09/13/2025
This is the “Charlie Effect”. A man that never really watched Charlie, didn’t believe the way Charlie did, chocked him up to just another MAGA… has been forever changed..
“I didn't really know anything about Charlie Kirk
Until this week Kirk was a name and face I would occasionally see someone retweet on here and I would scroll past. I'd seen 2 or 3 short videos taken from Tiktok of him debating some low IQ college student but that was it.
I'm generally not interested in MAGA. I broadly believe in many of their goals, but find much of the rhetoric and policy implementation to be self defeating. To me Kirk was another Ben Shapiro or Tim Pool. All MAGA, all the time.
Immediately following his shooting my shock was political and societal. Another step down in what seems to be the never ending descent of American, and thus Western, society. Another sad day for free speech, no matter what you thought of the man's politics.
Then in the following hours my timeline was filled with videos of Kirk as a father, and my heart broke. I saw a man that was clearly devoted to his family and who loved them, and was loved in return, a great deal. I felt that love forever torn apart. I saw a daughter that would never run to her father and wrap her arms around him again.
The following day I saw more videos on here, and out of respect and curiosity I watched them all. Maybe they would make some sense of why someone felt the need to end this man's life and rob his children of a father. They did not.
Contrary to the tweets spreading through X as some kind of justification, what I found was a man who was deeply religious. I man that had a true belief system, and not one that he bent or shaped to fit to modern society. For example. he absolutely believed that homosexuality was a sin because that was what the bible told him, but he did not hate or think less of those people. Many of his close friends such as Peter Thiel and David Rubin were gay.
What I see when I watch the videos of Kirk is a fan of deep faith who put that faith above everything else. I see a man who treated everyone with compassion and civility. I see a man that was friendly and open and honest.
Honestly, I see a man that is braver and better than I. Not because he put himself in danger by wanted to talk to people, but by handing himself completely over to a belief system that I've never been able to get my head around. Like many of us, the idea is alien to me.
I can't say I don't watch his videos with a tinge of jealousy. What I see is a man who was completely happy. A man confident in his faith and who led his life accordingly. A man who not just believed, but acted on his belief.
At a time when so many people seem empty and depressed, it's hard not to be a little jealous of a person that seemed so fulfilled.
With this in mind, it's been incensing to see him slandered on here by people without any of the faith and none of the commitment. To see people take the man's faith and turn it into something twisted and hateful.
I knew nothing of the man in life, but I will try to listen to him more in death.”
Steve Loftus
