The following piece is an opinion and does not reflect the views of The Eagle and its staff. All opinions are edited for grammar, style and argument structure and fact-checked, but the opinions are the writer’s own.
Politics took a dark turn on Wednesday, Sept. 10. Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed at Utah Valley University, his first stop on a national tour to various colleges and universities. I felt numb when I read the breaking news that he had died from his injuries. A man I despised for his opinions and for creating Turning Point USA, a national conservative organization centered on high school and college campuses, had been violently killed in front of a crowd of young people and other attendees. Despite my personal opinions about Kirk, political violence should have no place in America, and we are weaker because of it.
However, it is interesting and dreadfully ironic to note the question an audience member asked Kirk minutes before the shooting. The person in the crowd asked him, “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?”
Kirk replied, “Too many.” When I read this in a news article, I couldn’t help but roll my eyes. The question is in reference to the recent Catholic school shooting in Minneapolis, where two children died and 21 were injured. The shooter identifies as transgender.
The right has made an example of the Minneapolis shooter’s gender identity rather than the real issue at hand: how did this individual get a gun despite doing everything “correctly”? The shooter passed background and in-person checks to purchase multiple guns and was legally able to obtain the firearms used in the shooting.
How does this relate to their transgender identity? If it does as the right proclaims, if trans people are “mentally ill” as online rhetoric has spread, then how was this person able to get a gun? Asking minuscule identity questions dodges around the real question: “Is America’s gun control policy strict enough?”
The problem is that the wrong questions are being asked. The political polarization of violent events will be the death of American politics and political civility.
The attempted assassination of President Donald Trump in July 2024 was similar. The shooter was identified as a registered Republican, but amongst various conspiracies and overall confusion of a motive, this information was buried. The Minneapolis shooter is consistently identified as transgender in social media posts, but the people praying in church who died or were critically injured are not the focal point. I have personally seen more about the shooter’s gender identity on social media discourse than about the children who died from gunfire.
Kirk’s death is riddled with tragic irony. Kirk founded Turning Point USA in 2012 to promote libertarian values of “free markets and limited government” through what he described as a “secular worldview.” He eventually shifted more toward what critics describe as a debate style focused on verbally defeating opponents rather than reaching a consensus, as evidenced by titles like “Charlie Kirk ANNIHILATES Smart-Aleck Student Accusing Him of Propaganda,” showing this confrontational approach.
Instead of having genuine, understanding conversations, Kirk instead focused on projecting far-right Christian nationalism and extremely controversial social opinions on abortion, women’s roles and gun policy without true debate from other sides. The rise of conservative media culture can be heavily attributed to Kirk and the creation of Turning Point USA, and it coincides with the general shift in political polarization across all generations, but most notably within the younger, college-age Generation Z.
With the rise of clickbait debate culture, the purpose often gets lost in translation. And it wasn’t just Kirk. Other channels like Jubilee and Ben Shapiro’s Daily Wire advertise civil debate, yet utilize techniques that provoke anger in people, shut them down and further burrow people in their echo chambers.
I wish I knew what could be done to combat this issue on a larger scale than simple engagement in civil discourse and education on both sides. Political polarization and identity politics are an epidemic across the world, and America is in the spotlight for it now more than ever. We are focusing on the wrong questions and, if we don’t change course, people will die in the crossfire.
Mari Santos is a senior in the School of Public Affairs and a columnist for The Eagle.
This article was edited by Quinn Volpe, Alana Parker and Walker Whalen. Copy editing done by Sabine Kanter-Huchting, Emma Brown, Arin Burrell and Andrew Kummeth. Fact checking done by Aidan Crowe.
