Conservatives turn their fire on each other after Charlie Kirk’s assassination
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We saw, after Kirk’s killing, how large segments of the left revealed a murderous contempt for conservatives. That truth cannot be unseen. But within conservatism, the critical question is whether your rival on the right is an opponent to debate or an enemy to be excised. Zionist or skeptic, neither camp is calling for your child to be shot. That low bar — refusing to wish literal violence on fellow citizens — must hold if conservatives hope to form a durable coalition.
This is not an appeal to centrism. I have my views and have argued them plainly. But Kirk wanted a movement that could hold together. He worked to build a broad tent. The conservative civil war must end because the stakes are too high.
If conservatives continue sniping through Kirk’s memory, they will squander their political capital and invite worse divisions. Washington warned us what happens when foreign loyalties and religious fervor distort public life; he warned that factional hatred breaks nations. Conservatives ought to remember that now — not to moderate principle for its own sake, but to preserve the only structure that allows principle to matter: a functioning political majority.
Charlie Kirk’s death was a monstrous crime. Let it not become the occasion for tearing the movement he led to pieces. The left must be opposed forcefully and without mercy in politics, but infighting on the right hands them victory. Put down the knives. Honor Kirk by building the coalition he believed in — or watch the movement dissolve into impotence.
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