The assassination of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University is a tragedy that defies politics. I write that as someone who disagreed with him deeply.

I often found his commentary offensive, lacking nuance and empathy, and corrosive to the civic and spiritual hope I want to believe in. But no matter how strongly I objected to his politics, his death by gunfire is not justice, not progress, and certainly not something to joke about.

It is an act of violence that should break all our hearts.

A wound to democracy

The danger of political violence is not limited to its immediate victims. Every bullet fired at a political figure tears a hole into our democracy.

It sends a message that ideas can be silenced by force, that debate can be replaced by intimidation and that hatred is more powerful

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