In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s death, what stands out is not simply the event itself, but the reactions that followed. Almost immediately, Donald Trump called for Kirk to receive the “highest honor.” Right-wing groups began to cast him as a martyr. On social media, posts appeared sanctifying him as a “brother in Christ” and a “good man,” as though his political record could be separated from his faith and his rhetoric.

What is striking is the selective empathy at work. Many who now grieve Kirk’s passing have never spoken about the children buried under rubble in Gaza, the students hospitalized after yet another school shooting, or the countless victims of systemic poverty and corruption — both in the United States and elsewhere. But when it comes to Kirk, their moral outrage and mourning rise to the surface.

Charlie Kirk was not simply a Christian. He was part of the machinery of Christian nationalist neo-Nazism in the United States. Not a lamb. Not a saint. A man who spat out political poison and repackaged it as truth.

His views on women alone reveal the depth of his extremism. He opposed abortion in all cases, even arguing that a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to carry a pregnancy. He frequently reduced women’s roles to the home, echoing a worldview where their value was tied to motherhood and submission. From there, his attacks only expanded. He declared that “there are only two genders,” denounced trans rights as lies that “hurt kids,” and pushed to ban gender-affirming care nationwide.

He smeared Muslims, denied Palestine’s right to exist, and openly supported Israel’s campaign in Gaza. He was openly racist toward Indians, mocking their accents and dismissing their presence in America. And he dismissed America’s gun violence crisis by saying the Second Amendment was “worth the cost” of people dying every year.

It is no surprise that many Christians resonate with this message. Religious communities remain deeply sensitive on questions of gender and sexuality, and Kirk gave voice to their discomfort. But religion is not the truth. And it should never be weaponized to despise or silence people who do not share the same beliefs.

Someone once told me, “One should not be killed just because he has a different opinion.” And I agree. But when an “opinion” calls for the systematic oppression of others and when it denies people’s humanity and fuels political violence, it ceases to be mere opinion. It becomes hate. And when hate is amplified by political machinery, it becomes a weapon.

Now Kirk’s own death is being used as a political weapon. Donald Trump praises him. Right-wing networks martyr him. His death has become “valuable” not for who he was, but because of how he served the system already in power.

Meanwhile, that same system strips rights away daily: women’s autonomy, workers’ wages, the dignity of minorities, and the disabled. None of this provokes national mourning. It is treated as ordinary.

Michel Foucault offers a useful lens here. Power, he argued, does not only repress — it also normalizes. It determines what society comes to accept as natural. In the U.S., guns have become normalized. School shootings are brushed off as “the cost of freedom.” Even death itself becomes politicized: some lives are loudly mourned, while others are quietly erased. Kirk’s death is sanctified. Palestinian children killed in Gaza are dismissed as “collateral damage.” This is not just hypocrisy. It is biopolitics: the system deciding whose lives are valuable, and whose can be thrown away.

And the irony is inescapable. Kirk defended America’s gun culture by arguing that the deaths it produces were “worth it.” Did he and his supporters truly believe they were immune from the violence they endorsed?

In 2023, nearly 47,000 people in the United States died from gun-related injuries. Guns are now the leading cause of death for American children and teenagers. States like Mississippi and Louisiana have firearm mortality rates worse than some war zones. Isn’t this telling for a country that insists on calling itself a “First World nation”?

Around the same time Kirk was killed, there was a school shooting in Colorado. Several students were hospitalized, some with gunshot wounds. The shooter turned the gun on himself. Another student was injured in the chaos. And yet, this barely made national headlines. Violence of this kind happens so often in America that it fades into background noise.

So when people ask if Kirk “deserved” his fate, the question should be reframed: is his life more valuable than those students’? Why does his death provoke sanctification, while their suffering is treated as another statistic in the culture of violence he spent his career defending?

Predictably, the blame game began almost immediately. Right-wing commentators pointed fingers at Democrats and the Left, quoting Plato: “No one is more hated than the one who speaks the truth.” Sure, some people hated Kirk. How could they not? He spent his career vilifying women, trans people, Muslims, and Palestinians. If people hated him, it wasn’t because he “spoke the truth.” It was because he pushed cruelty and called it courage.

But even then, before spinning this into another tired left-versus-right brawl, maybe pause. There could be many possible reasons why Charlie Kirk was shot. Why is the finger immediately pointed at the Left? Why is every violent act instantly reduced to a culture-war talking point, instead of asking harder questions about what drives someone to pull the trigger?

And that’s the deeper irony. His death isn’t just being mourned. It’s being exploited. Turned into another weapon in the endless battle for power.

Then comes the religious sanctification. Posts declaring that Kirk “served Jesus” and is now in heaven like a young lamb. But if Jesus were here today, would he praise Kirk? Or would he argue with him? And once he saw Kirk standing with authorities who repress and dehumanize, would he not flip the table, or even throw it, at him and at the blind followers using his name to bless oppression.

This is the real hypocrisy. The same people demanding tears for Charlie Kirk stayed silent while Gaza was bombed. They stayed silent as children were shot in schools. They stayed silent as minorities were criminalized simply for existing. They preach Christ but withhold empathy from the oppressed.

I do not celebrate Kirk’s death. I do not mourn it either. My empathy is for his wife and children, yes — but also for the people whose suffering he denied, dismissed, or mocked in life.

Call me a despicable human if you will. I will always stand with the oppressed. I will always give more grace to those who never had a taste of real justice.

Because no one is obliged to mourn the wicked.

Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this essay was published on Facebook.

About the Author

Em Nuñez is a Master’s Student in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at a German university, with a background in journalism and media. Her work and studies reflect a profound interest in politics, culture, society, and how ideas shape collective life.