After Charlie Kirk’s killing, Americans across party lines are proving that violence isn’t who we are. 

The killing of Charlie Kirk is a profound tragedy and a dark moment in our politics. 

As No Labels founder and CEO Nancy Jacobson put it, “America is built on the free and open exchange of ideas, and on the belief that people with different views can still live together, work together, and strive together for the good of the country. When disagreement gives way to dehumanization, something essential is lost.”  

It’s easy to scroll through social media and witness that darkness – in the form of viral posts celebrating Kirk’s killing or calling for revenge attacks against the left – and assume that’s the prevailing mood of the country.  

But the truth is the vast majority of Americans are responding to this attack with unity and decency. Across the country, people from both parties are condemning the violence and showing that disagreements don’t have to make us enemies.  

This movement of unity is being led by America’s youth, the demographic that Kirk had the most sway with.  

Just hours after Kirk was killed, Connecticut’s chapters of Young Republicans and Young Democrats issued a joint statement denouncing the attack. That kickstarted a trend. They were quickly followed by statewide youth groups in North Carolina, Rhode Island, Ohio, and Michigan.  

At the campus level, College Republicans and College Democrats chapters at the University of Alabama, Florida State University, Oklahoma State University, and Vanderbilt University each made similar joint statements.  

The adults are catching on. The Connecticut Republican and Democratic parties, inspired by their younger counterparts, issued a joint message of their own. “The only way we can stop the violence is by working together to bring down the temperature of political rhetoric,” the two parties’ chairs said.  

These gestures won’t erase the pain of Kirk’s killing, but they remind us that most Americans still believe in solving problems with words, not weapons. That spirit – neighbors reaching across divides to defend democracy – is what America is all about.