Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during an outdoor event at Utah Valley University in Orem on Wednesday. Horrifying video showed a single round striking him about 20 minutes into his speech; Utah's governor called it a "political assassination." Reports indicate the shot may have been fired from a nearby building, and a person of interest has been detained, though police have not identified a suspect or motive. National outlets quickly confirmed the key facts while emphasizing how much is still unknown.

The immediate reactions online revealed just how divided the nation has become—despite no arrest and no motive. Some on the left openly celebrated the killing, justifying it as righteous vengeance. 

On the right, voices quickly called for suspending due process and even fantasized about revolution. The details of the shooter weren't even public before people chose their narratives. The murder became a mirror, reflecting the worst instincts of both sides.

This reflex didn't appear in a vacuum. For years, corporate media have drenched the public in catastrophe language—framing Donald Trump as "literally Hitler" and casting the United States as if already in a Weimar-era collapse. Trump deserves criticism—he is overseeing the creation of a police state, presiding over opaque coordination between the federal government and tech firms to usher in a technocratic nightmare, and floated deploying the National Guard into U.S. cities—a move that echoes the standing army our forefathers warned us about. He has embraced sweeping tariffs that punish ordinary Americans under the banner of nationalism. And his constant stream of hateful rhetoric doesn't just inflame his base—it plays directly into the hands of the radical left, giving them the ammunition they need to frame the entire country as living under fascism. People have every right to be angry. But media figures didn't stop at critique—they turned millions of voters into symbols of fascism, fueling the dangerous delusion that America in 2025 is morally equivalent to Nazi Germany.

On the right, the paranoia runs in the opposite direction but is equally worrisome. Many insist the U.S. is already in a race war, where white Americans are under siege. They attach themselves to tragic killings and use them to justify their fears and hatred. These voices now fold Kirk's killing into their narrative, treating it as proof that civil war is inevitable. The result is a dangerous symmetry: one side believes they are fighting fascism; the other believes they are fighting extinction. Both sides dehumanize the other, and both sides are wrong.