This was originally scheduled to be part of the framing section of Tuesday’s Gaslight Gazette, but decided to release it early.
On September 10, 2025, shocking news reverberated across the United States: Charlie Kirk, right-wing influencer and Trump ally, had been shot dead while holding an event at a Utah university campus. The killing was live-streamed to the world, and, in an indication of where our narcissistic profit-driven culture has taken us, some online personalities immediately sought to exploit the footage to drive traffic and grow their audiences. Charlie Kirk’s death exposed and amplified America’s deep political and cultural divisions, revealing how too many of our media outlets and political actors exploit tragedy to reinforce partisan narratives rather than fostering unity or meaningful dialogue.
Hyper-Polarized Frames
Much of the media portrayed Kirk’s death as a watershed moment in political violence. NPR wrote, “The killing of Charlie Kirk adds to a time of political upheaval and violence,” while the BBC noted, “Charlie Kirk killing lays bare America’s bloody and broken politics,” and The Washington Post claimed, “America enters a new age of political violence.” Ezra Klein took a break from rebranding neoliberalism into Abundance to pen an op-ed in the New York Times titled “Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics The Right Way,” which lauded Kirk for engaging with people he disagreed with. These accounts sought to make the case that Americans, across the ideological spectrum, are abandoning democratic display and processes for violence and unfettered access to power.
Rather than discuss how to change the trajectory of the nation from such divisive violence, the partisan figures in news media and politics stoked the flames. Conservatives cited attacks such as the 2017 shooting at Congressional baseball practice, the May 2025 shooting at an Israeli Embassy in the U.S., and the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump in 2024 as evidence that the left is perpetuating political violence.
Meanwhile, leftists pointed out that Democrats were murdered in Minnesota in June, targeted during the January 6 Capitol attack in 2021, the fire set at Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s mansion in 2025, and Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul, was beaten with a hammer in 2022—underscoring that threats are bipartisan. They also pointed to The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) studies which concluded that conservatives engaged in political violence far more than leftists. Trump spoke to this on Fox News Channel where he argued that “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don't want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem.”
Regardless, conservatives framed the Kirk murder as an act of war from the left. Indeed, numerous conservatives blamed the left including activists such as Kristan Hawkins, founder of anti-abortion group Students for Life of America, who said “This is a new civil war;” content creators such Brian Eastwood, a conservative influencer who posted “You want a fight and you’re going to get it…They’ve declared war;” and media personalities such as Fox News host Jesse Watters who said, “Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it? How much political violence are we going to tolerate?”
Although some Republican politicians such as Utah Governor Spencer Cox spoke in apolitical terms about the violence, high profile conservatives put fuel on the fire. For example, “The left and their policies are leading America into a civil war. And they want it…The gloves are off,” proclaimed Wisconsin Republican Rep. Derrick Van in a social media post. He was joined by President Trump, who has a long history of divisive political rhetoric, broke with tradition by singling out the “radical left” for the nation’s political violence rather than calling for unity. In a subsequent appearance announcing the capture of the suspect in Kirk’s murder, Tyler Robinson, Trump indicated that revenge on the left would have to come outside of democratic processes "He [Kirk] would want revenge at the voter, ballot box, but unfortunately we do not have so many ballot boxes because they have mail in voting which is totally rigged.”
Left-leaning frames were mixed. Some such as Hasan Piker called the murder “devastating.” Others celebrated Kirk’s death—prompting right-wing social media users to identify and target these users. Some leftists tried to change the focus to a discussion about the role of guns in political violence by noting that Kirk once said, “I think it’s worth having a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.” Many leftists condemned the media for covering Kirk’s death extensively, arguing that attention distracted from other tragedies, such as a school shooting in Colorado on the same day.
Colliding Frames
The legacy media’s framing of Kirk as a symbol and champion of free speech principles collided with countervailing frames from leftist critics. By the age of 31, Kirk had built an empire at Turning Point USA, producing viral videos debating college students and promoting the idea that higher education was unnecessary, as a proud college dropout. He brought his arguments to college campuses and the videos portrayed him as engaging with anyone willing to attempt to “prove me wrong.” As a result, the news outlets framed the murder as an assault on free speech.
It is true that Kirk sparred with figures like California Governor Gavin Newsom and was even slated to debate Hasan Piker, who he debated previously, just over a week after his death according to Breaking Points. But critics argued that this framing conceals the full story. Kirk built his brand on selectively edited videos that made him appear sharp while making students look foolish, reinforcing his anti-college narrative. In fact, when he recorded a video of himself watching a South Park episode that accused him of selective editing, an episode that has since been removed from television out of respect to Kirk, but Kirk edited out the clip of the show making the accusation when he filmed his reaction. Furthermore, Kirk also engaged in tactics that suppressed debate and dialogue. He created a McCarthyite-style list of professors he targeted for spreading “leftist propaganda” and encouraged students to record—often illegally—these professors, chilling academic discourse. While he is rumored to have avoided debates with some professors, he participated in many and was famously humiliated by professors and students during a Cambridge University debate in May 2025.
In addition to the “free-speech champion” frame of Kirk, conservative and legacy media’s celebration of Kirk’s life buttressed up against left wing frames of Kirk. News coverage quickly spiraled into what could be called “grief porn”—the public indulgence in tragedy through tenuous associations, a voyeuristic fixation on others’ misfortune. Commentators and politicians scrambled to signal the weight of the loss: Governor Cox quoted Kirk when announcing the suspect was captured, FBI Director Kash Patel (who incorrectly announced the suspect was caught over 30 hours before they were caught) asked Kirk to rest peacefully, the Trump administration ordered flags at half-mast and awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom; his body was flown to his Arizona home on Air Force Two; and Yankee Stadium observed a moment of silence. Online, tributes poured in by the thousands.
Leftist critics portrayed Kirk as a hate-spewing pariah. They cited Kirk’s sexist, racist, and xenophobic statements such as urging women “submit to their husbands” for happiness, telling listeners to “reject feminism,” promoting the racist “great replacement” myth, implying that people of color become pilots due to their race not their skills, disparaging Muslims noting “large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America,” promoting anti-Semitic tropes such as “Jews control … the colleges, the nonprofits, the movies, Hollywood, all of it,” blaming transgender people for a supposed decline in masculinity and arguing that they should be taken care of “the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s and 60s,” and denying the separation of church and state.
Conclusion
American discourse in the post-Charlie Kirk assassination has left little to be hopeful about. Despite attempts to use Kirk’s death as a call for why we need to protect free speech, including speech we disagree with, we are seeing a crackdown on speech. Ironically, this crackdown comes mostly from the defenders of Kirk, a self-described free speech absolutist. Indeed, around the globe, since Kirk’s death, employees in fields from education to professional sports have been disciplined for comments justifying or celebrating Kirk’s death. Indeed, many have lost employment. MSNBC fired senior political analyst Matthew Dowd for asking whether hateful rhetoric contributes to violence, and reporter A.G. Gancarski was suspended for asking Rep. Randy Fine if Kirk’s shooting made him reconsider support for campus conceal-carry policies. Guilford Technical Community College dismissed Lisa Greenlee for comments celebrating Kirk’s death. A teacher in Massachusetts, a Texas professor, and an NFL staffer faced similar punishment over similar accusations. There have been so many such actions that Time cataloged them in an article titled "From Firings to the Threat of Deportation: Commenters Deemed Offensive After Charlie Kirk’s Death Face Consequences.” These actions coupled with the removal of the South Park episode is the exact opposite of the free speech principles that Kirk supporters purport to stand for. Indeed, memorializing Kirk by clamping down on free speech is tantamount to celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. by segregating mourners
There are other areas of dismay from the post-Kirk discourse. Many have responded to the heightened fear by spreading more fear. Numerous politicians, activists, and media personalities have cancelled public events in response. Far be it for me to tell these people what to do, but the collective result of being afraid to use our rights is that they are easier to take away. As more people are afraid to speak at or attend events, especially around divisive and controversial matters, the less freedom and rights we can hope to secure moving forward. To make matters worse there have been numerous false threats made at schools including the U.S. Naval Academy fueling fear across the nation.
Despite all the rhetoric about unity, too many people—including powerful figures like the president—are actively fueling division. I have to ask: where do they think this cycle of division and hate will end? History shows us the answer—thousands, sometimes millions, die; human cruelty rises; systems collapse; and countless people suffer.
For nearly 50 years, Americans have grown far too comfortable with hyper-partisan narratives that blame ‘the other side’ for every problem, rather than doing the difficult work of investigating claims and content with evidence, critical thinking, and civic and media literacy. It is such an intellectually lazy and anti-democratic mindset that has brought us to this dangerous moment. How much further do we want to go before we change course?
Vilifying the opposition doesn’t work. Thinking you have all the answers doesn’t work. What does work is looking inward: How can we do better to live up to the ideals we claim to hold? How can we refuse to support those who profit from division and hate?
I’ll leave you with powerful words from yesterday’s 9/11 memorial event:
"On September 12th [2001], this nation was united in unspeakable tragedy," one speaker said. "It didn't matter what ethnic origin, religion, political affiliation or socioeconomic status you were, we were all united in grief and love. Our better angels prevailed, and may they prevail again."
Nolan Higdon is a political analyst, author, host of The Disinfo Detox Podcast, lecturer at Merrill College and the Education Department at University of California, Santa Cruz, and Project Censored Judge. Higdon’s popular Substack includes the bi-weekly Gaslight Gazette, which chronicles important and well-researched examples of disinformation, character assassination, and censorship in the United States. Higdon’s areas of concentration include critical AI literacy, podcasting, digital culture, news media history & propaganda, and critical media literacy. All of Higdon’s work is available at Substack (https://nolanhigdon.substack.com/). He is the author of The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education (2020); Let’s Agree to Disagree: A Critical Thinking Guide to Communication, Conflict Management, and Critical Media Literacy (2022); The Media And Me: A Guide To Critical Media Literacy For Young People (2022); and Surveillance Education: Navigating the conspicuous absence of privacy in schools (Routledge). Higdon is a founding member of the Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas. Higdon is a regular source of expertise for CBS, NBC, The New York Times, and The San Francisco Chronicle.
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Such valuable reflections — thank you.
Thank you Nolan. This is just what we needed to hear at this time.