Who Deserves Empathy? The Death of Charlie Kirk

The shooting of Charlie Kirk, the American conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, has loomed large over American politics and exposed a deeper question about how the public chooses whom to mourn. Kirk, 31, was shot fatally while speaking at Utah Valley University on September 10th. Within minutes, videos from the scene spread across all forms of social media, triggering an outpouring of praises and condemnations that converted grief into another front in the culture war.

Outside Turning Point’s headquarters in Phoenix, mourners placed candles and flowers beneath a large portrait of Kirk. Clips of him with his wife and young daughter circulated the media globally, often captioned “No family deserves this.” To supporters, Charlie Kirk was a husband and father who fell victim to a senseless act of violence and a horrendous act against free speech.

On other parts of the internet, sympathy quickly turned to criticism. Within hours, old clips of Kirk began circulating again: a 2022 Turning Point USA livestream where he called abortion “worse than the Holocaust,” a 2024 Jubilee interview where he said he would expect his young daughter to carry a pregnancy even if she were raped, and several speeches defending gun rights as “worth the cost of some gun deaths each year” to preserve the Second Amendment, even as school shootings increased. For his critics, those remarks came to define him more than his death did, reigniting debates over whether he deserved public sympathy at all.

Authorities have identified Tyler Robinson, 22, as the suspect in the case. Prosecutors allege he told a friend he was “tired of Kirk’s hate.” Moreover, near the crime scene, investigators found four shell casings engraved with elements of internet culture such as memes, gaming symbols, and ironic slogans. These markings suggested Robinson’s actions were possibly driven more by online culture than by a political ideology. His arrest provokes a troubling question: Did Charlie Kirk die for political views, or was he a victim of cancel culture?

The White House responded quickly to the news. President Donald Trump, who frequently referred to Kirk as a protégé and personal friend, announced the development during a Fox News interview. He blamed “radical left lunatics” for creating what he described as an “atmosphere of hate.” Trump also labeled Kirk as “a martyr for free speech.”

In response to his death, Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, pledged to continue his mission, promising to make Turning Point USA “the biggest movement this nation has ever seen.”

Supporters of the right presented the killing as proof that conservatives are under attack, while critics accused them of exploiting tragedy for political gain. The debate reflected a broader concern: the growing belief that empathy should be conditional.

A BBC study published in June 2025 found that emotionally charged political posts are shared nearly three times faster than factual reports, 42% of respondents under 30 also said they had reacted to a news event before verifying its accuracy. Researchers describe the trend as “algorithmic empathy”, the process by which emotion online is shaped, ranked, and recycled by logic of an algorithm.

For years, Kirk had mastered this system. Turning Point USA built its influence through the same digital algorithm that now dissects his death: short, explosive clips designed to travel faster than context. He taught his followers to dominate platforms by being louder, quicker, and more provocative than their opponents. In death, those same algorithms fractured his image into two conflicting symbols, the martyr and the provocateur.

Political scientist Lilliana Mason of Johns Hopkins University warns that this erosion of shared empathy is not merely cultural but civic. “When compassion becomes dependent on allegiance, it stops being empathy,” she said. “And democracies rely on empathy to survive disagreement.”

The world’s grief, outrage, and indifference toward Charlie Kirk’s death spoke less to who he was and more to the systems that have taught us how and whom to mourn.