We Are All Charlie Kirk
“Onward Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war.
With the cross of Jesus,
Going on before.
Christ the royal master,
Leads against the foe.
Forward in to battle,
See his banners go.
Crowns and thrones may perish,
Kingdoms rise and wane.
But the church of Jesus,
Constant will remain.
Gates of hell can never,
Against that church prevail.
We have Christ’s own promise,
And that cannot fail.
Onward Christian soldiers,
Marching as to war.
With the cross of Jesus,
Going on before.”
I have been writing this missives for over 25 years now. The last time I wrote one about this grave an event was in September of 2001. My friend Hugh Hewitt said on his radio show last week that the three most impactful events in his adult life were 9/11, October 7th, and the assassination of Charlie Kirk in that order. I differ only in that I would put Charlie Kirk’s death above October 7th because it happened in the United States. I didn’t sleep for two nights after hearing about the assassination. It has profoundly affected me. And I know it did the same for many of you.
I never met Charlie Kirk, even though he was a fellow resident of Maricopa County, Arizona. But, because I follow politics so closely, I was very familiar with his work. That work was astonishingly impactful. As you probably all know now, he would debate anyone, anywhere and do so respectfully. That said, he was unafraid to express his opinions no matter how removed from the PC cultural norms they might be, and he would passionately defend them. He was also a man of great Christian faith.
I tweeted after his death was confirmed, that I felt America would change that day. I am even more convinced of that now.
In what ways do I think it will change? On X, I have been posting that we are now in what I call a “cold civil war.” There won’t be troops shooting at each other and Texas is not going to invade California or vice versa. That is why I call it a “cold” war. Wars sometimes are fought over territory or leaders. This one is a battle of ideas. A conflict between two very different visions of governance and culture that have no overlap.
I received push-back on X when I posted this. Some of that pushback was from friends and people I respect. “Lower the temperature, John,” they said.
OK. How will we lower the temperature? Will the left decide that it’s OK to pray in schools or that men in women’s sports is a bad idea? Will they abandon or even soften their religious commitment to the climate change hoax? Will they decide that children should not have irreversible surgeries in the name of “gender transition”? Will they decide that murderers and rapists should not be released from jail and that coming to this country illegally should not be allowed?
No. They will not do any of those things. They have never seen the need to do so.
So, our side is the one that is supposed to back off and “compromise” with the left. That will lower the temperature.
To that I say, “Hell no!!! Not this time! Not again!”
Conservatives have been backing off for my entire lifetime for fear of the press or the education cabal or Hollywood stars. We are always the ones to back down to avoid conflict.
So, if we don’t back down from our views, and they don’t from theirs, how does the temperature go down?
Charlie Kirk died so that we don’t back down. He didn’t. He was polite and respectful but determined to speak his mind. All he wanted to do was debate ideas because he knew his would win out. And they killed him for it. The left is responding to words with bullets because their words support failed ideologies of misery and hate. We should not use bullets. But we should use our words stronger and louder and with more courage and more force. This is why the left all over the world is jailing people for speech. In California it is a crime to “misgender” someone. In Britain people are being arrested for tweets that are “insensitive” or for flying the union jack at a gathering of Islamic Jihadist “grooming gangs”. If you don’t know what those are, look it up. It will horrify you.
By the way, do not believe this crap that there is equal violence on both sides. We have wackos on our side for sure. But the vast majority of the murders in the last couple of years have been from the left and often the transgender, islamic or illegal alien left. Governor Shapiro of Pennsylvania was attacked by a pro-Palestinian anti-semitic because he is Jewish, not because he is a Democrat. That anti-semitism is now a core principle of the Democratic Party. The “plot” to kidnap Governor Whitmer of Michigan ended up with a number of acquittals as it Biden’s FBI had actually planted the kidnap idea and not the defendants. There was entrapment.
You have now seen so many on the left celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk. All of these people should be fired from their jobs. You say but wait, isn’t that the cancel culture that conservatives didn’t like? Yes. But there is a difference between being fired for suggesting that the Hunter Biden laptop was real (which it was) or refusing to take an unproven vaccine, and calling for the murder of people.
We call the left socialists or communists, both terms many of them embrace. They call us Hitler. We see the German officer who attempted to kill Hitler in 1944 as a hero today. If Republicans and Christians and, ironically, Jews, are Hitler fascists, then killing them must be a good thing, right? This blood is on the hands of every Democrat who called Kirk and others Hitler.
That’s the thing. There is no equivalency between the right and the left today. No policy equivalency. No moral equivalency. No equivalency in the death toll from bad policies. What do Democrats do when a black multiple felon is killed by police? They riot, burn down buildings and murder people (cop executions) in cold blood for retribution. What have conservatives done since the assassination of Charlie Kirk? Pray. And even then, Democrats as prominent as Biden’s former press secretary have criticized people for praying. When Speaker Johnson called for a “moment of prayer” on the House floor, Democrats shouted him down yelling “no.” What kind of a warped person must you be that just hearing someone pray for a widow and fatherless children causes you so much anguish? And those warped people will run this government if the House changes parties in 2026.
Today’s Democratic leaders are not just wrong. Many are truly evil. At best, they are giving quarter to evil rather than helping us root it out.
I understand the desire of many to “just get along and compromise.” But that ship has sailed. The sides are so far apart that there is no middle ground anymore. One side has to win and the other lose. Hence, a cold war. Perhaps reasonable people could take the Democratic Party back from where it is today and return it to its classical liberal roots. But there is no sign of that happening. Those classical liberals have not shown the courage of a Charlie Kirk.
The other major change that happened on September 10th is how it will change us as individuals.
I grew up as a Christian. But back in my day, you were not supposed to “wear your religion on your sleeve.” I didn’t know it then, but now I know that that was the beginning of the cultural secularization of America. And I fell for it.
Ever since the horrors of October 7th, many of my Jewish friends prominently wear stars of David or a yamaka. Doing that in New York City, Michigan or Minnesota is not without risk today. But they do it, because they are sending a message that they will not live in fear because of the muslims who would kill them all.
We Christians should not wear our faith on our sleeves. We should display it across our chests. The left is atheist. They only tolerate religion if it accepts all of their political positioning and preaches leftism. That’s not religion. That is politics disguised as religion. The only religion the left likes is radical Islam but that is just a matter of political convenience. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Charlie Kirk was particularly adept at raising issues that are truth, but that the left and much of our culture says you can’t talk about. The cultural norm of “don’t talk politics or religion in polite company” is a recent construct. It is another part of what the left has done to culture. Suppress religious expression and conservative thought because, since the left controls the media, Hollywood and the education cabal, their message will get out. Keep ours bottled up.
You can see it already. Charlie Kirk has changed the lives of millions. They will proudly stand up for Christ. Proudly stand for putting criminals in jail and keeping them there. Proudly stand up for there being only two genders. Proudly stand against mutilating children in the name of sick ideology. Proudly stand up for the nuclear family. Proudly stand up to send every illegal alien home and give the ones who are not criminals the opportunity to return legally some day. Proudly stand for America First.
If you have not watched the 16-minute speech that Charlie’s widow, Erika, delivered two days after his brutal murder, watch it. She bravely transitions from sorrow to anger to resolution and then to strength and love. Many of us have followed a similar path. She calls on high school and college campuses across America to start Turning Point chapters. As of a few days ago, they have had 36,000 requests. But the left never sleeps. Many are being told on campus that they cannot have a Turning Point chapter for “security reasons.” You want a communist chapter or an Islamic Jijad chapter or a Transgender mutilation chapter? No problem. To paraphrase Andrew Breitbart, we throw facts, they throw bricks.
I know I’ve been changed. No more keeping my faith or my politics under a “lamp shade,” as our Savior commanded us. I will offend some people. I will lose some friends. So be it. This is too important. We can’t lose this one. Losing this one is indistinguishable from losing World War II or the Cold War. Western values, Capitalism and Judeo-Christian culture and teaching will be lost. As Reagan warned us, it could be a new dark ages.
It’s not about right and left anymore. It’s about right and wrong. It’s about good and evil. It’s about free speech and oppression. It’s about prayer and hate. It’s about faith and the faithless. It’s about God and Satan.
So, Onward Christian soldiers. Once more, into the breech. Many churches won’t sing this song anymore because the left wants it banned because they say the lyrics inspire violence. Poppycock. Carry the courage of Charlie Kirk with you. Make him more powerful in death than he was in life.
We are all Charlie Kirk now.
I remain respectfully,
Congressman John Campbell
Drive Fast & Live Free
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