“Elinor agreed to it all, for she did not think he deserved the compliment of rational opposition.” - Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility

Austen’s heroine, Elinor Dashwood, was listening to a relative talk rubbish she felt wasn’t worth her time to rebut. These days, it seems difficult to convince anyone to change their mind, so many of us have simply given up and retreated to our bubbles of friends and friendly media.

Charlie Kirk, however, was willing to talk to anyone. His signature event was an open-mic debate with all comers on the campus of an American university, nearly all of which are dominated by Left-wing group-think.

It was under just such a tent, with the slogan “prove me wrong” on it, that Kirk was taken from us by an assassin’s bullet on Sept 10. The legacy U.S. media did what it does in these circumstances, attempting to find a Right-wing motive for his killer despite clear evidence that the suspect was motivated by ideologies from the far-Left.

It has also done almost everything possible to misrepresent Kirk’s own work. He was an organizer for conservative youth; he helped mobilize young voters; he held public events; he had a podcast; and he was a frequent guest on other shows. One thing he was not was a radical, or a Nazi, or a fascist, or any of the other ridiculous epithets that have been thrown at him since his untimely death at 31.

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At 56, little shocks me. But I was staggered by the Left-wing reaction to Kirk’s death. I expected to hear parts of the media mis-characterize his activism, cherry-picking from longer conversations to make a mainstream Christian patriot sound like a raving Right-wing nut.

What I did not expect to see were countless civilians—politicians, teachers, law enforcement, civil servants, librarians and other gainfully-employed “normal” people—willing to go on video or social media with gleeful expressions at the death of a young husband and father of small children, simply because they disagreed with something they thought he had said. I doubt any of them had listened to him first-hand.

In the 1960s, no doubt there were some who cheered the death of Martin Luther King and the Kennedy brothers. But they did so in their own homes or other places out of sight of the normal majority, who reacted in sadness at such brilliant lives cut short. Today, those expressing hateful reactions to a public assassination have X, TikTok, Instagram, and a host of other channels to expose themselves. And what a horrific sight it has been.

Kirk was a rising star of the conservative Right, and for young people in particular, because he was cheerful, informed, and unafraid. Most of all, he was willing to engage with those who didn’t share his views and to hope they might be convinced. He paid them the compliment of rational opposition.

Kirk was a Millennial, but he spoke most clearly to Gen-Z, those still in college or newly looking for work. Indebted by the Boomers, coddled but also abandoned to iPhones by their Gen-X parents, and now facing a frightening housing and employment market, this generation badly needs hope. They are not getting it from politicians, nor from doom-peddlers like Greta Thunberg or the Gaza mob. Charlie Kirk provided young conservatives, especially young men, the optimism they crave.

Watching him debate on college campuses, one could see that so many young students had never encountered an opposing voice, let alone one who was polite and prepared. I have listened to Kirk many times and find the caricature of him by the Left and its pet media to be risible, yet deliberate. His views on guns, crime, family, economics, gender ideology, and foreign affairs are normal opinions shared by half the country.

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I have never heard Kirk advocate violence against anyone. He believed in the right to bear arms, as entrenched in the Second Amendment, though he understood that, like all freedoms, it was not without cost. He believed in healthy families headed by married mothers and fathers. He opposed the ideology that tells people they can change sex through drugs or surgery. He believed in strong nations with secure borders.

Millions of Americans share these beliefs. Enough of us to elect a president and a majority in Congress.

I dislike “hot takes” and glib predictions. I do not know what Charlie Kirk’s assassination portends. I suspect, even though it is the opposite of what he’d have wanted, that it will mean less willingness on all sides to talk across the increasingly thick lines of dogma separating us.

While many of us share Kirk’s convictions, few of us have his physical courage to go open heart and open microphone into the lion’s den of intolerant progressivism and invite a debate.

Charlie’s loss is huge for those who loved him, but it will be incalculable to those who will never get a chance to hear him speak in person and, just maybe, change their minds.