The assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 12 on a college campus in Utah, supposedly by a 22-year-old named Tyler Robinson who shot him in a single shot with a sniper rifle from approximately 200 meters, is not just the tragic end of a 31-year-old conservative activist, husband, and father of two young children. It is an event that tears the veil on a deeply polarized American society, where dialogue is replaced by hatred, and political violence becomes the culmination of a standardized and “woke” culture that, under the guise of inclusiveness, breeds monsters. Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was a symbol of open and kind debate, an evangelical who fought for democratic values ​​rooted in the Christian faith. His alleged killer, a young man influenced by extreme ideologies, a potential puppet in the hands of powerful forces yet possessing a sobering professionalism, carved pro-trans and “fascist” messages and “Bella Ciao” — the lyrics of a famous song by Italian partisans who opposed fascism during World War II — on bullets, a gesture that reveals how Wokism, intertwined with rampant relativism, can transform dissent into an enemy to be eliminated. The murder highlights the threat of a culture that demonizes anyone who dares challenge the dominant orthodoxy.

Who was Charlie Kirk? A Bridge Between Debate and Faith

Charlie Kirk was a phenomenon in the American conservative landscape, a young strategist who revolutionized political debate on college campuses. Born in 1993, he founded Turning Point USA in 2012, at the age of just 18, with the aim of promoting individual freedom and conservative principles among students. He wasn’t a shouter or a sterile provocateur: Kirk embodied a dialogic approach, inviting discussion even with those who detested him. Valley University in Utah, where he held his last event, announced it with these words: “Join Charlie Kirk on campus for a discussion about freedom and America. Don’t agree with Charlie? Fine, you’ll be first in line. See you there.” His supporters remember him for his incisive statements emphasizing the importance of dialogue in the face of violence. In a clip shared widely after his death, Kirk responded to a woman who asked him why he used his “Prove Me Wrong” format: “When people stop talking, that’s when violence breaks out,” he said, “that’s when civil war breaks out, because you start to think the other side is evil and loses its humanity” (Paola Peduzzi, in Il Foglio, September 12, 2025).

This wasn’t empty rhetoric: it was the credo of a man who had visited hundreds of campuses, often in hostile territory, to “recreate the public square with a tent and an irrepressible smile,” as Adam Rubenstein described him years ago in a profile for The Weekly Standard. Republican strategist T.W. Arrighi wrote on X: “Charlie has created a movement on campuses across America by engaging students in debate and dialogue, challenging orthodoxy and winning hearts and minds in the process. Isn’t that what we want from our politicians?” (Paola Peduzzi, ibid.). In his last article and interview in the Deseret News, published a few days before the tragedy, Kirk stated: “We want to be an institution as well-known and powerful as the New York Times, Harvard, and the tech companies, and we believe we are doing just that” (Paola Peduzzi, ibid.). It was his manifesto: a commitment to informing young people, directing them to podcasts, commentators, and reliable sources, away from the traditional media that didn’t reach them.

After his initial years, Kirk then threw himself into cultural battles: gender, abortion, the natural family — values ​​rooted in his evangelical Christian faith — the fight against crime, and his defense of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Israeli government, though, in the latter case, he didn’t fail to voice his fears and hesitations. His invitation was clear: “Be brave enough to break political orthodoxy and political correctness.” In an April 2024 video, when questioned by a dismissive student with a “Why are you here?” question, he replied: “Okay, I’ve been asked this question many times. First of all, the question shouldn’t even be asked. But when people stop talking, really bad things start to happen. When spouses stop talking, divorce happens. When civilizations stop talking, civil war breaks out. When you stop having a human connection with someone you disagree with, it becomes much easier to want to commit acts of violence against that group…. What we need to get back to as a culture is being able to have a reasonable disagreement, where violence is not an option” (Kimberley A. Strassel, WSJ, September 12, 2025).

Rod Dreher remembers him as “kind”: he accepted every request, discussed civilly, and explained his point of view not out of vanity, but to share what was close to his heart. In a recent video, Kirk, decrying Wokism, Marxism, and Islamism as dangerous, defined the ideal American lifestyle to which he aspired: “I want to be able to get married, buy a house, have kids, let them ride their bikes until sunset, send them to a good school, live in a neighborhood with a low crime rate, not have my kids taught nonsense about lesbians, gays, and transgender people in school. And at the same time, not have them hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day. That’s important.” He wanted the American way of life, which is Christianity, which founded civilization. On another occasion, he said that if he were to die, he wanted to be remembered for “the courage of my faith.” That would be the most important thing.

American Polarization: From “Russia Gate” to Black Lives Matter, a Vortex of Hate

Today’s America is a polarized arena, where political disputes become existential threats. As Megan McArdle wrote in The Washington Post on September 12, 2025, “we must stop amplifying our political disputes by turning them into existential threats.” The last decade has normalized violence: from the Antifa protests to the January 6th mob, from the attempted assassination of a Supreme Court justice to the attacks on Trump, to the killing of lawmakers and police officers. In addition to what McArdle says, we must add emblematic cases of extreme political polarization such as “Russia Gate,” a colossal lie orchestrated by political forces and deviant intelligence apparatuses to accuse Trump of collusion with Putin, which poisoned American politics for four years, ultimately revealing itself to be a political mudslinging operation based on a complete lie that demonstrates how far lies will go to bring down political opponents. Black Lives Matter (BLM) is another bitter chapter that has further polarized society, transforming systemic racism into a violent movement that has justified looting and attacks. On liberal social media, pundits diagnosed “fascism” everywhere, demonizing opponents. So, McArdle is absolutely right when she concludes: “Stop demonizing your opponents. […] This country needs fewer impassioned denunciations and more understanding of our opponents as complex people who may have mistaken ideas but also laudable virtues.”

The Global Left Insults a Still-Warm Corpse: “He asked for it”

Immediately after the murder, progressive and left-wing circles insulted Kirk, downplaying his significance. Alessandro Sallusti wrote in Il Giornale on September 12, 2025: “Champions of political correctness […] they gave their best.” Piergiorgio Odifreddi: “Shooting Martin Luther King, Trump, or a member of MAGA isn’t the same thing.” Alan Friedman: “That guy was asking for it.” Roberto Saviano: “Kirk’s death is an advantage for Trump.” At the university, students “toasted,” posting photos of Kirk upside down with the caption “One less.” Ben Sixsmith reports in The Critic that “DC Comics’ Gretchen Felker-Martin joked, ‘Hope the bullet’s okay.’” “Maybe Charlie Kirk shouldn’t have spent years being a demagogic, hateful fascist and this wouldn’t have happened,” sarcastically commented one X user, who wouldn’t have been noteworthy if it weren’t for the fact that his post attracted more than 150,000 likes. Jenny Holland wrote on Spiked, “Progressives are dehumanizing Charlie Kirk even after his death.” Matthew Dowd of MSNBC said: “[Kirk was] one of the most divisive figures among young people, constantly pushing this hate speech directed at certain groups. And I always say that hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which lead to hateful actions.” By hateful thoughts and words, of course, Dowd means any opinion that challenges his liberal-left worldview. Moments after news of the shooting broke, Dowd even speculated that perhaps it was a “Kirk supporter firing his gun to celebrate.” Dowd was fired from MSNBC shortly thereafter.

In the face of all this hatred, Simone Regazzoni rightly wrote on his Facebook profile: “A 31-year-old man, Charlie Kirk, was killed by a sniper on a college campus while speaking freely to thousands of students.” If, faced with such an act, the reactions are “Yes, but… he was Trump’s influencer,” this means that democracy today has a problem with that political faction, a certain left, which claims to be the very embodiment of democracy, but is unable to say a word of justice when someone with different ideas than their own is killed, and precisely because of those ideas.

Charlie Kirk didn’t hold my ideas, but he died because of his ideas. And those who die for their ideas are martyrs of democracy. Only anti-democrats fail to recognize this. These are things we’ve seen before. Either we mount political, ethical, and cultural resistance to all this, or democracy itself is at risk.

Also, it’s easy to counter those who say “he was asking for it” by reminding them that less than two weeks earlier, on August 27, 2025, the Minneapolis tragedy shook the United States: Robin Westman, 23, opened fire during a school Mass at Annunciation Catholic School, killing two children aged 8 and 10 and injuring 17 people, including 14 minors. Westman, who committed suicide on the scene, had legally changed his name from Robert to Robin in 2020, declaring that he identified as a woman. Were the murdered children “asking for it” in that case too?

A Murder Resulting from Woke Culture: Dangers for Democracy

Kirk’s murder, in my opinion, is the product of a standardized, woke culture that, by demonizing anyone who dares challenge the dominant orthodoxy, particularly those who profess a Christian faith, ultimately proves violent, while also undermining democracy.

Kylee Griswold, in The Federalist of September 11, states: “Kirk wasn’t just murdered. He was martyred.” He opposed transgenderism, the institutional racism of “equity” politics, and the violent Black Lives Matter movement. But the core of his identity was his faith in Jesus Christ. “Kirk wasn’t killed for his political beliefs […] but for his faith […] from which his other beliefs flowed.”

Some have compared Kirk’s death to that of Martin Luther King Jr. Jayd Henricks on The Catholic Thing, while clarifying that he doesn’t agree on everything with Kirk, as with any other character, states: “This kind of violence is a tacit admission that lies aren’t powerful enough to combat the truth. It’s cowardice, but it’s also the fruit of the failure of lies. Yes, Charlie’s death is a profound loss, but the truth he relentlessly pursued cannot be killed. In the end, the truth will prevail. Only by telling the truth can we defeat evil. […] Sadly, open and sometimes violent hostility toward people of traditional faith in this country is becoming the new normal.”

Conclusions: Woke, Conformism, and the Dictatorship of Relativism

Charlie Kirk’s murder is the fruit of a climate of hatred that has grown out of the relativism and nihilism inherent in woke culture. It is steeped in conformity and political correctness, which ultimately prove violent. Woke culture is typically embraced by progressive forces. Furthermore, the cultural left more broadly dominates major institutions — academia, journalism, pop culture, and so on.

Wokism is a cultural position that ostracizes those who claim that abortion is the killing of a human being, that the family is only the natural one, that there are two sexes, male and female, and that gender culture is harmful to the individual. Those who make these claims are often accused of being homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, fundamentalist, Christian fascist, and even racist. Although woke culture prides itself on being “inclusive,” it ends up being highly divisive, excluding and marginalizing those who do not share its values. This is what happens daily in all environments, both real and virtual (social media).

We’ve said that Wokism is a culture typical of Anglo-Saxon progressive currents. However, there’s another homogenizing culture, born of propaganda, which is embraced without distinction by circles on the left, the center, and the political right, particularly in the European region. It too is characterized by conformism and political correctness and is driven and “administered,” like Wokism, by elites and powerful forces. This propaganda denigrates anyone who dares criticize the mainstream narrative of the war in Ukraine as a “Putinist,” anyone who dares question the safety of COVID vaccines as an “anti-vax” or anti-vaccinationist (see the NITAG case), and anyone who dares denounce the massacre of Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip as a terrorist and a supporter of Hamas.

This culture, like Wokism, also ends up creating a climate of hatred and social division. This divisive, and by no means “inclusive,” culture can also generate dramatic cases like this one anywhere (including in Italy).