Staff Reports
The country woke up in shock when Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA and one of conservatism’s most effective youth organizers, was gunned down while speaking at Utah Valley University on September 10, 2025. What authorities are calling a targeted assassination happened in front of a crowd and has left the nation asking how political disagreement in America turned into murder. The violent act and the chaos that followed proved, once again, that our public square is being poisoned by a culture that too often treats political opponents as less than human.
Joe Rogan’s reaction — stunned, nearly speechless as producers handed him the news mid-podcast — was telling and honest in a way our mainstream celebrities rarely are. Rogan condemned anyone celebrating the killing, noted that Kirk “wasn’t even particularly rude,” and warned that this moment could mark a point of no return unless Americans start treating disagreement as human, not criminal. His blunt, gut-level response was a reminder that even those who disagree with Kirk politically can recognize the line between debate and death.
Rogan’s candid admission that “people profit off that division” should land like a gut punch for anyone who watches the outrage machine turn human lives into ratings and fundraising. That’s the real epiphany conservatives needed to hear: the same media and Big Tech outlets that monetize rage are the ones that normalize dehumanizing language and then feign horror when the cost of that normalization is paid in blood. If Americans don’t demand responsible discourse from those who drive the narrative, Rogan was right — it will get a lot worse.
Rather than uniting in sorrow, parts of the left reacted in ways that revealed moral rot — with social feeds flooded by tasteless celebrations and a cascade of corporate and institutional firings and suspensions aimed at those who posted callous comments. Employers from media outlets to corporations scrambled to discipline staff, a spectacle that proves how weaponized workplace politics have become and how quickly free expression can be crushed when mobs demand blood. The focus should be on rooting out violence and protecting speech, not on ritualistic purges that punish thought crimes.
President Trump and conservative leaders pushed back, honoring Kirk’s memory and calling for accountability, even moving to award him posthumous recognition as the nation wrestles with the implications of political violence. Yet honoring the dead with ceremonies is not a substitute for a sustained fight against the decay in our civic culture — against the propaganda cottage industries and the comfortable elites who profit from division while ordinary Americans suffer the consequences. Conservatives must make clear that mourning and justice can go hand in hand without surrendering our First Amendment principles.
Rogan’s shock should be a rallying cry for patriots who still believe in debate, not bloodshed. We must demand that universities, social platforms, and the media stop normalizing hate, that law enforcement pursue perpetrators without political double standards, and that every American recommit to treating political opponents as neighbors, not targets. The moment calls for courage, not cowardice — and for Americans of every stripe to refuse the cynical games of the elites who profit from our division.
