Yesterday, the United States entered a new and chilling stage of what I have called the “age of rage.” After two attempted assassinations of President Donald Trump, leading conservative leader Charlie Kirk, father of two, was gunned down at a campus event at Utah Valley University. I learned the news while I was in Prague to speak on my book,“The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” and the growing attacks on free speech around the world. I never imagined that I would be speaking about Charlie’s murder and what it represents for free speech.
I cannot claim to have been a close friend of Charlie Kirk, but I knew him and respected him. In his relatively short life, Charlie energized a generation of conservative college students at a time of intense liberal orthodoxy and intolerance.
Kirk came up with the brilliant idea of challenging liberals to simply debate issues from abortion to immigration. His group would go to campuses and invite debate with signs reading “prove me wrong” and encourage liberals to engage in dialogue rather than violence.
The left had particular reason to hate Kirk. Campuses have long been the bastions of the left, reinforced by faculties which now have few, if any, conservatives or Republicans. Higher education has long been an incubator for intolerance; shaping a generation of speech phobics who shout down or attack those with opposing views.
Kirk struck at the heart of that power base. Polls show that most students do not feel comfortable speaking about their values in our universities and many conservatives hide their views to avoid retaliation from faculty and students.
Kirk was changing that but showing students that they could be open and bold about their views. He told them that they did not have to yield to orthodoxy and the groupthink. Now he’s dead.
What is most chilling about the murder of Charlie Kirk is that it was not in the least surprising. Not anymore.
The response to TPUSA was all too often rage and violence. Liberals and anti-free speech groups like Antifa would trash their tables and threaten the students. Recently, at UC Davis, police simply watched as a TPUSA tent was torn apart and the tent carried off.
Violent speech has long been acceptable on campuses so long as it targets conservatives. Teachers have called for others to “take out” Trump supporters and for the Secret Service to assassinate him.
University of Wisconsin Professor José Felipe Alvergue, head of the English Department, turned over the table of College Republicans supporting a conservative for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. He reportedly declared, “The time for this is over!”
At universities, professors have called for “detonating white people,” denouncing police, calling for Republicans to suffer, strangling police officers, celebrating the death of conservatives, calling for the killing of Trump supporters, supporting the murder of conservative protesters, and supporting the attempted assassination of President Trump. One professor who declared that there is “nothing wrong” with such acts of violence as killing conservatives was actually promoted.
At Hunter College in New York, Professor Shellyne Rodríguez trashed a pro-life display of students, telling the students that “This is bulls–t. This is violent. You’re triggering my students.”
When the students tried to engage the professor and apologized for upsetting her, Rodríguez yelled, “No you’re not — because you can’t even have a f–king baby. So you don’t even know what that is. Get this s–t the f–k out of here.” In an Instagram post, she is then shown trashing the table.
Hunter College, however, did not consider this unhinged attack on students to be sufficient to terminate Rodríguez. It only fired her after she later chased reporters with a machete. She was then hired by another college. She was shown in a later rally exciting the group with references to “slitting the master’s throat.”
At the University of California Santa Barbara, they did not even bother to fire a professor who pleaded guilty to assaulting pro-life students on campus. Professors actually rallied around feminist studies associate professor Mireille Miller-Young. She was later honored as a model for women advocates at the University of Oregon.
In my book, I detail prior “ages of rage,” including periods of political violence by anarchists, socialists, and other groups. I previously warned that we were not only following this same trajectory, but it was accelerating. The reason is the curious nature of rage:
“What few today want to admit is that they like it. They like the freedom that it affords, the ability to hate and harass without a sense of responsibility. It is evident all around us as people engage in language and conduct that they repudiate in others. We have become a nation of rage addicts; flailing against anyone or anything that stands in opposition to our own truths.
Like all addictions, there is not only a dependency on rage but an intolerance for opposing views. The difference between rage and reason is often one’s own views. If one agrees with the underlying grievance, rage is viewed as passion or justified fury at injustice. If one disagrees with those views, it takes on a more threatening and unhinged quality. We seem to spend much of our time today raging at each other. Despite the amplification of views on both sides, there is also an increasing intolerance for opposing views. Those views are treated as simply harmful and offensive—and, therefore, intolerable. Indeed, to voice free speech principles in a time of rage is to invite the rage of the mob.”
That addiction to rage has now claimed another victim who had the audacity to speak boldly and openly about his conservative views. What will follow will be the usual perfunctory expressions of sympathy and denouncing of violence by the very politicians who have fueled the rage.
In recent months, some of us have warned Democratic politicians about their violent rhetoric. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) has called for people to take to the streets to save democracy and posted a picture brandishing a baseball bat.
Former Democratic National Committee deputy chair Keith Ellison, now the Minnesota attorney general, once said Antifa would “strike fear in the heart” of Trump. Liberal sites sell Antifa items to celebrate the violent group.
California Governor Gavin Newsom declared, “I’m going to punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.” It follows other violent rhetoric from Democratic leaders.
One House member explained to Axios, “Some of [our supporters] have suggested … what we really need to do is be willing to get shot.” Yet another admitted that constituents have told them to prepare for “violence … to fight to protect our democracy.” Others reported that liberals are talking about the need “to storm the White House and stuff like that.”
In one encounter, a lawmaker recounted that “I actually said in a meeting, ‘When they light a fire, my thought is to grab an extinguisher’. And someone at the table said, ‘Have you tried gasoline?’”
Some have. Protesters are burning cars, dealerships, and even lawyers and reporters on the left are throwing Molotov cocktails at police. We have also seen a massive increase in attacks on ICE officers, who are now covering their faces to avoid doxxing or retaliation against themselves or their families. The left has rolled out guillotines and chanted “We got the guillotine, you better run.”
Just before he was shot at Utah Valley University, Kirk rallied the group with its signature chant of “prove me wrong.” The response was to kill Charlie Kirk.
His death could succeed in forcing the thousands of conservative and libertarian students back into the shadows of our campuses and classrooms. We cannot allow that to happen. Charlie Kirk challenged not just the left to debate but the right to be heard in higher education.
Yes, this is an age of rage. However, amidst the rage and the violence, there are a special few who have defied the threats and the attacks. The writer George Bernard Shaw once said that unreasonable people expect the world to conform to them. He then added that that was why all history is made by unreasonable people.
Kirk was one of those wonderfully unreasonable people who refused to yield; refused to be silenced. Despite unrelenting attacks by the media and the establishment, he remained undeterred and unbowed. Students need to remember not how Kirk died, but why he died. His loss is Charlie’s final challenge to all those today wringing their hands and muttering the usual expressions of shocked regret. Kirk would likely say, “prove it.” Speak. Defy those who spend their time silencing others rather than speaking themselves. If you want to honor Charlie Kirk, speak out, speak boldly on both the right and the left. Prove them wrong.
Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro professor of public interest law at George Washington University and the author of the best-selling “The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage.”
Jonathan Turdley
provemewrong.support help, support, and donations. Charlie Kirk
I felt that the death of Charlie Kirk was a great loss he was an activist for how perfect society could be again. He was a great debater and no one could challenge him he could shut people down quick because there was no rebuttal ,he was a awesome role model and wanted what God intended, yet he was shot down for his freedom of speech, this was our right from years ago our first amendment rights. I feel that he tolerated things he was against, yet he could not get the same in return, even further cost him his life and his kids will never see him again, in fact they had to witness his death and his wife also, it don’t matter what side your on we all have freedom of speech and if you have to kill you no longer silence the victim you speak louder by displaying your evil ,
*. I haven’t heard a medical report from Mr. Kirk’s attending physicians with professional diagrams showing the damage to the neck. I haven’t heard from a forensic report from the medical examiner after the autopsy showing where the bullet entered and exited and substantiated damage done after autopsy. What was damaged, a artery, brain stem, spine? I haven’t seen any video of Mr. Kirk lying in blood nor any blood exiting the neck wound if an artery was severed and there would be plenty and people nearby attending to him would be covered in it as the heart continued ?
I am heartsick because the life of a 31 year old father and husband was murdered. I have not seen any Turning Point media offerings and am unfamiliar with Mr. Kirk’s work. I am equally heartsick over the young woman , Iryna, murdered on a train but again no blood was evidenced in those videos either and she too died within minutes.
We know nothing about Tyler Robinson in reality. This all adds to skepticism of all of it IMO.
Turn on a noise box or not today. Pandora’s box of vices and find the thoughts of people. Did she have a box of virtues? Please open it.
^^^*. Must always proofread. Pardon, please.
The USA? doubt it…Bill Gates Microsoft? Probably. Not even Melinda liked him.
More than 10 years ago, I created a new term for the so-called schools, colleges, and universities that promote and inculcate young people like an assembly-line into deranged Marxists. Virtually all of these former educational institutions are now 100% Leftist Indoctrination Entities (aka “LIEs”).
Now, more than 10 years later, you can seen the results with the existence of such creatures as Tyler Robinson, the alleged assassin of free speech advocate Charlie Kirk, and with such institutions as Harvard University.
Harvard once used to be a major medical research institution. But that was long ago. Today, Harvard produces no medical research of any value whatsoever. The paradigm for that is the Nobel Prize in medicine and the sciences. More than 20 years ago, Harvard regularly produced Nobel Prize winners in those fields. But during the last 10 to 20 years, they’ve produced next to nobody qualifying for such an award, even though the Nobel Committee has been drastically reducing their standards so that some LIE or another might win such an award. Today’s Harvard is totally worthless as it is now staffed and administered solely by Marxist, plaguarizing, overpaid liars.
I have long advocated that all federal funding of LIEs be eliminated and that their tax-exempt status be revoked as unconstitutional. LIEs are political institutions, not educational institutions and the public shouldn’t be forced to fund and feed such sinister and destructive political institutions.
Turning to Tyler Robinson, age 22, and the product of a significant LIE, he started out as an intelligent, moderate or even conservative student. But as the LIE assembly-line training, repetition, and Marxist inculcation took hold, when they were finished with him and spit him out, he emerged as a deranged America-hating Mindless Marxist, or what the mainstream media presstitutes and the Democrats and RINOs call a “normal person.” Robinson had been programmed to hate pro-America advocates like President Trump and Charlie Kirk. I continue to be outraged that taxpayers are funding the dangerous and destructive LIEs.
IMO, ‘proving them wrong’ means never, ever vote for a Democrat again. These people need to be rid of society power, as the Kirk assassination and all the TikTok Dems mocking it prove they are the ‘party of evil’.
Closed mind
John,
“Leftist INdoctrination Entities”, love it! Rush would’ve been proud!
So, the shooter, Mr. Robinson, thought Mr. Kirk was “full of hate” and “spreading hatred”. In an act of extreme hatred, the shooter took Mr. Kirk’s life. Someone once famously asked, “How can you see the speck of dust in your brother’s eye when you can’t even see the plank which is lodged in your own eye?”.
Never heard that before
Lefties only support free speech when its their tool to tell others what to think and how to live. Apparently the young man is/was affiliated with antifa, whose roots are in germany, whose media has allll kinds of stuff to say about trump and the US. All very interesting…
The murderer was also a homosexual living with it’s trans significant other. It’s radical leftist alphabet ideology on another murder rampage. At one time this whole trans insanity was labeled for what it truly is – a mental problem. Now under wokeism it’s been gaslighted into something holier than thou to the leftist mindset and pushed in academia like a sacred cow instead of the mental deficiency it really is.
Antifa? Never heard that before.
Go forth spewing hate, intolerance, and bigotry, and you get what you deserve. It took a war to stop Hitler…
Hater
What you just said shows an evil heart. “Spewing” anything doesn’t jusrify MURDER.
Go forth spewing hate, intolerance, and bigotry, and you get what you deserve. It took a war to stop Hitler…
Looks just like the years of lies and hatred about Kirk (and Trump) that lead to a person believing that Kirk had to be murdered.
You want to play war for keeps with the Americans who believe in and exercise their Second Amendment rights, commie? Do you want to start small and offer appointments to make house calls?
Convince us the murderer isn’t your fellow radicalized Bolshevik Biden Birthing Boy, who bought into the now retired Oval Office House Plant’s lies and hatred, telling him and you that Trump and MAGA supporters were racists and fascists?
One of the unfired casings said: “Oh bella ciao, bella ciao, ciao, ciao.” The lyrics reference the anthem of the antifascist Italian resistance during World War II. Another read, “Hey fascist! Catch!”
So what does Occam’s Razor tell you, commie? That proves he’s associated with MAGA and yet decided to murder Kirk?
Or more likely: he’s your fellow hate and rage filled Democrat Marxist Useful Idiot that bought into the YEARS of Biden, The View, Hollywood stars, etc, declaring Trump and Kirk are racists and fascists.
Trump is a fascist
Oddly it’s the woke prog leftists in conjunction with the D party cult spewing hate , hate speech , violence , riots , mayhem , arson and murder by the score. Tp the elite knobby left everyone they dont like or agree with is a nazi. Oddly they are the very monster of which they “preach against”. They have this POV as though they are jihadists for their cause celeb and a righteous in the hate & violence they dole out to suppress ideas that threaten their mentally unstable bubble world.
For those of you who are trying desperately to twist the narrative:
https://www.lifenews.com/2025/09/12/charlie-kirks-killer-tyler-robinson-was-a-radical-leftist-wrote-hey-facist-catch-on-a-bullet/?cmid=d7732104-5684-42d0-855b-c9840ca510c0
Why hasn’t Antifa been designated a domestic terror organization?
No he wasn’t a leftist or a right-wing extremist.
https://www.garbageday.email/p/charlie-kirk-was-killed-by-a-meme
He is simply a troubled kid in desperate need of attention.
Not a leftist… so who write all the Biden/Antifa “antifascist” screed and war cries on his cartridge cases?
And his support for the Democrat Tranny/Groomer Cultural Marxism Revolution – was that just another odd coincidence as well?
Weird: with what we know of his family life, and his parents engaging him in family camping trips, hiking, etc… and we’re supposed to believe he wasn’t getting any attention!
How sad to be you.
Oh contraire , tyler robinson was a sick homosexual influenced by his trans boyfriend. He was a devout leftist whom no doubt scorned god. Hardly a troubled kid but in actuality an indoctrinated vacant soul filled with hate by the evil politics he chose to adhere to , follow and kill for.
He was a devout conservative Mormon.
Great column. Professor Turley explained and examined this correctly. People need to lie, yes lie about Kirk to try to explain away their unwarranted, their un Christian, their un American posts. Shame on them and may God have pity on their souls. And no DO NOT REPLY to me. I’m over the lies, the hatred, the anger and bitterness from miserable people. I’d rather talk to normal sympathetic people who know the difference between right and wrong.
He was a hater. He wanted to kill gays. He said blacks were stupid.
“I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights”
Prove it. Send a link to a video backing up your claim. You won’t because it doesn’t exist. Charlie Kirk lives. You’re the dead one.
Smith is right. I am ancient enough to remember when Rush Limbaugh went national in 1988 much the same fictitious complaints emerged. ALL materials from both are now public domain=look for yourselves! CWMilllerPhD
You are delusional.
He was a hater. He wanted to kill gays. He said blacks were stupid.
All FALSE. 100% False. Just more false “talking points” from another unhinged wingnuts. Never ever said he “wanted to kill gays”. Never said “blacks were stupid”.
Prove me wrong.
Has it ever occurred to you that what Charlie KIrk was trying to say, when he made the comments about gun violence, is that, in a free society, which is what we currently live in, a certain amount of things, such as gun violence, are going to occur, simply because there are always gonna be bad guys, but that we shouldn’t sacrifice our 2nd Amendment rights because of that?
I think it might’ve been Benjamin Franklin who said that any man whose willing to sacrifice his liberty, for a little security, deserves neither liberty nor security.
As to KIrk wanting to kill gays, I hardly think he *EVER* advocated that position. Methinks you just hate Christians. Now, on the other hand, the radical Muslims, which you likely support, would kill a gay, a trans person, or a Christian in a heartbeat.
Uless you have something decent to say, perhaps you should keep silent. Remember, the great Mark Twain once oppined, “Better to remain silent and appear a fool, than open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Kapeech?
Methinks you assume too much….
The guy who assassinated Charlie Kirk wasn’t defending his God given rights which is what Charlie Kirk stated about gun ownership. This lunatic used a gun to take Charlie Kirk’s God given rights away.
I now believe in gun control. No marxist brainwashed idiot which is most of the radical left should ever own a gun. They are just too stupid.
Anonymous,
I agree with you, however, instead of gun control, we need people control. Here’s what I mean:
1. Reopen sanitariums, using humane methods to treat patients — no lobotomies, using ECT as punishment, etc.
2. It should be federal law that, every so many years, all Americans should be required to take the MMPI (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory). If any individual fails the test (i.e. your score points to issues outlined in the DSM5), that individual should be involuntarily committed to their local sanitarium, and they should be held there until deemed “cured”.
3. We need to provide incentives for people to join a house of worship, to start and maintain a family, and the like.
4. I saw, on a past posting to Turley’s blog, a suggestion that gun ownership should be based on mentorship, some kinda apprenticeship, etc. In other words, if you wanna own a gun, you should be required to join a mentorship group, where you learn gun safety, etc. Like cars, guns require respect, and proper schooling in their responsible use.
5. Finally, if *ANYONE* fails to report anyone with mental health issues to relevant authorities, and they kill or harm someone, that individual(s) should be charged as a co-conspirator, and/or with any other relevant crimes.
Will it fix the problem? Perhaps not, but it sure couldn’t hurt.
It also can’t possibly hurt if the federal government similarly establishes conditions before YOU’RE permitted to exercise your First Amendment rights to practice religion..
As you said: “Will it fix the problem? Perhaps not, but it sure can’t hurt.”
I disagree with your belief that making ANY Bill of Rights Amendment conditional on first obtaining government permission can’t hurt.
Anonymous,
YOur reading comprehension must be near zero. I wasn’t suggesting that the government make gun ownership contingent on conditions.
I was suggesting that, to deal with the mental health crisis in America, we should all be required to take the MMPI, every so many years, and those who fail the test should be institutionalized until “cured”. I also was suggesting anyone who fails to report such mental deviants to the proper authorities be charged appropriately if said mental deviant does something like assassinating anyone, irregardless of left or right politics.
As to gun ownership, I’m suggesting that, much like driver’s ed, perhaps gun owner’s ed might not be a bad idea. Someone else, commenting on one of JT’s previous articles had suggested something like a driver’s ed course for gun ownership — classes, maybe some type of mentorship program — that sort of thing. The leaders of such programs might be able to spot those who really shouldn’t have a gun and stop them in their tracks.
Believe it or not, back in Colonial days, militia captains did what they needed to do to keep guns out of the hands of drunks, the insane, etc.
You folks on the left keep trotting out the same old tired mantra of gun control, but, as of yet, there hasn’t been a single gun control program suggestion which would’ve prevented *any* of the mass shootings we’ve had, attempted assassinations, and assassinations.
I still maintain, and I’ll continue to do so, till the day I die, what we have is a people control problem. We’ve got a nation full of ever-increasingly sick people, thanks to the Internet, Social Media, corporate media, et al, and that’s where our focus needs to be — not producing a disarmed nation full of sheeple who can be molded and controlled by their holier than thou, we know what’s best for you, overlords.
Finally, and I never stated this before, but I believe Tyler Robinson’s trial should be caried on network TV, and, if convicted and sentenced to death, his execution should be on national TV as well. Perhaps people need to actuallly see there are consequences for actions.
Just my never to be humble opinion.
People control; what could that mean? Self-control: a balanced outlook of individuals who center their lives on work, family, and gratitude.
When?
Aren’t cost benefit calculations made everywhere in life? Liberals believe that it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, 1.5 million deaths of unborn babies every single year so that women can have Roe vs Wade to protect their their God given right to control their bodies. I would say liberals are haters who have not one single ounce of compassion for unborn babies. Who is the hater depends on one’s point of view.
You know, Steven King is worrying about a defamation lawsuit for making the same provably false claims you just made in your first 3 sentences. He’s published a public apology for repeating things without having checked the actual facts first.
Shame on you.
You’re lying about what he said, except the quote that you don’t understand – vaccines kill some, but they save more.. Gun owners stop over 1 million crimes a year, including murder. And the main thing they do is keep the government in check.
He was a hater. He wanted to kill gays. He said blacks were stupid
The lies you’re continuing to repeat before this murder victim has been dead for three days is exactly why this murderer felt justified in killing this father and husband. Well, you certainly did a great job of showing the world your ass and what your black soul is powered by.
For context: you also assured us that Clinton/Obama’s fraudulent (and felonious) “Trump-Russia Dossier” was 100% verified proof that Trump conspired with Putin to steal the 2016 election.
Oh – and that the Biden Bribery Laptop didn’t actually belong to The First Felon Crackhead Kid. No, you told us it was merely Putin election disinformation.
As usual, George, you’re wrong on everything. When will you tire of being so ignorant?
Georgie takes out of context quips and reels them out to prove he – george is the actual die hard hater. Way to go georgie to not due your homework and parrot leftist twisted battle cries.
And the Follywood elitists trot out their treacherous lies.
“Actor Billy Baldwin Calls Charlie Kirk’s Assassin ‘White Christian, Conservative, Republican’ Days After Hoping His Assassination ‘Doesn’t Drive Division”
–Warner Todd Huston,12 Sep 2025
“Actor Billy Baldwin pivoted from pleading for “unity” to attacking white people, Christians, and Trump supporters on his social media only two days after the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.”
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2025/09/12/actor-billy-baldwin-calls-charlie-kirks-assassin-white-christian-conservative-republican-days-after-hoping-his-assassination-doesnt-drive-division/
Most likely had to drink on it…
…and
“TMZ Staff Laughs at Charlie Kirk’s Death, Then Denies it – but TGP Has Proof!”
by Collin McMahon Sep. 12, 2025 4:40 pm
“Live video from the day of Charlie Kirk’s death documents the staff of Hollywood slutwatch “TMZ” cheering the death of Charlie Kirk. TMZ founder Harvey Levin claimed the staff “were watching a car chase and they were laughing”. However, Gateway Pundit has video evidence that shows there was nothing to cheer and clap about in the ABC car chase footage, suggesting Levin is dissembling.”
(Look it up, this blog of JT’s only allows two links). It’s at Gateway Pundit if you care.
“Too late… The posted evidence showing the murdering savage’s socialist media postings with transgendermandering flags, proclaiming that trans fascists have human rights while murdering anyone who doesn’t believe in their phantasy, is exactly what the National Socialists did sending otherwise innocent people to the guillotine, death camps, or just shot them in the street for not believing in their ideology.” And these losers call themselves, anti-fascists.
They are the epitome of the Nazi’s. A true embarrassment to their Marxist cousins who otherwise are attempting to conduct a Marxist revolution in this country, while antifa is running around losing ground for them by demonstrating to the public what an actual National terrorist threat the leftists truly are.
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/09/steven-crowder-obtains-leaked-utah-county-sheriffs-office/
Civility by the left is at best transitory. Always has been, after building the Autobahn, the National Socialist turned their attention to militarily attacking Poland and every other country around them. The Socialists ability to coexist in a civilized and law abiding world society has always been lacking, from 1917 to the present.
What is new, is that they now seek to hide behind their Nazi brethren as cover, pretending to be antifascists while adopting fascism as their ideology, and carrying out fascist attacks on society and all the while calling it saving democracy.
That particular twist on propaganda tactics wasn’t even thought of at the Berghof strategy meetings.
————————————-
–Oddball
“Take it easy Big Joe, some of these people got sensitive feelings.”
California Governor Gavin Newsom declared, “I’m going to punch these sons of bitches in the mouth.” It follows other violent rhetoric from Democratic leaders.
Better bring your lunch Newscum… You’re gonna be there awhile.