Irrespective of what views you may have held about American conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, he should still be alive today and tweeting out the worst thoughts known to man.

But more than one thing can be true at the same time. On one hand, political violence of any kind is abhorrent and should be condemned. On the other, Kirk was one of the chief architects of the violent political culture that ultimately claimed him.

Charlie Kirk was killed at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025. Credit: Artwork: Marija Ercegovac.

Over the course of a decade, Kirk stood as close to the centre of the machine as possible, doing everything he could to destabilise and fragment American politics. His willingness to spew hate and encourage his large following to distrust, if not outright despise, anyone who didn’t look or think like them, left him holding the matches of a burning house. He dedicated much of his relatively short career to making the world a crueller, more stupid, and more violent place.

It’s impossible to discuss the rightward shift in America’s young people without mentioning Kirk and Turning Point USA, the organisation he led. To the Christian nationalist right, Kirk was a darling. His videos – which regularly racked up tens of millions of views – preaching the gospel saw him become something of a folk hero. He was willing to go into what he called the lion’s den of liberal American campuses and debate his political opponents. In that lens, he was a hero – a man with reasonable conservative views willing to exchange ideas in the name of good, clean democracy.

In the days since his death, a sanitised version of Kirk’s........

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