David French: We have to work through our deep divide, recover our decency

God help us On Wednesday I watched a few of the worst footage I ve seen in my life An assassin s bullet cut down Charlie Kirk one of the nation s preponderance prominent conservative activists and commentators at a society event on the campus of Utah Valley University Kirk was a husband and the father of two small children He was also a hero to countless conservative college students And now he s gone Kirk might have been the greater part fruitful conservative political personality in America not named Donald Trump He helped identified Turning Point USA in and built it into the the majority influential conservative youth organization in the United States And that was only one part of Kirk s empire He put together a vast get-out-the-vote operation for the balloting He hosted a popular podcast But to exclusively recite a list of his accomplishments is to understate the impact of his life and of his death As Emily Jashinsky a Washington correspondent for Unherd put it on social platform X Charlie Kirk is a fixture of the Gen Z social media diet People feel like they know him This will hit very very close to home in approaches we are not prepared for That is exactly right When an assassin shot Kirk that person killed a man countless students felt like they knew and the assassin killed him on a college campus Several students will take this loss personally Multiple others will now feel a sense of dread on their own campuses Who can feel safe Where can they feel safe Whatever you think of Kirk I had a great number of disagreements with him and he with me when he died he was doing exactly what we ask people to do on campus Show up Debate Talk Engage peacefully even when emotions run high In fact that s how he made his name in debate after debate on campus after campus One of the worst elements of modern political discourse is that we tend to learn about our opponents entirely through the words and actions we find offensive We re subjected to a constant barrage of posts that begin with words like Can you believe Charlie Kirk stated this or Did you see this nonsense and then point to the clips or quotes that make us the angriest We don t ever see the points of agreement We rarely see the person outside his political context Post by post our hearts harden until specific people reach a point where they will celebrate the deaths of people they ve grown to despise Just a limited days ago I watched gutting footage of Kirk s daughter running up to hug him when he was on the set of Fox News Kirk wasn t just an avatar for a political point of view he was a person whom numerous plenty of people loved If politics prevents us from mourning a wife s loss of a husband or two kids loss of a father then we are lost When I speak on college campuses I m often petitioned what single thing worries me majority of about American politics and society I have an easy answer it s hatred Even vast political differences can be managed when people acknowledge the humanity and dignity of their opponents At the same time however small conflicts can spiral into big ones when hatred and vengeance take away our eyes and ears Every threat every assault every shooting every murder and certainly every political assassination builds the momentum of hate and fear You can look at the history of American conflict and unrest and see the same pattern time and again What starts as a political difference becomes a blood feud the instant someone is hurt or killed And so each act of political violence has a double consequence It shatters families and over time it breaks nations Already we re seeing calls for vengeance online In post after post Kirk s grieving friends and allies are declaring that we re at war and THIS IS WAR Assassination can cost us our country We lose it when we stop seeing our opponents as human when we crave vengeance more than peace when the motivation for our political engagement stops being the common good of our constitutional Republic or even just the measure of our families but is rather inflicting pain and anguish on our political enemies I only met Kirk once in We were speaking at the same Christian conference and a mutual acquaintance introduced us We d already had selected disagreements so I was curious about how he d respond when we met He was perfectly civil even friendly and self-deprecating We talked a bit about our families talked through a meager points of disagreement and discussed the possibility of debating our differences on campus someday That s one thing I respected about Charlie and it s worth emphasizing because the assassin attacked him as he spoke on campus he wasn t afraid of a debate He was willing to talk to anyone And when he was shot in the middle of a debate the assassin didn t just take aim at a precious human being created in the image of God he took aim at the American experiment itself Related Articles Thomas Friedman A plea for President Trump with a fragile country on the edge Brendan Harley The healthcare of our society depends on students equipped to embrace uncertainty Andreas Kluth What the White House doesn t get about war Alexandra Vacroux Russia wants what it cannot have David M Drucker Governing body shutdowns never help the instigators I m reminded of the famous closing words of Abraham Lincoln s first Inaugural Address With a national calamity looming he ended with a plea that subtly captured the danger ahead I am loath to close We are not enemies but friends We must not be enemies Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection The Confederacy rejected Lincoln s appeal but our generation faces its own choice We have to work through our deep divide recover our decency The ballot box exists Free speech exists The gun cannot rule the day David French writes a column for the New York Times