I Don’t Want To Write About Charlie Kirk

I don’t want to write about Charlie Kirk, but it seems to be the only thing I can think about today. 

Whatever my initial reaction was to the news, it isn’t that important in light of what wiser people have said, kinder people, people who don’t harbor hate and rage in their souls like I do. 

What I think about Charlie Kirk is that he got caught in his own trap. He became his own definition of collateral damage. He was a casualty in a war he promoted, supported, and weaponized.

 His hubris was that he didn’t think it would happen to him. He wasn’t supposed to be the target. He was supposed to be the gun. Guys like him: white, young, politically up-and-coming with security details, even, aren’t supposed to get hit.  We reserve that for a classroom of third graders.

He must have thought that there was a possibility he might get nuked by a nut someday, though. 

Because we all think that. 

Because that’s the world we live in now. A world where movie theaters, schools, concert venues, churches, and synagogues, anywhere where people gather, a psychopath with a gun and a grievance could show up and start spraying. 

 Charlie must have calculated for this possibility (see, security detail), but figured what were the odds in stupid whitebread Utah, on the first leg of a 15-stop tour? 

And on a 77% white college campus to boot, where his rehearsed, incendiary, hateful schtick would probably be well-received among that straggle of baby-MAGAs? 

Charlie Kirk died in the kind of world he wanted for himself and for us. But his own monster killed him. Dang. Harsh.

But instructive, if we pay attention. Which we won’t. 

Thoughts and prayers.