\n<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cCharlie Kirk was the one who stood up for us, and that\u2019s why these radical leftists had to take him out,\u201d remarked one of my fellow football players at my staunchly conservative college. He wasn\u2019t the only one. Many teammates were rightfully mad. But instead of directing their anger toward only the killer, they blamed everyone on the left for the actions of one fringe individual. This instinct to condemn the whole other side for the actions of one crazy person isn\u2019t new; and it sows seeds of hatred that only deepen our divides.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tGrowing up in the early 2020s, Charlie Kirk\u2019s face was everywhere, and that shaped how my generation saw politics and the world. He wasn\u2019t just influential for my right-leaning friends; Kirk changed how many young liberals saw the GOP and how they defined themselves against the party. But for many of my conservative friends, Kirk wasn\u2019t just another figure in the movement \u2014 he was an icon who redefined it. He made confrontation, cultural rebellion, and \u201cowning the libs\u201d central to what being a young Republican meant. Yet, that same influence turned hostility between opposing camps into the norm, with threats and violence increasingly more common than reasoned, peaceful discussion.<\/p>\n
\n\tI\u2019m in a unique spot to see this picture. I recently graduated from a conservative all-boys high school in Chicago, and now I attend a right-leaning Southern college, playing football at both. In these places, I\u2019ve learned to keep my liberal politics hidden. I first heard of Kirk when I was in middle school, but his name blew up by the time I reached high school, starting with my freshman year, when a friend showed me a viral clip of him debating a \u201cwoke\u201d college student on abortion rights and completely dismantling her argument. From that moment, it felt like everyone I knew had seen him.<\/p>\n
\n\tLiving in conservative spaces has showed me something worrisome about how my generation treats disagreement. It\u2019s not just that I\u2019m outnumbered, it\u2019s that I\u2019ve heard teammates and friends say they\u2019ve never had a Democrat friend before because \u201cthose Democrats hate our country\u201d and you \u201ccan\u2019t befriend evil.\u201d Those comments are more than political disagreements; they\u2019re seeds of hatred that grow into distrust and dehumanization. When you see someone as hating your country, you stop seeing them as a person who can be reasoned with, and mistakenly begin thinking that violence is the only way.<\/p>\n
\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
\n\tBut Kirk was a rock star at my school. Many kids are die-hard MAGA supporters, and they embraced him as well. His Turning Point USA rallies and passionate conservative rhetoric inspired countless young men who saw him as a hero and a defender of their values. Friends constantly passed around videos of him embarrassing \u201cwoke liberals\u201d on topics ranging from culture and education to crime and abortion. They loved him because they thought he could out-debate anyone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tOther young conservative voices existed, of course, but they were different. Though figures like Ben Shapiro and Candace Owens have Gen Z supporters, Kirk generated a whole new type of excitement. His followers didn\u2019t just sit back and watch; they joined in and brought the energy seen at his events to their school hallways and group chats, where politics was a participatory social experience instead of an intellectual debate. He made them feel they were a part of something bigger than themselves, and that gave them license to be loud.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tBeing the only liberal many of my friends knew, I kept quiet, nodding along. And when Kirk was killed, I grew anxious. The tension and hostility toward the left on my campus has been palpable. Even though Kirk engaged with people on the other side, many young people didn\u2019t catch onto that part of his politics. They would still rather badmouth the other side than have a respectful debate.<\/p>\n
\n\tAs a football player, I know the power of a team coming together. I\u2019ve learned that you must channel energy into something bigger than yourself. But right now, my generation is two teams fighting against each other and not coming together to better our country. The anger I see isn\u2019t just political; it\u2019s personal. People argue today not to understand the other side but to \u201cwin\u201d and make their opponent look bad, leaving no room for empathy.<\/p>\n
\t\tRelated Content<\/p>\n<\/h2>\n
\n\tThe weight of Kirk\u2019s death was heavy at practice last week. My friends are sad and upset, mourning a man they saw as an idol and their future. They replayed clips of him speaking, cheering for how he \u201cwon\u201d against liberal college kids, as if his rebellious spirit still rallied them. And while I mourn his senseless death, I\u2019m also grieving a chance for unity that seems to be slipping away. Gen Z can rewrite this story, but we need to learn to disagree through peaceful debate, without hate. If we don\u2019t, I fear tragedies like these will just become the norm.<\/p>\n
\n\tWatching my teammates mourn, I worry about what\u2019s next. Many young conservatives see Kirk\u2019s death as a rallying cry, fueled by the same \u201canti-woke\u201d fire he sparked in those viral videos. Instead of prompting dialogue, I fear his death will just make all the problems worse. It will cause people to point fingers and make threats, leading to more division. <\/p>\n
\n\tFor me, political division is something I\u2019ve seen up close. Political arguments at my high school often ended with personal attacks. This has only accelerated in college, because when you combine passion with the belief that those who disagree don\u2019t care about our country, even small arguments breed resentment. If we don\u2019t separate our beliefs from the people we are, the gulf between us will only grow wider.<\/p>\n
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\n\tBut I still hold onto hope. From football, I\u2019ve learned that people can band together and focus collective energy toward something bigger and better than themselves. I\u2019ve seen teamwork overcome personal clashes and rivalries. If my generation can approach this tragedy with perspective, it could be a turning point for us. We could show that we can come together and resolve our differences peacefully, rather than hating each other. But that means engaging in actual dialogue \u2014\u00a0and seeking real understanding.<\/p>\n
\n\tEli Thompson is a freshman in college. His writing has been featured in <\/em>The Wall Street Journal and <\/em>USA Today, and he has appeared on NBC Chicago, WGN, and SiriusXM Patriot<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cCharlie Kirk was the one who stood up for us, and that\u2019s why these radical leftists had to take him out,\u201d remarked one of my fellow football players at my staunchly conservative college. He wasn\u2019t the only one. Many teammates were rightfully mad. But instead of directing their anger toward only the killer, they blamed<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22781,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[8850,7176,86,12560,1665],"class_list":{"0":"post-22780","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-assassination","9":"tag-charlie","10":"tag-gen","11":"tag-kirk","12":"tag-splitting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22780"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22780\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}