I’ve written before about how I abhor political violence. It stills free speech, silences dissent, and corrodes civic life. But the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination has left me reeling, not just because of the violence itself but because of the outsized reaction to his death and the wildly knee-jerk reaction to anyone who says anything negative about him.

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The silence demanded of critics. The threat of being branded “cruel” if you dare to tell the truth about him. The jobs lost by those who spoke honestly. This lionization of Kirk needs to stop. He was human, with faults, like the rest of us, but his were more pronounced and very public..

I’m afraid that there is no turning back from those faults. The last week has mortifyingly left many with the impression that he was to be revered.

It’s been gobsmacking to watch a man who never held public office, never served his country in the military, never lifted a hand for peace, be memorialized as though he were an American hero. I’m sickened not only by the hoopla but by the willful amnesia.

Kirk’s words caused pain that is impossible to ignore. He lied about women, people of color, and, with particular venom, the LGBTQ+ community. He fed the next generation a steady diet of hate disguised as truth. He lied, repeatedly, on purpose, vilifying those who never did anything to him. He did it under the false guise of being a Christian.

Those lies and destructive comments? That will be his legacy, not some invented sainthood.

And yet his name is everywhere. His face was being splashed across NFL stadium scoreboards this past weekend. His death was observed with vigils in locales all over the country. How did this happen? How did America become somehow complicit in changing Kirk’s image from a provocateur to a prophet?

I would venture that most Americans had never heard of him before he was brutally assassinated. Now, seeing his name lit up in lights, many Americans will assume he was some kind of mythical figure, never knowing the cruelty, the lies, the terror he placed in the hearts of queer Americans.

A few months ago, I had the trans daughter of a friend of mine reach out. She was scared to death of Charlie Kirk. “Why does he hate me so much?” she asked. “Do you know why?”

I, like many in the queer community, are outraged over a Pride flag flown at half-mast in West Hollywood, a mecca of acceptance. This is such a grotesque example of how the reaction to Kirk’s death has gone wildly out of control.

For those of us who live in the very dark shadow of his words, to see him honored in this way is nothing short of traumatic.

I fear his words will live on even more powerfully in death than they did in life. That’s what keeps me up at night. And that’s appalling to me because who was he in the grand scheme of things? And now look at this undeservedly enormous impact his death has had on American society.

And all that makes me wonder, Will America ever course correct from this inexplicable moment, as it has in the past?

I was 10 when Watergate was reaching its pinnacle, and I recall how there was a palatable worry that democracy itself seemed to teeter, especially when Richard Nixon resigned. That had never happened before. Could we survive such a tumultuous episode?

President Ford led us away from our “long national nightmare.” I was glued to the TV when Ronald Reagan was shot. It summoned fears of a return to the assassinations of the 1960s, but the country somehow survived.

I was working on Capitol Hill when the fall of the Berlin Wall took place. There was such an amazing sense of optimism that soared. I think we all felt that the lie that was communism was destroyed and that freedom had triumphed for good.

In January of 1998, we were all stunned that Bill Clinton, who famously said he “did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky,” only to learn later that he lied. It had the effect of shattering trust and faith in the presidency.

Then came 9/11, and I watched my fellow New York City residents and people all across the country come together in a moment of comity. That was short-lived. Next came the disastrous war in Iraq, built on lies about weapons of mass destruction.

Finally, in 2008, we elected Barack Obama, and hope felt real and history seemed to bend toward justice. The euphoria we felt at the time was shared across party lines. President Bush came out the day after the election and hailed the historic victory. It seemed everyone felt a sense that the worst had passed, and maybe, just maybe, we course corrected for good.

We didn’t. Far from it. Donald Trump became the most destructive liar ever to run for the presidency and win it. He left us reeling through a pandemic, an insurrection, and a near-total collapse of truth itself. Yet even then, in 2020, it felt possible to course correct. And we did, briefly, when Joe Biden took office.

But that correction was short-lived too. The lies flooded back with Trump’s return in 2024. And now here we are, watching the death of a podcast host and hate merchant treated like the loss of royalty. Instead of course correcting, America is spiraling even deeper into delusion.

What has changed? Before, we had presidents with enough integrity to steer us back, even if imperfectly. Before, we had a media that, for all its flaws, reported facts to a broad public. Before, we weren’t suffocated by social media silos and rage-driven podcasts, far-right networks, sycophants as “reporters.” All feeding lies to an audience that only wants its own reality reinforced.

Now those lies are winning. Now truth is an anomaly. Now calling out a man like Kirk for who he really was is branded as unpatriotic.

I am old enough to have lived through Watergate, Reagan’s shooting, the fall of the Berlin Wall, Clinton’s impeachment, 9/11, Iraq, Obama’s rise, Trump’s first reign, and Trump’s return. After each crisis I thought, Surely it cannot get worse than this. After each collapse, I thought, Surely America will bounce back. And usually it did, if not fully, then in part, enough to restore some faith.

But this feels different. This feels like a breaking point. The worship of Charlie Kirk, scrubbed of his lies, suggests that we may not course correct this time. That instead, his poisonous words will be embalmed in national memory as though they were noble.

And to see how Trump, as president, is reacting by calling some Americans “scum” and unleashing his anger rather than urging a sense of calm. Our presidents have always led in course corrections. This one isn’t, and it’s why things will get far worse than perhaps anything we’ve seen in the past.

I have lived through six decades of American history, and I have seen us falter, then rebound, falter, then rebound, falter, then rebound. But today, as Trump pushes hate more aggressively than ever, as Trump’s henchmen scream revenge, as our country fractures into isolated realities, I see no rebound ahead.

Under Trump, with Kirk’s death, there is no course correction possible from this tragedy, I cannot see it. Can you?

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