When You Cheer Political Violence, You Invite It Upon Yourself

Make It Make Sense — a series on media messaging and the manipulations we miss. In this piece, I dig into how the public’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination exposes a dangerous misunderstanding of free speech and democracy.

I’ll be honest — I’m still stunned by how many people are celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death. Not just in the hours after the news broke, but even now. It’s been a week since his death, and people are still posting memes, clapping in comment threads, and defending why it’s “okay” to cheer. It isn’t just tasteless — it’s terrifying. Because if this is where we are now, it means too many have forgotten what free speech and democracy actually stand for.

When you cheer political violence, you aren’t defending democracy — you’re dismantling it. Worse, you’re inviting it upon yourself. That’s the paradox so many people celebrating Charlie Kirk’s assassination don’t seem to grasp. They think they’re punishing the other side, but what they’re really doing is lowering the bar for everyone.

Today it’s Charlie. Tomorrow it could be you.

The Illusion of One-Sided Violence

Scrolling through the reactions online, you’d think some people just won the Super Bowl. Memes, jokes, even outright thank-yous to the bullet that killed Charlie Kirk. The logic seems to be: Good. One less voice we don’t like.

If you doubt it, try scrolling the comments from that day and tell me you can’t find dozens of examples in seconds. You won’t succeed — because it was, and still is, everywhere.

But here’s the problem: violence doesn’t come with a partisan filter. Once you decide assassination is a legitimate response to speech you hate, you’ve given permission for it to be used against anyone, including yourself.

Mahatma Gandhi warned us long ago: “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” Violence doesn’t stop where you want it to stop. Once unleashed, it spreads indiscriminately — and no one is left untouched.

This is the part that doesn’t make sense. Celebrating Charlie’s death isn’t just celebrating “your side” winning. It’s signing off on a new rule: if someone finds your opinion dangerous, offensive, or just plain annoying, they’re free to eliminate you too.

Free Speech and the Dangerous Precedent

Here’s what too many people forget: the First Amendment was never designed to protect polite speech. Nobody needs a constitutional safeguard to say things everyone already agrees with.

The whole point of free speech is to protect the words that make us uncomfortable, the ideas that make us squirm, the opinions that spark arguments. That’s why Charlie Kirk had the same right to speak as anyone else — not because his words were universally loved, but precisely because they weren’t.

Now, you may say: But his words were harmful. He spread hate. He crossed the line. That’s the heart of the disagreement. But here’s the reality: speech you dislike doesn’t automatically become “hate speech.” The First Amendment doesn’t draw lines around comfort. It protects expression so that you don’t lose your rights the moment someone else decides your opinion is offensive.

So when you justify his murder on the grounds that his views were offensive, you’ve gutted the very principle that protects your own speech. If the standard is “speech I don’t like can be met with violence,” then congratulations — your opinions are only safe until the day someone stronger, angrier, or more radical decides they don’t like them either.

And that’s the precedent being set when you cheer Charlie’s assassination. You’re not just condemning him — you’re normalizing political murder as the answer to speech.

Why It Matters

For most of our history, America has stood apart by arguing with ballots, not bullets. We fight our battles in courtrooms, in town halls, and yes, even in the comment section. But the point is — we fight them with words, not assassinations.

The moment you cheer for murder as a form of political debate, you’ve stepped out of democracy and into vigilantism. You’re saying laws don’t matter, elections don’t matter, justice doesn’t matter. All that matters is who pulls the trigger first.

John F. Kennedy once warned: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. put it even more plainly: “Violence begets violence; hate begets hate.”

Cheering assassination is exactly that — shutting the door on peaceful solutions and guaranteeing more blood in the streets.

Germany didn’t lose democracy overnight — it lost it when ordinary people grew comfortable with political violence on the streets. History gives us a chilling reminder of how quickly this slope becomes a cliff. In the 1920s and 30s, Germany’s Weimar Republic was plagued by political street violence. Both the far left and the far right believed fists and bullets were better than arguments and elections.

The result: public trust in democracy collapsed, and a frustrated people turned to a strongman who promised order. His name was Adolf Hitler.

That’s how democracies die — not all at once, but when violence becomes normalized and too many people cheer it on. Do we really want to be the generation that repeats one of history’s worst mistakes?

And here’s the kicker: the same rule of law you’re tearing down is the very thing protecting you. Without it, you don’t get a shield when the mob decides your ideas are the dangerous ones. That’s not justice. That’s collapse.

Make It Make Sense

So let’s lay this out plainly.

Let’s be clear: when you clap for Charlie Kirk’s assassination, you’re not just celebrating the death of a man you didn’t like. You’re endorsing assassination as a valid political tool. That’s the message your applause sends: It’s okay to kill people if their opinions offend me.

But here’s the mirror you might not want to look into: by saying that, you’ve already extended the invitation to your own doorstep. Because if assassination is acceptable for “them,” it’s equally acceptable for “you.”

You don’t get to cheer political murder and then demand special protection for yourself later. That’s not how rules work. The moment you celebrate violence as the answer to speech, you’ve volunteered to live in a world where your own voice could be silenced the same way.

And make no mistake — history shows it will happen sooner or later. Because once assassination is justified for “them,” it’s justified for “you.” That’s the part so many people miss: you are not immune. You are not untouchable. You are writing the rules for your own destruction the second you endorse someone else’s.

So ask yourself: when you laughed, or clapped, or posted a meme celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death — did you really think the rule you just wrote would never be used against you?

The Real Choice

America can’t survive if speech is answered with violence. We either defend the principle that every voice has the right to be heard — even the voices we despise — or we accept a future where no voice is safe at all.

As Ronald Reagan reminded us: “Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on.” That fight begins with refusing to cheer when freedom is stolen from someone else.

Our country feels split down the middle, like there are only two sides left to choose from. But the truth is, there’s only one side that matters: the American side. If we can’t remember that, we don’t just lose arguments — we lose the very thing that binds us together. And that’s a loss none of us can afford.

That’s the choice in front of us. Not left versus right. Not conservative versus liberal. Civilization versus chaos.

So before you clap for another bullet, ask yourself: do you really want to live in a country where assassination becomes the way we settle arguments? If not, then it’s time to reject the thrill of vengeance and return to the harder, but better, work of debate, persuasion, and law.

And if you were one of the people who cheered Charlie Kirk’s death, this is your chance to turn back. To say, “I let my anger cloud my judgment. I see now that celebrating death was wrong.”

You can even say it here, in the comments. Because the truth is, it’s never too late to choose better — to defend freedom instead of applauding its destruction.

Because once violence becomes the language of politics, no one escapes it. Not even you.