He was anti-abortion and sexist. Dozens of his clearly racist statements have been recorded. And he was a fanatic for the freedom to bear arms. That said, it is truly astonishing to see how many, many people this Thursday rejoiced at the murder of Charlie Kirk. There are thousands of examples of those who, instead of mourning his death, celebrate or justify it on all kinds of social networks. Many messages rack up tens of thousands of likes. Even on Bluesky, a refuge for those who abandoned X with the emergence of Elon Musk and who advocate that the new network is a space of love, not like the tycoon's platform. It is perhaps proof that Bluesky is not good, just young.
Other columns will analyze the escalating risk of social confrontation that this crime represents, and others will lament the human aspect and the suffering of a widow and two young children. In any case, the digital repercussions of this murder are terrible news for two reasons.
First, because Kirk was one of the canaries in the mine of a generational gap that we cannot ignore for a minute longer: if they had paid more attention to Kirk and other digital figures of his ilk, many of the media that were caught in their underwear by Trump's landslide second victory, because they had chosen to listen only to one part of society, would have been less surprised.
And second, because, even though one might be diametrically opposed to Kirk's ideas (and he often made it easy), he represented some of the best the digital world had to offer. He was a columnist, commentator, and writer, but let's not kid ourselves: his popularity and influence came from his videos on YouTube and social media, in which he sat on university campuses to debate, with no other weapons than his tongue and his brain, with anyone he wanted to debate. He wasn't a pest or scold his audience as if they were little children (as so many politicians do), but rather he challenged them intellectually. And that's how he won over millions of people.
His videos, obviously, chose his best zingers, but, editing aside, Kirk gave his detractors a legitimate space for confrontation of ideas: you could go there and get burned or stand up to him, but no one could say he didn't expose himself to criticism and healthy debate. He wasn't Vito Quiles or Caiga quien caiga. He didn't chase anyone down the street or have any intention of turning up the decibels to get people heated. He was just a guy sitting in front of a camera waiting for anyone to come and spit their truths at him or criticize his ideas.
Ben Shapiro and Matt Walsh are other conservative (sometimes very conservative) influencers who have taken over American social media through rhetoric and controversy, following a path of street debate initiated by Jordan Peterson in 2017 and which, after an incomprehensible absence from the left, is now almost completely dominated by the right. Again, their ideology may or may not be liked, but these names managed to reach those who were not reached by traditional media and to win over a large part of public opinion with their arguments.
Unfortunately, after Kirk's murder, many influencers may stop speaking out in public, and the space they had created for open, strictly dialectical confrontation will surely suffer. It's not unreasonable to think that polemicists of all political persuasions will stop speaking out out of fear and will entrench themselves in less visible and more damaging spaces, further poisoning the confrontational atmosphere to which we seem destined. Rest in peace, and I hope we all learn a lesson.
