An Obligation to Comment

I perceive social media predominately as an outlet for quick takes, so I use this particular platform to address more complex and convoluted issues. (I've had this blog for 20 years. If you just found this, hello, and better late than never.) I've been fairly transparent about some of the personal issues I've had over the last couple of years, but my blog is also where I can give a more articulate response to current events and complicated topics.

Outside of inadvertently irking a couple Republican high school classmates, I haven't said that much of the death of former Trump staffer and conservative pundit Charlie Kirk. I found out about the shooting while glancing on my phone at work. A student asked if I wanted to see the video of the shot; I said no, but he shared it anyway. I put my phone on airplane mode for my weekly chiropractor appointment; when I turned the Wifi back on, Kirk had passed away. When I turned on the car radio, the first song that played was "Dialogue (Parts 1 and 2)" by Chicago, an up-tempo number about political discourse that ends abruptly. I'm still figuring out to interpret that.

This is sad and appalling, but it's hard to mourn this guy. It is perfectly possible to believe that guns are a cancer on America, and that Kirk's rhetoric enabled that. It's not hard to find his opinions on an array of hot button issues, including gun control. I see no need to repeat them here.

I worked at a right-wing AM news/talk station for two years, and I noticed the commodity placed on younger talking heads to counter aging personalities like Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage. I was in the same office space as Guy Benson, and after I was let go, I saw from afar the football get passed from Guy to Milo Yiannopoulos to Tomi Lahren to Ben Shapiro to Kirk. Guy lost favor because he's a moderate conservative; the other four were more extreme, annoying at best and appalling at worst.

To be clear, I'm not celebrating his death. I'm also not trying to give credence to the inevitable conspiracy theories. He was a family man, after all. However, American society is polarized and all this will do is divide us further. 

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