Charlie Kirk was assassinated while sitting on a panel in front of hundreds of students at Utah Valley University. During his short life, the founder of Turning Point USA debated hundreds of young people on any topic they chose, and he did it in cheery, civil, good faith.

Mere minutes after the shooting was reported, MSNBC’s Katy Tur referred to Kirk as a “divisive” figure, strongly intimating that his positions precipitated blowback. Guest Matthew Dowd, whose brain has been irreparably fried by partisanship, skipped any intimation, vilifying Kirk as a dispenser of “hate speech” which was inevitably going to boomerang in violence.