The Struggle is Long

On Charlie Kirk and resisting the momentum of civil war

Don’t do it.

If I have any credibility with you from twenty years of reporting on rightwing and fascist movements, please listen when I beg you not to celebrate Charlie Kirk getting shot. Don’t celebrate it, don’t mock it. I’m not asking you to send thoughts and prayers. I’m begging you to not pour gasoline on a fire.

Leave aside morality if you must: this isn’t a match in dry grass, it’s a torch. We do not want what this could ignite, and we would not win.

And if you weren’t thinking of celebrating, if you’re inclined to believe that only rightwing trolls-in-disguise would do so, either trust me that some are or, as the fascists love to say, “do your own research.”

I’ve been doing mine—reporting and writing about what I call “slow civil war”—for some years now. I don’t believe this will tip us into the fast kind but it could bring us much closer. And friends, nobody would win that war. Nobody.

This is not some kumbaya “go high” shit. I’m not Chamberlaining. This is me, a reporter, telling you that when I’ve had a gun pointed at me—literally, not figuratively, one with bullets, not tweets or skeets—it wasn’t the time to posture. I didn’t try to say something clever. I spoke slowly and as calmly as I could. Not because I wanted to appease the man with the gun. Because I didn’t want him to shoot me, and the gun was in his hands.

We don’t know enough yet about what happened in Utah to say much that’s definitive, though perhaps by the time you read this we will. But already I can tell you this, from my years of reporting: Fascism’s guns are at the ready. Think before you spout off. Winning the struggle against fascism is what matters, not indulging conspiracism or owning the fascists or showing off your quick wit.

To rightwingers who may read this: I can imagine you saying, “What are you talking about, ‘fascism’s guns are at the ready,’ when it’s our man down?”

I mean this: I despise the man who shot Charlie Kirk as much as I despise Kirk. My disdain for those whose goal isn’t democracy but other people’s pain is universal.

But let’s not be fools: Even if one believed in violence — and I don’t — all the John Brown Clubs in the world aren’t even a drop in the bucket of arms at the state’s disposal. Any thought otherwise is a dumb and dangerous as Red Dawn, and it doesn’t even have the virtue of Patrick Swayze’s godlike jawline.

There will be more to say, about what has happened and what will happen next. But a few things to be aware of right now: If you know Charlie Kirk’s name, you may mistakenly believe he’s one of fascism’s chief trolls, a Steve Bannon, a rhetorician. He’s both less and a lot more powerful than that, the kind of speaker who’s easy to goof on and the kind of organizer that the left and liberalism have too easily overlooked. He’s one of fascism’s chief organizers. He delivers: votes and dollars. He delivers youth votes the Right didn’t think possible. He built a massive organization. The scale of his influence will shape the fury of fascism’s response.

And that response won’t be directed at white men with guns, like the murderous fool who shot Kirk: Already Right’s rhetoricians are making proposals. Martial law. Mass arrests.

Will it come to that? I don’t know. Inertia is a powerful force. The slow civil war is speeding up, but it remains—at least it has—fast and slow at the same time. What I do know is this: the struggle is long. Let’s stay with it and not give in to the moment.