On the Response to the Shooting of Charlie Kirk
The reaction from the vast majority of the US “left” (that is, anyone even vaguely opposed to the Trump administration and the right-wing in the United States) shows us how desperate we are for hope—hope that a future worth living for awaits us, that our hard work and suffering, economically and personally, has a pay-off. The death of one of the loudest voices on the far-right—one who has spent over a decade of his time supporting the suffering of LGBTQ people, immigrants, poor and unhoused people—the death of someone like that has given a large portion of our country a sense of hope and victory, in a vein similar to the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson, by Luigi Mangione. I would argue, however, that this is all very temporary, and a sure sign of the degradation of our country.
As capitalism continues to decline, so too does society. People become more desperate, more willing to act cruelly and selfishly, as the ability to afford basic needs becomes increasingly difficult, as war, poverty, and misery consume our lives. The fact that so few of us know our neighbors, our coworkers, or even have any friends at all—this all leads to an isolated and paranoid society, where everyone lives by the motto “Trust No One.” Therefore, when one of the loudest mouthpieces of the far-right, who has supported this very same system of capitalism, dies, one could hardly be blamed for, at the very least, feeling a little momentary “Schadenfreude.”
By no means do I bemoan those who’ve pointed out how Kirk himself argued that “…it's worth it to have 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.” Kirk also said, earlier this year, that “…empathy is a made-up, new age term that—it does a lot of damage.” Yes, he pushed the same rhetoric that has further degraded our society. He was one of the many right-wingers we were fighting back against with our message of working class unity.
We will never know a society where empathy, trust, and kindness are deeply-held values until capitalism—the commodification of every aspect of our existence—is crushed. Capitalism breeds distrust, selfishness and violence. The antidote to the violence Kirk experienced is the very same thing he railed against—socialism-communism. A socialist society cannot guarantee a utopia, but we can try to get mighty close to it. What it can guarantee, however, is a far more peaceful and humane society than the one we currently suffer under.