The Long, Lonesome Road Toward National Healing
Knocking doors in the shadow of political violence.
“It’s pretty hot out there. Want to step inside for a bit? Can I get you a glass of water?” It hadn’t even been two hours since I began door-knocking, but I knew I was looking pretty thrashed. Unseasonably warm and brutally dry conditions had caused the leaves to change their colors early. The roads I walked were dusty and lonesome, other than the cars rushing by as I made my way from door to door. Even for a local elected position as inconsequential as Township Supervisor, summoning the motivation to hit the campaign trail is not always easy in a time as bleak as September 2025. As I walk these lonely roads, I try to imagine it’s for some higher purpose: to restore faith in democracy, to make the most of what might be the last free election, or maybe to heal our community’s wounds inflicted by the national political chaos that seems to be closing in on us. On the longer stretches of road, I feel like some kind of penitent or pilgrim, and now that I have been invited into one of my constituents’ homes, it only amplifies the oddly biblical aura of the moment: I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in. (Matthew 25:35).
“You know my wife and I are both Republicans. But we are sensible people…working class people,” he tells me. He knows I am a Democrat. “We appreciate you coming out and talking to everybody, especially with how crazy things are these days.” He expresses gratitude for my efforts to build a bipartisan coalition within our district to fight against unsustainable, unaffordable developments that destroy the natural environment, provide no real relief to the housing crisis, and only line the pockets of wealthy developers and large landowners. It’s an effort that might not win me much love from Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson, and the Abundance faction of the Democratic Party. But it’s nice to hear that at least some of the folks I represent appreciate my commitment to being a tough negotiator on behalf of our community, advancing their expressed interests to the greatest extent the law will allow.
“I’m just so worried about where this country is headed,” he confesses. I hold my breath, wondering where this conversation is headed. Yet his concerns do not mirror the talking points on Fox News. He does not mention Antifa, trans extremism, or Venezuelan gangs like Tren de Aragua. Most notably, he does not mention the one issue that has collapsed our country into a black hole of imminent civil unrest: the assassination of Charlie Kirk. And yet his deepest concern is not completely unrelated to Kirk’s gruesome murder and the right-wing calls for vengeance that have come in its wake. “What really concerns me,” he tells me, “is that all of this awful hatred these parties are whipping up is going to make people in this community start actually hurting each other.”
I share this concern. I think about it almost every day. My position comes with the obligation to preserve public safety. But how will public safety be preserved when neighbor turns against neighbor, when we look for mortal enemies on our own street?
“All we can do is make sure that Indiana Township District 5 serves as an example to the rest of the country,” I tell him as I walk back out into the heat. “We just got to stick together and stay united against these outside moneyed interests that aren’t just trying to ruin our community but the entire country.”
I wave goodbye and, once again, I am back out on the road, heartened by this latest interaction but still apprehensive about the next one. Every door you knock could be opened by someone who believes the Democratic Party is hellbent on orchestrating a godless Marxist overthrow of the American Republic. I’ve had my share of dicey run-ins while knocking on doors. It’s happened before, and it will happen again. But in 2025, reaching out and speaking to all your neighbors, regardless of their political leanings, feels riskier and riskier with each passing day.
How do we ease the tensions? How do we pull the country back from the brink of civil unrest? In this atmosphere of heightened political unease, it is tempting for Democrats to try to calm the political storm by falling into the trap of glorifying Charlie Kirk as a national treasure and a beacon of free speech, rather than a supremely gifted partisan organizer and charismatic communicator who used his talents to foment and intensify the culture wars tearing our country apart. Despite Kirk’s divisive legacy, liberal pundits and Congressional Democrats are falling over themselves to go along with the MAGA project of recasting Charlie Kirk as a national hero rather than a relentless culture warrior. In a move that baffles the understanding, last Thursday, both the House and Senate Democrats voted to pass resolutions marking October 14th as “National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk.” It is one thing to respect the dead, mourn the unimaginably painful loss of a husband and father, and reaffirm the sanctity of all human life. It is quite another thing to rewrite the life of one of the 21st century’s most skilled partisan tacticians as a symbol of national unity. If the resolutions passed in the House and Senate merely condemned the violence that took Kirk’s life, then every Democrat should have voted for them. But the resolutions go far beyond condemning Kirk’s assassination and heap effusive praises on his unapologetically partisan political career, gushing acclamations that 98 Democratic House members and every Senate Democrat affirmed in their votes for the resolutions. The votes of the Democratic Senators are much more understandable, as the Senate resolution provided a much more sober appreciation of Kirk’s career as opposed to the House resolution, which reads much more like a hagiography glorifying Kirk’s moral character and the righteousness of his lifelong conservative crusade.
We do not know whether these House Democrats actually believe the exaltation of Charlie Kirk they signed onto, or whether it was just a tactical maneuver made by careerists and opportunists more concerned about consultant polling than concrete principles. But we must question how these House Democrats square the words in the resolutions they passed with the words Kirk spoke about the liberal causes they supposedly hold dear. What do we make of Democrats who defended Biden’s 2024 candidacy to the bitter end (despite his glaringly obvious mental decline), turning around and signing off on the idea that Kirk “worked tirelessly to promote unity” when he openly called for Biden to be put in prison and/or given the death penalty for his crimes against America? What should we think of the Democrats who have affirmed that Charlie Kirk always sought to “elevate truth, foster understanding, and strengthen the Republic” when he openly peddled election denialism and proudly proclaimed his role in sending 80 buses of Trump supporters to the January 6th protest to “fight for the president”? How should we regard white Democrats who embraced 2020’s “Racial Reckoning,” now honoring Kirk’s “respect for his fellow Americans” despite his claim that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a “huge mistake” and that Martin Luther King “was awful” and “not a good person”?
The House Democrats who voted for this shocking reinterpretation of Kirk’s legacy should ponder whether they are willing collaborators in the core authoritarian project of rewriting history. They are not healing the wounds of partisan division by effusively honoring Kirk, but dangerously recasting those who challenged Kirk’s ideological project as nefarious enemies of a national hero rather than good faith participants in a national dialogue about the future of the country. It’s hard to understand this dramatic betrayal without concluding that the House Democrats who voted for the Charlie Kirk Day of Remembrance resolution are only doing so to save themselves, revealing that they never stood for anything more than their own political careers. It is no wonder that despite the growing distaste for the Trump Administration, Americans still have no confidence in the Democratic Party’s ability to stand for anything, let alone stand up to the mounting tide of authoritarianism and meet this historic moment head on. In 2025, October 14th will be a Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk. In the future, it may also mark a Day of Remembrance for the failed Democratic Party, a political organization that perished due to its own inability to stand on principle.
Say what you want about Charlie Kirk, but he was someone who believed deeply in the philosophical principles of conservatism. In both life and death, he fought to see his ideological project aggressively pursued across the entire American political landscape. Charlie Kirk was always a true believer. The same cannot be said for the House Democrats who voted for the language contained within his National Day of Remembrance resolution. As someone who stands for very defined political and philosophical principles, I at times find it easier to respect and empathize with Charlie Kirk than with Democrats who stand for nothing. The lesson that Charlie Kirk can teach Democrats is not to move reflexively rightward toward the positions of Turning Point USA, as Gavin Newsom pathetically did on the issue of trans sports participation during his podcast interview with Kirk this March. No, the lesson Democrats should learn from Charlie Kirk is recognizing the power of welcoming the passion and harnessing the ideological zeal of activists whose positions may not align with “popularist” preferences of the perceived average voter. While Charlie Kirk was welcomed into the very center of MAGA Republican power, similar activists on the Left are shunned by the establishment Democratic Party. Young idealists on the Left are sneered at as immature and disruptive when they pressure the Democratic elites to get behind single-payer health insurance, a national job guarantee, a wealth tax on oligarchs, or an immediate end to the taxpayer-funded slaughter in Gaza. Trumpism has reached ascendance not because of the popularity of its policy positions but because of its ability to channel the principled passions of young right-wing ideologues like Charlie Kirk, who was a principal architect of a victorious 2024 campaign. The Democratic Party is not impotent and incompetent because of the unpopularity of its policy positions, but because of its perversely bureaucratic structure that stifles and snuffs out the principled passions of young left-wing ideologues who dare to dream of a better future.
As I head back out to knock on doors this weekend, only time will tell whether the traumas of the Charlie Kirk assassination will continue to fester or begin to fade in intensity. Whether I win or lose this upcoming election, I will always remember the lessons I’ve learned from representing a district that is almost equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. The trust and support I receive from citizens of all parties comes not from being a moderate with a precisely crafted centrist position, but from standing firm on the principle that the citizens should come first and that their interests should take precedence over those of the Township government and the business ventures that only come to our community to make a buck. The unity we have forged within Indiana Township District 5 comes not from us agreeing on all the hot-button national political wedge issues that were Charlie Kirk’s bread and butter, but in us rallying together to protect our collective material well-being against parasitic and predatory for-profit operations.
Similarly, the resistance to Trump will not come from the feckless Democrats who will stagger to the right on any issue in a clumsy attempt to win back voters lost to Charlie Kirk and Turning Point USA. Only those Democrats who are as sure in their principles and convictions as Charlie Kirk was in his are fit to lead us in the years ahead. And the road to national unity will be a lonely one, not built on us aligning on all the culture war issues created to distract us, but instead on summoning the collective will of the American people to shatter the unholy alliance between the political and corporate elites that is destroying our society, our economy, and our democracy. Healing will begin when neighbors come together to realize their material interests and basic rights will not be protected by fighting in culture wars, but by joining forces to fight against those who foment them. Reconciliation will not happen through sensational on-campus debates that were Charlie Kirk’s claim to fame. True reconciliation will not be televised, taped, livestreamed, uploaded, shared, liked, reposted, or algorithmically sorted to reinforce the partisan prejudices of those who ingest news through their social media feed. Reconciliation will happen through private conversations on front porches between neighbors of different political persuasions, through the good faith and goodwill that compels us to welcome the stranger and offer a glass of water to those who are thirsty.
On October 14th, all so inclined should pray for the soul of Charlie Kirk. But we should also pray for the soul of a Democratic Party that has been completely incapable of learning the right lessons from Charlie’s life and death.