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WASHINGTON -- "When people stop talking, that's when you get violence. That's when civil war happens because you start to think the other side is so evil and they lose their humanity."

Charlie Kirk said that. I'm not sure when. It was a remark Vice President JD Vance aired during a two-hour tribute to the slain conservative icon on Rumble Monday following Kirk's assassination as he spoke at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.

Because Kirk was a star -- and happy warrior -- an apparent left-leaning assassin chose to silence Kirk by eliminating him.

I didn't know Kirk well, but it was always a pleasure to see him in action. He loved taking hostile questions and mixing it up with the intolerant left. He was unfailingly polite, which made him highly effective.

Vance credited Kirk with helping turn out the pivotal youth vote during all three elections in which President Donald Trump was on the ballot. Democratic candidates still garnered more youth votes than Trump, but the 2024 outcome beat back the perception that Democrats had a secure lock on the youth vote.

How it must have rankled the windbags in faculty lounges to watch Kirk, a conservative community college dropout, toy with their left-leaning students the way cats toy with mice. His viral on-campus "Prove Me Wrong" exchanges showed him besting kids banking their futures on a college degree.

In 2020, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that the average student took six years to earn a four-year degree.

Kirk moved faster. At 31, he not only had started a movement, Turning Point USA, but also a young family: two young children, ages 1 and 3 with his wife, Erika. Charlie Kirk's most important advice to young men and women wasn't to get a college degree. It was to get married.

What I'm seeing on screens: Folks on the left who feel awful that a father was cut down in front of his wife and kids but aren't singing dirges about this brutal move to squelch free speech and intimidate the opposition.

And there will be consequences. Expect some on the right to cancel speaking engagements and others to move events indoors. Audience sizes could shrink as even hardcore members of the base have family conversations about the risk involved in attending a conservative rally.

Some on social media have argued that the world is better off without Kirk.

Legacy media, too. Last week, The Nation ran a piece with this headline: "Charlie Kirk's Legacy Deserves No Mourning: The white Christian nationalist provocateur wasn't a promoter of civil discourse. He preached hate, bigotry, and division."

Kirk "was an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist who often wrapped his bigotry in Bible verses because there was no other way to pretend that it was morally correct," author Elizabeth Spiers maintained. "He had children, as do many vile people."

I've read Republicans who have made remarks equally tasteless and unhinged -- but not in a major publication.

Spiers' words echoed the sentiments of Tyler Robinson, 22, who, according to Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray, explained to his roommate/lover that he killed Kirk because, "I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out."

Now he faces a murder charge that could end with an execution if he is convicted.

The worst part about the dominance of social media is that young adults judge themselves and others not by their deeds, but by what they post and by their politics.

Contact Review-Journal Washington columnist Debra J. Saunders at dsaunders@reviewjournal.com. Follow @debrajsaunders on X.

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