The assassination of Charlie Kirk is more than a political tragedy—it’s a psychological alarm bell. As a clinical psychologist, I see a two-pronged problem unfolding in America that helps explain how our culture arrived at the point where such violence became thinkable.
The first problem is that we are having less speech and dialogue rather than more.
Increasingly, Americans are afraid to speak their minds. A survey from the New York Times and Siena College confirms what I see in my clinical practice every day: People self-censor not only in political conversations, but even in casual discussions with friends, coworkers, and family. They worry that one wrong word could cost them their reputation, their relationships, or even their livelihood.
Psychologists know that suppressing speech doesn’t make ideas disappear—it just drives them underground. Suppression leads to repression, denial, and acting out. In therapy, one of the first lessons we teach children and even violent offenders is “use your words.” That’s because language is our most basic tool for regulating emotion, solving conflicts, and keeping aggression in check. When people feel they can’t use their words, they become more vulnerable to frustration and explosive behavior.
But the cost of silence goes beyond individuals. On a social level, it takes the form of what I came to call the “five Ds” when I was researching for my new book on the mental health benefits of free speech, “Can I Say That? Why Free Speech Matters and How to Use It Fearlessly” (Skyhorse, 2025). The five Ds are: defriending on social media, disinviting speakers, distancing in real life, dropping friendships, and declining to date across political lines. Each “D” is a refusal of dialogue. Each one shrinks the space where conversation and understanding might have occurred. In short, each “D” multiplies the problem of silence. And studies show that these behaviors are statistically more common when practiced by people on the Left toward those on the Right as a response to political differences, which helps explain why conservatives more often find themselves excluded from dialogue. This imbalance in who withdraws from conversation paves the way for the second part of the problem.
The second problem is that an acceptance (and even celebration) of political violence towards the Right is emerging on the Left.
A You.gov poll found that liberals are more than twice as likely as conservatives to report that it is acceptable to be happy about the death of a political figure they oppose—and those who identify as “very liberal” are eight times more likely than those who identify as “very conservative” to feel this way. The same poll found nearly identical patterns regarding actually committing political violence: Liberals were more than twice as likely as conservatives to indicate that violence is ever acceptable in order to achieve political goals, and those who identified as “very liberal” were slightly more than eight times more likely than those who identified as “very conservative” to agree. This is no accident. When dialogue is suppressed, anger festers. And because those on the Left are statistically less likely to engage in dialogue with the Right (explained earlier regarding the five Ds), they may also be more prone to erupt in verbal—or even physical—aggression, as we know can happen when people stop talking. This is precisely why anger management programs emphasize building skills for dialogue: Conversation is one of the safest outlets for anger. Without opportunities for meaningful exchange, people stop seeing political opponents as people and start seeing them as enemies. The result is caricature: Those on the Right are labeled as fascists, Nazis, or existential threats. Once that framework takes hold, it becomes psychologically easier to justify extreme responses—including violence.
And the political imbalance matters—not only in terms of the festering that can occur when the Left avoids dialogue, but also in the vilification that can be directed toward the Right. Recall that the five Ds are much more commonly reported by people on the Left against those on the Right. This means conservatives are more often on the receiving end of social exclusion, caricature, and moral vilification. The You.gov poll showing that the Left endorses political violence against the Right at a rate of 100-700% higher than the Right-to-Left may be a natural consequence of the Left-Right skew of the five Ds: If you refuse to sit down with conservatives, you’ll never learn that many are thoughtful, principled people with nuanced positions. Instead, you’ll only hear about them in the most distorted and inflammatory terms. In psychology, we call this an “outgroup stereotype”—a mental shortcut that reduces complex individuals to cartoon villains. History shows us that once people are cast as villains, it doesn’t take much for violence to seem like “justice.”
Silencing speech does not prevent violence—it cultivates it.
Research repeatedly shows that intergroup dialogue, even with people we dislike, is one of the best tools to reduce conflict and build understanding. When speech is stifled, those benefits vanish. Instead of resolution, we get escalation. Instead of resilience, we get fragility. Instead of civil debate, we get political violence.
That’s exactly what we saw in the lead-up to Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Years of refusing dialogue with conservatives, years of labeling their words as “hate” or even “violence,” and labeling the speakers themselves as “Nazis” or “fascists” created a psychological environment where an attack on a conservative leader could feel like self-defense. It was not. It was a political assassination fueled by a culture that confuses words with weapons and silences conversation until only anger remains.
We must choose a different path.
If America wants to pull back from the brink, we have to reverse both prongs of this problem. We need more speech, not less. We need open dialogue where disagreements can be aired rather than suppressed. And we need that dialogue to be authentic and respectful enough to restore the basic truth that political opponents are still fellow citizens, not enemies at war.
That doesn’t mean we’ll all agree. It doesn’t mean hateful rhetoric will vanish. But it does mean we’ll have the tools to answer words with words—rather than letting silence curdle into rage. My book contains tools for speaking up and for listening respectfully during disagreement, since both are essential for healthy dialogue. We must stop the folly of thinking we’ll tamp down on so-called “hate speech and bullying” by silencing people, when in reality, suppression may actually fuel more hostility.
Charlie Kirk’s death should not be the moment we grow quieter. It should be the moment we grow braver. His organization was called Turning Point, and in that spirit, we too must make a turning point: a commitment to speak freely, listen resiliently, and prove that ideas can be fought with ideas—not bullets.