ESSAY: The schisms dividing the right after Kirk's death

Three unresolved questions, laid bare by yesterday's memorial

The memorial for Charlie Kirk functioned as both a show of force and a show of unity. Here was the right aggrieved, and in grief determined, and in determination united. Here were the country club Republicans and the Christian nationalists and the corporate oligarchs and the small-business owners and the white working class and the people of color who have been joining.

But beneath the surface of the projected unity of the event, and of these last many days, is a different story. The assassination of Kirk has revealed contradictions and schisms and tensions at the heart of the right. The country has a great and abiding interest in how those differences are resolved.

The first is between those who believe in persuading foes and those who believe in eliminating them. In the days since Kirk’s killing, much has been made of his own posture in the face of political adversaries, in public and in the DMs he often slid into: debate me. He was a “debate me” guy through and through. Many of those mourning him now are drawing on his example to champion more such debate, more such conversation across difference, more such engagement. But his death is also now being weaponized by others to move away from the idea of persuading enemies, toward the idea of destroying them. Vice President J.D. Vance seized on Kirk’s death to suggest that the administration “go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates and engages in violence.” President Trump has spoken of naming “antifa” as a “major terrorist organization.” Chaya Raichik, of the infamous Libs of TikTok social media account, has said, concisely, “THIS IS WAR.”

The right will have to decide if its posture, ultimately, is the persuasive self-confidence Kirk exuded — or the insecurity of those who fear they can’t win an argument and must therefore clear the field of enemies, rig elections, and ban speech.

Which brings us to the second schism: between those who continue to believe that the remedy for ill-advised, mistaken speech and thinking is more thinking and more speech — and those who think speech you don’t like is too dangerous to enter the air and airwaves. At the memorial, there was plenty of the former aspiration in evidence. What Kirk led was a movement in a real sense, and there was an invitation to join the cause, become a Christian, leave behind other causes and values and adopt those Kirk believed in. Those who projected this attitude seemed less focused on what others might be saying down the street. Their focus was on saying what they wanted to say, and trusting that it would defeat other contending faiths. But there has also been a strain of response, starting at the top, that doesn’t believe in the inherent power of the right’s ideas, that in fact believes the only way to the promised land is dismantling competing ideas. So Jimmy Kimmel must be fired, and other television personalities must be on guard, and, even before Kirk’s death, universities must be brought to heel, and media companies must be made to shudder. These are not just wrongheaded and dangerous impulses from Trump and others. They are in real philosophical tension with those self-confident enough in their convictions not to want others muzzled.

The right will have to decide if its ideas are compelling enough to compete and win in a marketplace of views, or if the only way to have its ideas be the most popular is to eliminate occasions for hearing other ideas.

The third schism is between those who would love their enemies and those who would hate them. This schism was vividly brought to life with the very different messages of Erika Kirk, Charlie’s widow, and Trump, for whom the late movement leader was said to be almost a son beyond blood. Erika Kirk invoked her Christian faith to forgive her husband’s killer, and to counsel love, not hate, for her enemies and those who would persecute her. Trump came onstage shortly thereafter and, with an explicit and only half-joking apology to Erika, made clear that he doesn’t believe in loving one’s opponent (he hates his). This served as a strange kind of laugh line, the president who perhaps wouldn’t be in office but for Charlie Kirk breaking from Kirk’s own philosophy, as framed by his own now-widow. And this, too, pointed to a genuine difference of perspective at the heart of the right-wing cause: to be a movement that wins souls in the way that religions do, that strives to be a carnival open to all (no matter how dehumanizing the underlying policies may be to many groups); or to be a movement that fights on behalf of a smaller, aggrieved “us” against a vast “them,” that hates enemies and harbors fantasies of cleansing the society of them, of elimination.

The right will have to decide if it wishes to pull people in with themes of love and mercy, or if it believes it can squeeze enough juice from a shrinking, resentful base.

Since Kirk’s killing, there has been too much talk of a new civil war. But the real divisions are often within our movements themselves — versions of these schisms exist on the left as well (I wrote a book exploring some of them). The real dividing line in American politics today may be less between red and blue than over these basic questions of political attitude: Do you believe in your powers of persuasion, or would you only feel secure if the field were cleared of your foes? Are you self-confident enough in your ideas that you are willing to hear and vie with any other idea, or do you believe certain ideas are too dangerous to be voiced aloud? Do you love your enemies, which is to say, do you believe that even your farthest-out foes are capable of changing, of seeing your light, or do you believe that people are who they are, such that you must protect yourself from those whose existence threatens your own?

Everything may turn on all of our answers.

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