Who We Go to War For and Why It Matters
Graphic by Riley Cullinan
In response to the tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk, many prominent conservative voices have proclaimed that a state of “war” has befallen the nation. A war of ideology, left versus right, “our truth” versus “their truth.” Amidst the trigger words and headlines, we must take stock of where we are as a nation and ask how we got here and where we go next. Who do we go to war for, and who do we let fade into the annals of history, remembered only as tragedy and nothing more?
All tragedy is tragedy. There is no Democratic tragedy, nor Republican tragedy. The murder of Kirk is just as tragic as that of Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman, South Carolina state senator Clementa Pinckney, or school shooting victims Charlotte Bacon and Sabika Sheikh—the list unfortunately goes on. From slavery and Native American genocides to political assassinations and lynchings, we are a nation built on tragedy; it governs our headlines and creeps into our daily discourse. Each step forward leaves behind broken communities marked by loss. Political violence in all its forms is a stain on the United States, and Kirk’s death is a painful reminder of how far we are from our lofty ideals as a nation.
What we can compare is how we respond to tragedy. Condolences or thoughts and prayers do not bring back the 267 individuals killed in school shootings in 2024. Why is it that the political right only goes to “war” when one of their own suffers the fate that so many others have endured? Do we only go to war for “Great American Patriot[s],” as President Trump described Kirk? Was Melissa Hortman not a “Great American Patriot?” Were the 14 high school students killed at Parkland High School not worthy of that title? Was there not a patriot among them? The drums of war did not beat for them, yet for Kirk, they do.
Only in the U.S. are school shootings described as a “fact of life,” as JD Vance did in September 2024 or gun deaths dismissed as “worth it” to protect the Second Amendment, as Kirk declared in April 2023. Yet the assassination of Kirk is treated as cause for war. If you thought partisanship was not an issue in this country, this contrast alone highlights the gravity of the problem. Even tragedy is not free from politics. The administration has already made it clear that, in response to Kirk’s assassination, it will crack down on “leftist NGOs,” using every available arm of the federal government.
This strikes a different tone from Trump’s comments after a 2024 school shooting in Iowa: “It’s just horrible, so surprising to see it here. But [we] have to get over it, we have to move forward.” Why must we “move forward” when it happens to children, but remain at a standstill when it happens to a political ally? Kirk was murdered, but does his blood run any brighter than that of the children in Iowa? I think not.
In a recent, now viral sermon on Charlie Kirk, Rev. Howard-John Wesley said: “How you die does not redeem how you lived.” Those words struck me. Kirk was undeniably controversial; you could fill volumes with hateful statements he had made, but it was his right to say them. He was a prominent advocate of the First Amendment and wielded it to its fullest. That he was murdered for exercising this fundamental right is both un-American and morally wrong. But so too is the subsequent crackdown on others’ speech in his name. Kirk himself once said, “There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And all of it’s protected by the First Amendment.” It is ironic and troubling that, in defence of his legacy, the right has betrayed Kirk’s own intentions. One cannot defend the First Amendment by potentially violating it.
Pam Bondi, the U.S. Attorney General, said: “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech—and that’s across the aisle.” Bondi ought to know that there is no distinction between the two; hate speech is free speech. She has since clarified that the Justice Department will target only speech that incites violence, yet this remains a troubling response from the government. This, coupled with potential First Amendment violations in the case of Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension from air, highlights the dangerous reality we are now facing.
What is clear in all this political theater is that we need, in the words of Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, to “turn down the temperature.” Kirk’s death, like the tragedies before it, reveals a raw and unpolished version of this country that divides us rather than brings us together. Americans are not born right or left; we are born American. It is that belief in the American dream that should unite us. As Alexis de Tocqueville, a prominent 19th-century French thinker, put it: “The greatness of America lies…in her ability to repair her faults.”
History proves that we do repair our faults. In the 1960s, a Black president was unimaginable; by 2008, it was reality. The idea of women’s suffrage was laughed at by the Founding Fathers, yet by 1920, women were at the polls. Though long overdue, these changes demonstrate that we are capable of correction. How we will heal today’s polarization and divisive society, I am not sure yet. But I have hope—and sometimes, that is all we can hold onto.
Who do we go to war for? The overarching question that has lingered in my brain as the fallout from Kirk’s death pans out across the nation. Kirk’s death is emblematic of a deeper issue that for too long has been pulling this nation apart. Division and violence in all their forms serve only to pull us further from each other. In their totality they should be opposed—not only when their victim bears the face of an ally.
Noah Basden ’29 (nhbasden@college.harvard.edu) is comping the Harvard Independent.