I hope you can understand how potentially dangerous that is. Trump has joked, “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any voters,” and the sad thing is that’s not altogether wrong. But that level of certainty and devotion to one politician or political side is something that’s dangerous, regardless of whom you’re supporting.
I have no idea who I’m trying to persuade with this post. I think it’s more personal than anything else. Those who really need it will likely only disagree with it or ignore it. But in writing it, I understand my argument better. I take it out, look at it from multiple sides, and ask myself if that’s what I truly believe.
I’ll end with this scene from Conclave, which remains one of my favorite movie quotes in recent memory. “Certainty is the great enemy of unity. Certainty is the deadly enemy of tolerance.”