Bernie Sanders vs. Canadian academics on Charlie Kirk’s murder
Mark Milke, The Epoch Times, September 19, 2025
Why is the Vermont socialist the voice of reason while some Canadian “educators” become unhinged?
When the Vermont socialist senator Bernie Sanders recently cautioned his fellow citizens against rejoicing in the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and by doing so demonstrated class and kindness, he stood in stark contrast to a plethora of Canadians who gloated over the murder of the American activist, husband, and father. It was a sign something was deeply, morally “off,” especially in our country’s “educated” classes.
Until 22-year-old Tyler Robinson (allegedly) shot Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, I’d never paid close attention to the 31-year-old American activist. But what caught my attention was the visceral reaction by too many Canadians in positions of influence to Kirk’s assassination, with some outright celebrating it.
First, Bernie Sanders: In his remarks about Kirk and political violence—murder—the senator noted what should be obvious but apparently needs to be imbibed by some Canadians: Endorsing murder is a sign your own beliefs and arguments are not persuasive to others: “Political violence is in fact political cowardice,” said Sanders in his video on X. “It means you cannot convince people of the correctness of your ideas and you have to impose them by force.”
Up in Canada, the endorsements of political violence—a murder—were immediate. On Instagram, Manitoba Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine—emphasis on families—asserted that Kirk was “racist, xenophobic, transphobic, Islamophobic.” She expressed some sympathy for his wife and two children but said she had “absolutely no empathy” for him.
Academics weighed in with professors in Toronto, Calgary, and Victoria, among others, calling the late American activist a “Nazi” and a “fascist.” One labelled his supporters an unprintable curse word for female anatomy.
One professor at my alma mater, the University of Calgary, associate architecture professor Tawab Hlimi, tweeted out “Ironically Charlie Kirk no longer exists” with an emoji of happy-face tears because the “emoji” is laughing so hard. That was followed up by tweet number two with a bullseye.
Fontaine was forced to apologize by Manitoba’s premier, Wab Kinew. The Hlimi tweet no longer exists, presumably removed by the professor himself.
One can google Kirk and find all sorts of claims about him, some true and others invented. (Kirk also lapsed into near-conspiracy thinking about Israel at times despite a generalized defense of that outpost of liberalism and democracy in the Middle East.) To properly parse his views, we’d all have to watch his many speeches, debates, and more.
Instead, based on a brief search, let’s assume the following: He held what until recently were mainstream views and likely still are for the majority including in Canada: sex and gender are assumed binary; identity politics and “DEI” are divisive and anti-merit; immigration reform is preferred; antisemitism is a greater threat and reality than “Islamophobia,”; marriage and families are key to a healthy democracy and just to life; and young men should focus on forming those and not gangs or hateful internet tribes.
Kirk was in Donald Trump’s inner circle. I’m no fan of the American president, but neither that nor Kirk’s views give his idea opponents justification to viciously gloat over the killing of a father and husband.
As for claims of fascism, Nazism, and all the other poisonous utterances, such extreme rhetoric hollows out a proper understanding of actual fascists and Nazis in history (or communists, thrown as a slur by conservatives). If everyone is a Nazi, then you’ll never recognize the real thing when it comes along—which is unhelpful.
If one cares to engage in blame, there’s plenty to go around: The internet is a repository of potential rancid reaction. Ideological and partisan divides are spears easily sharpened. And it’s easy to be unkind to strangers online rather than pull back.
There is also this reason: It is too easy to believe one is wholly virtuous and one’s opponent utterly evil. Except beyond truly invidious individuals in history—Hitler, Stalin, Mao—where one might reasonably be expected to be happy such tyrants are dead, most of the rest of us, Charlie Kirk included, are not evil tyrants.
The Soviet dissident, Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed just this temptation in the Siberian labour camps where he was imprisoned—to see each other in stark terms, to believe all harm results from someone else who is depraved. It’s a short trip from that Manichean belief to desiring (or celebrating) someone’s death.
As Solzhenitsyn wrote in The Gulag Archipelago: “If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them,” wrote Solzhenitsyn. Solzhenitsyn, with more insight, instead pointed to the actual source of humanity’s woes: “But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.”
Rejoicing at a young father’s death is an admission of failure in one’s own beliefs and powers of persuasion. It also reveals a hubristic belief in one’s own moral perfection and an assumption of complete evil in one’s ideological opponent. After that, the next death is basic human compassion.
Mark Milke is the president and founder of the Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy.
Image credit: By Gage Skidmore - https://www.flickr.com/photos/gageskidmore/54670961811/, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=172612326