The Assassination of Charlie Kirk: When Hate Becomes the Culture

In this episode of Middle Minded, we walked into the fire. Guest host Johnny Dismal joined me, Peter Bogdanov, for what should have been an impossible conversation: the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Watch Now

You’d think this would be the moment where all sides put down their weapons, at least long enough to agree that political murder is not something to cheer. Instead, what did we see? Laughter. Celebration. A grotesque pleasure in the death of a man whose greatest crime was speaking openly about family values.

Johnny calls himself “politically homeless.” He doesn’t pledge allegiance to the left or the right, because both sides, in his eyes, have lost their way. But even he couldn’t reconcile with the sheer vileness on display. If this is what the “tolerant” left has become—gleeful over assassination—what does that tell the rest of us?

The Toll of Dehumanization

For twelve years now, Republican voters have been caricatured as Nazis, KKK members, white nationalists, homophobes, and transphobes. The language has been relentless. And language matters. You don’t scream “Nazi” at your neighbor for a decade and then act surprised when society stops seeing that neighbor as human.

This isn’t political disagreement anymore—it’s dehumanization. It’s the same twisted logic used by tyrants throughout history: strip people of their humanity so it feels righteous to hate them.

I know because I lived on that side of the aisle for fifty years. I voted Democrat until the language turned toxic. Until my own peers, people I marched with and stood beside, began labeling anyone who disagreed with them as monsters. That’s when I left the left.

Leftist Fatigue Is Real

More and more, people are exhausted. Not from policy debates, but from the culture of venom. From the smug assumption that only one side gets to decide what’s moral. Call it leftist fatigue, and it’s spreading.

And here’s the truth nobody wants to hear: this fatigue is pushing people right. Not because they suddenly agree with every conservative talking point, but because they can’t stomach the hatred anymore. You can only be called evil for so long before you decide you’ve had enough.

Defending the Middle

On the show, we didn’t just diagnose the disease—we offered a cure. Forgiveness. Admitting when you’ve gone too far. Returning to the middle.

The middle is not a negotiation table for extremists. It’s not about pretending violent rhetoric from the right is acceptable either. It’s about refusing to live in a black and white world. It’s about recognizing that sanity lives between the fringes, not at them.

The assassination of Charlie Kirk should have been a wake-up call. Instead, it exposed how far we’ve sunk into a culture of hate. If laughing at death is where politics takes you, maybe it’s time to leave politics behind and come back to being human.

That’s what Middle Minded is about. That’s what we’ll keep defending.