Charlie Kirk Was Murdered. But Let’s Talk About “Civility.”

By Peter Wolfgang ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 18, 2026

Have you heard the news? There’s a “lack of civility” in our local politics. Why, here in Connecticut local officials have faced “angry outbursts,” “emails” that are “concerning in nature,” and “incivility at meetings and people angrily approaching staff in town offices.”

“National politics has certainly trickled down at the local level,” a spokesman for Connecticut municipalities tells the Hartford Courant. “And the fact that we see ourselves as a nation divided into big camps is problematic. It’s contributing to all of this.”

Oh, the humanity!

You know what was problematic? Donald Trump being shot in the head. That was problematic. And that they tried to kill him at least two more times after they shot him in Butler, PA. That was problematic.

In the early 2010s, I faced a months-long campaign of harassment from a gay activist who sent me hundreds of anonymous letters, which explicitly told me to make funeral arrangements and threatened that I would be “blown away”. In federal court, the perpetrator pleaded guilty to two felony counts of mailing threatening communications to me. That was problematic.

It was May of 2012 when the police told me they caught that man. But the authorities then went silent for three months and would not answer my inquiries as to whether he would be prosecuted. You know when they finally got back to me? It was August 12th, 2012. Coincidentally, the same day a gay gunman burst into the D.C. headquarters of the Family Research Council (FRC) intending to commit mass murder, and to stuff the corpses’ mouths with Chick-fil-A sandwiches, because the Southern Poverty Law Center put the pro-traditional marriage group on its “hate groups map.” That was problematic.

I have the highest regard for federal prosecutor John Durham, a modern-day Elliott Ness who handled my case. But even the journalists covering the story told me they had doubts as to whether Durham’s Obama-appointee bosses would let him prosecute the man who threatened me. That it was only confirmed to me on the day of the FRC shooting leads me to believe they were not going to prosecute him until FRC’s security guard got shot. That was problematic.

The attacks on pregnancy centers, Catholic churches, and other pro-life organizations following the leak of the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade? Problematic. The murder of Catholic school children by a transgender demoniac in Minnesota one year ago? Problematic. Senate Democrat leader Chuck Schumer threatening U.S. Justices by name outside the Supreme Court, followed by actual attempts on their lives and the bullet proof vests they now must wear? Problematic. The guy with all the explosives who was trying to blow up the Red Mass in Washington, DC because he hated Catholics and the Supreme Court? Problematic.

I could go on. Since the Courant won’t. Every elected official identified in the Courant’s article as having experienced harassment or threats is a Democrat. They fret over “national politics…trickling down to the local level” but leave out everything I mention above.

To our friends who are left, or left-adjacent, it is as if they are living in some alternate reality where these things simply aren’t happening. They have no interest in what effect these events may have on the minds of those who don’t think like them, or how it may radicalize some, or how it may “trickle down to the local level.” Earlier this year a writer responded to my critique of his attacks on Bishop Barron by saying Trump was a threat to democracy. When I suggested that some of the items mentioned above are a threat to democracy, he simply quoted my own words back to me and wrote “No further questions. Thank you for the discussion.”

This is par for the course, for the Courant and for the left and for those leftists who claim not to be leftists. But it hits harder this month because last week was the first anniversary of the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Have you heard about the left’s celebrations of the “Kirkversary”? I am reminded of Cardinal Mueller’s reaction to his death one year ago:

Charlie Kirk was the victim of an atheistic ideology, whose followers erupted in satanic celebration over the heinous murder of an exemplary husband and family man. The devil always takes possession of those who hate life and truth. For, according to the words of the Lord Jesus Christ, the devil is a “murderer from the beginning” and the “father of lies” (John 8:44). And only those who hear the words of God are of God (cf. John 8:47).

Charlie Kirk was a devout Christian. From a supernatural perspective, he died not as the victim of a political assassination, but as a martyr for Jesus Christ—not in the sense of those who are canonized, but as one who bore witness (from the Greek martys) through his life. He gave his life in following his Lord, as a sacrifice for the truth that man is made in God’s image, male and female, and in opposition to the lies and self-mutilation promoted by so-called “trans-ideology” and “gender-affirming care.” He upheld and lived in defense of the beauty and sanctity of marriage and family, as ordained by God the Creator, and stood up for the dignity of every human life from conception to natural death.

I don’t wish incivility, or worse, on anyone. But Cardinal Mueller is right. This is what we are up against. It is way more than problematic.