Liberals, I get why you’re upset

Brett Freeman

Before his death, Charlie Kirk himself was spoofed on South Park. His reaction? He thought it was hilarious. He even said he was honored to be parodied in an episode. That’s a reminder to conservatives: don’t become the censors you once criticized. Be like Kirk, who could laugh at himself. And it’s an irony for liberals, too. Kirk may have agreed with them about Kimmel — though now, we’ll never know.”

Before I published this column, I sent this around to a few trusted people, including a friend who sits firmly on the political left. I know I’ve thrown plenty of red meat to conservatives in past columns. This time, I wanted to write something that resonates with everyone — and especially with my liberal friends.

Let's just say...I made some further edits. I have a lot to learn.

I want to begin here by saying that I sympathize with the alarm many of my liberal friends have felt in recent days. Their concern about free expression is real — especially with the FCC floating threats against ABC, and with Attorney General Pam Bondi irresponsibly suggesting that the Department of Justice could target so-called “hate speech.”

We saw that play out locally last week, when we reported on a School Resource Officer in Somers losing her post after making inflammatory remarks about Charlie Kirk.

While her words were ugly, I don’t believe she posed any physical danger to students. But her job wasn’t just about keeping the peace — it was about trust. Once students and parents no longer feel comfortable approaching you, the job can’t be done. On that basis, I think the district made the right call.

And yet, I feel sympathy for her. She said something impulsive on social media and it may have permanently harmed her career. People on all sides of the political spectrum can understand how easy it is to be impulsive on social media when emotions run high.

People often point to the First Amendment in cases like this. Yes, we all have freedom of speech. But freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. The Constitution protects us from government censorship, not from our employer, our customers or our neighbors responding to what we say. If your words make it impossible for you to do your job effectively, your employer has every right to act. That’s not a violation of the First Amendment — it’s a consequence of how speech interacts with responsibility.

On our Facebook pages, when we posted about several nearby candlelight vigils for Kirk and the Somers High School students who had launched a chapter of Turning Point USA, the dialogue quickly soured. Some readers criticized the vigil and the community for memorializing Kirk, who they felt was a hateful person. The back-and-forth between both sides was dispiriting.

Offline, a friend of mine — someone whose friendship I truly value — told me she liked my last column lauding Kirk, agreed with most of it, but still thought Kirk was reprehensible. Do I plan to end that friendship? Of course not. Why would anyone end a friendship over a disagreement about a national figure neither of us has ever met? Another reader told me she only discovered Kirk through her son’s grief. She didn’t agree with everything he said, but she respected his emphasis on dialogue, and she respected her son’s feelings.

Still, another reader called to cancel his subscription. He left his phone number, so I assumed he was open to dialogue. We had a good conversation. He said he would reserve judgement until he reads this week's column (crossing my fingers that this good guy remains a reader!).

That’s nuance. That’s community.

We need more of that. We need to step away from the outrage treadmill. Log off. Sit down face-to-face. Have a cup of coffee or a glass of wine, beer or my preferred beverage, a Scotch. Disagree honestly. Argue if you must. And then stay friends.

That’s really the heart of this column. What’s happening now is bigger than one vigil, one officer, or one Facebook fight. It’s about the boundaries of what we can and cannot say in public life — the shifting lines of what’s considered acceptable.

Political scientist Joseph Overton called this the Overton Window — the spectrum of ideas society considers “acceptable.” Step outside the window, and you’re dismissed as extreme. Stay inside, and you’re mainstream.

This past week, the window shifted right. For many liberals, that was jarring. Suddenly, things they had taken for granted as safe to say — about Kirk, about politics, about the culture — now received greater pushback.

I understand why that feels unsettling. Conservatives have felt the same thing for years, particularly in the summer of 2020 after George Floyd’s death, when the window was far to the left. Nuance wasn’t tolerated. Personally, I believed — and of course still believe — in the truth of “black lives matter” (lowercase). But I was wary of Black Lives Matter the organization, which I had already seen dabble in antisemitic rhetoric. Years later, my suspicion was confirmed when a Chicago BLM chapter glorified Hamas terrorists by posting an image of a paraglider against a Palestinian flag (paragliders were used on Oct. 7, 2023, to breach the Israeli border and massacre Jews).

After Floyd was killed, when I suggested that our front-page coverage of peaceful marches was statement enough, I felt real pressure from within my organization to say more. And just as many people on the left don’t feel that Kirk deserves sainthood, I felt the same about Floyd, who in 2007 was part of a home invasion where police reported he pointed a gun at a pregnant woman’s abdomen.

Liberals are now feeling what conservatives once did. I don't say this to gloat. Quite the opposite. I believe strongly in dialogue and people of all political persuasions understanding one another.

Kirk touched on some of the most sensitive issues in our culture — race, sex, religion — the things that shape how people experience dignity and belonging. Kirk sometimes expressed his views in ways that, when reduced to snippets, invited misinterpretation. I saw several Kirk opponents on Facebook circulating shocking quotes attributed to him. And honestly, if all I ever saw were those isolated lines — stripped of the context of what he said before or after — I’d probably hate him too.

That being said, I can understand why some of his statements, even presented in full, struck a nerve with his critics. While he welcomed LGBTQ people into the conservative fold, he qualified that support by saying he didn’t agree with their lifestyle, framing it as a choice. Anyone who is LGBTQ— or has a person in their family who is — understands that it's not a choice. If some people came away from some of Kirk's statements feeling wounded, I can understand why.

Still, I would urge any of our readers who feel this issue is a line in the sand, to listen to podcaster Amir Odom, a black gay man who has spoken openly about how Kirk encouraged him to start his own podcast. I think it's important to hear his perspective.

Regardless, this remains an issue that divides people locally, where some religious institutions display rainbow flags and some don't. I have no intention of getting into a theological debate, as I'm not a theologian. But I understand the anger or hurt felt by people who don't feel they or their family members are fully welcomed. To those congregations, I would only urge this: engage in respectful dialogue with members of the LGBTQ community. Listening doesn’t require agreement, but it is the foundation of trust.

That's why I also understand liberals who are now upset about Jimmy Kimmel losing his long-time late-night perch on ABC after he claimed that Kirk’s alleged shooter was MAGA. Kimmel said this because Tyler Robinson grew up in a Republican Mormon family, as if people inherit their politics the way they inherit their eye color. Conservatives were incensed by the claim, but I also understand why liberals are pushing back against Kimmel’s cancellation, especially after FCC chair Brendan Carr threatened to revoke ABC’s affiliate licenses over the remarks. It's one thing to exert social pressure against ABC. It's quite another for the government to chill free speech. Conservatives should be concerned too, as the pendulum always swings back and forth in this country.

Conservative Republican Senators Ted Cruz and Rand Paul have forcefuly criticized the FCC for issuing these threats, arguing that free speech is a conservative value.

But I would be remiss if I didn't point out that conservatives faced the same treatment for years: Roseanne Barr was fired from the very same ABC for a tweet many found racially offensive (Barr insisted she didn’t know the woman she insulted was Black, and claimed the Obama Administration pressured ABC to act); skeptics of COVID policies were deplatformed from Twitter and YouTube; and even satire wasn’t safe, as the Babylon Bee was censored for parody. The list goes on. It wasn't just private institutions who were deplatforming conservatives. We know from whistleblowers and from Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself that the Biden Administration put undue pressure on his social media company to censor conservatives.

So yes, I understand why liberals are upset now.

Before his death, Charlie Kirk himself was spoofed on South Park. His reaction? He thought it was hilarious. He even said he was honored to be parodied in an episode.

That’s a reminder to conservatives: don’t become the censors you once criticized. Be like Kirk, who could laugh at himself.

And it’s an irony for liberals, too. Kirk may have agreed with them about Kimmel — though now, we’ll never know.