Rebecca Watson Refuses to Mourn Charlie Kirk and Explains Why That Is an Act of Empathy
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Rebecca Watson Refuses to Mourn Charlie Kirk and Explains Why That Is an Act of Empathy
A progressive commentator named Rebecca Watson pushes back against calls to properly grieve Charlie Kirk's death, not by celebrating his murder, but by refusing to pretend that mourning him carries the same moral weight as mourning anyone else. She opens by noting she predicted more political shootings would follow the decision to redirect federal agents away from counterterrorism work, and that Kirk's killing on September 10th proved her right. Her argument rests on context: an extended collection of Kirk's own statements on race, immigration, abortion, trans issues, gun deaths, and January 6th, which she uses to make the case that refusing to mourn someone who promoted violence against marginalized people is not cruelty. It is empathy directed at those Kirk spent years targeting. She also draws a direct line between right-wing media rhetoric and real-world violence, citing Bill O'Reilly's years-long campaign against abortion provider Dr. George Tiller before his murder in 2009.
Just one month before Charlie Kirk's death, Rebecca Watson made an on-camera prediction: redirecting federal agents away from counterterrorism work toward policing minor public order offenses — public drinking, sidewalk scooter riding — would lead to more political violence. On September 10th, Kirk was shot and killed by a sniper on a college campus while giving a talk. She opens the video acknowledging the prediction came true in the worst possible way.
Kirk once said on camera that gun deaths were a worthwhile cost of protecting Second Amendment rights. Rebecca raises the question of whether — if his philosophy was sincere — Kirk himself would have considered his own death an acceptable price. She notes, with dark humor, that it is now too late to ask.
The Debate Over How to Respond
Since Kirk's death, a debate has broken out over how people on the left should respond. Conservatives and moderate liberals have criticized anyone who appears to celebrate, though what counts as celebration varies widely. Rebecca identifies three things that have been labeled inappropriate: dark humor, posting memes about Kirk's record, and simply republishing his own words. Sharing Kirk's direct quotes has been enough to get people fired.
Her position: she will not be joining the performative mourning, and she will not shame others for how they choose to use their free speech in response to his death. Stating that no one should be murdered for their speech is not the same as being obligated to grieve any specific person.
Context: Kirk's Own Words
Rebecca presents an extended collection of Kirk's statements over the years as the reason she labels him a white supremacist, fascist, nationalist, racist, transphobic, and misogynistic figure who, in her view, called for violence against ideological enemies. The clips include statements where Kirk:
Compared abortion to the Holocaust and called it worse
Made racially charged statements about Black crime and suggested Black Americans were statistically better off under subjugation in the 1940s
Promoted the "great replacement" theory as a deliberate anti-white agenda
Said seeing a Black pilot would make him wonder if that person was actually qualified
Cited Leviticus to argue that gay people should be stoned to death
Told Taylor Swift to reject feminism and submit to her husband
Called transgender identity a disorder requiring therapy and demanded a national ban on gender-affirming care
Said yes when asked if he would force a 10-year-old rape victim to carry her pregnancy to term
Called Joe Biden a corrupt tyrant who should receive the death penalty
Stated he could not see a single instance of Israel going out of its way to kill civilians
Encouraged conservatives to bail out the man charged in the Paul Pelosi attack
She also notes that Kirk bragged about sending dozens of buses of supporters into Washington DC to storm the Capitol on January 6th, and that he built a professor watch list to get educators fired for views he disagreed with.
Adding further weight to her argument: self-described Nazis marched through the streets of Huntington Beach after Kirk's death, chanting his name and handing Nazi recruiting pamphlets to children.
Did Kirk Actually Believe What He Said?
Rebecca says she tracked Kirk's ideological arc over many years — from libertarian to Christian nationalist. She watched him grow more overtly fascistic under pressure from the far right, particularly from Nick Fuentes and the groyper movement. She also observed him quietly pulling back on his pro-Israel positions as his own young audience began pushing back on US support for the war, a shift she said she and others flagged and were dismissed for raising.
Her conclusion: whether or not Kirk personally believed everything he said is a secondary question. He ran what she describes as the propaganda wing of the Trump administration through Turning Point USA, with the goal of radicalizing young white men. It was effective. That is why she sees no obligation to grieve him.
Refusing to Mourn Is Not the Same as Celebrating Violence
Rebecca states plainly that she finds it disgusting that a man with so little regard for human life had easy legal access to a firearm, and that the man who killed Kirk grew up around guns and was able to walk onto a college campus with one. America's gun laws, she says, are anti-human and its gun culture is stomach-churning.
But she rejects the framing that refusing to mourn Kirk equals celebrating gun violence or encouraging further attacks. She watched the footage of Kirk being shot and was horrified by it — not because of who died, but because watching any human being die triggers a visceral empathetic response. That same horror, she says, applies to Dr. George Tiller, to children killed at Sandy Hook, and to Minnesota Democratic Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark, shot by a right-wing Trump supporter just over a month before this recording.
Right-Wing Media and a History of Incitement
Rebecca draws a direct line between right-wing media rhetoric and real-world political murder. She points to Bill O'Reilly, who spent years on Fox News calling abortion provider Dr. George Tiller a "baby killer" before one of his viewers murdered Tiller in 2009 in front of his church congregation. After the killing, O'Reilly denied ever using the phrase. The media accepted it, moved on, and nothing changed.
She argues the vast majority of mass shooters are terminally online white men whose ideological profile mirrors that of Kirk, Tim Pool, and Candace Owens. Conservative claims that leftists commit the most political violence, she says flatly, are a lie.
Empathy as the Foundation of Her Position
Rebecca closes by turning the empathy charge back on her critics. She is frequently told that refusing to mourn Kirk reflects a lack of empathy. Her response: her entire position is built on empathy — for Black Americans who spent years arguing in good faith against Kirk's rhetoric telling the country's youth that they are less intelligent and less capable; for trans people whose lives were threatened by Kirk's repeated insistence that they are an abomination; for gun violence survivors who watched Kirk announce that their murdered children were an acceptable price of Second Amendment rights, and who now have to hear that their refusal to mourn Kirk makes them responsible for whatever retribution follows.
The retribution, she argues, was always the plan. They were always going to find an excuse. And mainstream voices are now helping pin that excuse on Kirk's ideological opponents — people who are simply exercising freedom of speech while they still have it.
"Just like most, if not all, of the things Charlie Kirk hated, empathy is one of the best things we humans have," she says. "And I embrace it with my entire being."
