On Wednesday, Sept. 10, conservative influencer Charlie Kirk was fatally shot at a debating event in Utah. This act of political violence was shocking to Kirk’s supporters and detesters alike, and many are left wondering how it will affect the United States and even small communities like State College Area High School.
What Happened?
Kirk, founder of right-wing youth activism organization Turning Point USA, was killed at Utah Valley University, one of the many planned stops for TPUSA’s “The American Comeback Tour.” He was engaging with a crowd of nearly 3,000 people when the shot rang out, striking him in the neck.
“Charlie was the best of America, and the monster who attacked him was attacking our whole country,” President Trump said in a video from the White House posted on their social media pages. “Violence and murder are the tragic consequences of demonizing those with whom you disagree day after day, year after year, in the most hateful and despicable way possible.”
President Trump stated the following Friday that a suspect was in custody. Tyler Robinson, 22 years old, was seen fleeing the scene on CCTV footage and was turned in by somebody “Very close to him,” Trump said. He is set to face formal charges and appear in court in the coming days.
What does this mean for State High?
The assassination, especially in the few days following, was and still is a hot topic among students at State High and beyond. “In my AP Gov class, we’ve definitely talked about it a lot…There was definitely a bunch of, like, talking about it in the hallways,” State High senior Parker Kramer said.
Kramer continued, “I don’t believe that anyone should be shot. But I also think that it’s very hard to…separate the two things, and pretend that I…necessarily feel a great amount of sympathy for him,”
Along with dividing American citizens around the country as a whole, the division happening at State High shows how this is also affecting smaller communities. Kramer says that “With social media, and with Instagram and people writing a bunch of stories [Instagram story posts]…it feels like a very, very divisive issue,” Kramer said.
The stark contrast between opinions of students is what drives this divide. “I feel like some people that I admire, if they’re talking about Charlie Kirk in a positive way, I feel like that kind of changes the way that I see them,” junior Camille McConnon said.
On the contrary, junior Claire Baggett said, “He was a good person who pushed what he believed to be very true, and a lot of things that I agree with…But he’s not, like, this all powerful person. He was just a guy.”
What does this mean for the United States?
In light of the Assassination, the already-divided citizens of the U.S. are further splitting apart. Democrats who didn’t like Kirk and his conservative views on political issues are arguing about the ethics of the public’s celebration and mourning of Kirk’s death, and Republicans are further pressuring the left, placing blame and using the event as ammunition against them.
“For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now,” Trump said in the aforementioned address regarding Kirk’s death, directly blaming the entirety of the ‘radical left.’
“Political violence, in fact, is political cowardice. It means that you cannot convince people of the correctness of your ideas, and you have to impose them through force,” Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders said in a recent video posted on his social media pages addressing the assassination.
“The murder of Charlie Kirk is part of a disturbing rise in political violence that threatens to hollow out public life and make people afraid of participating…This chilling rise in violence has targeted public officials across the political spectrum,” Sanders said.
Sanders drew parallels to other recent acts of political violence, such as the January 6th insurrection, the assassination attempt on President Trump last year, and the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
This concerning modern rise in political violence could very well bring fundamental social and legal change, which the U.S. has been no stranger to in its history. From the 1960s Civil Rights movement and assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. all the way back to the assassination of President Lincoln in 1865, political violence has shaped this country legally, economically and socially.
