Free speech is every culture’s safety valve. It allows a society to release pressure through argument rather than violence. But when violent rhetoric becomes normalised, and when it is excused by parts of the media, academia and the political class, the valve may fail, and the pressure finds a lethal release.

This week, Charlie Kirk was shot dead while addressing students in Utah. As the founder of Turning Point USA, Kirk had long faced threats and vilification from left-wing activists who painted him as an enemy to be silenced. While the investigation into his murder continues, the broader lesson is already plain: words matter. When violent talk is tolerated, stigmatisation and incitement follow, which left unchecked leads inevitably to action.

Kirk leaves behind a wife who will never grow old with him, a daughter who will never know the joy of her father walking her down the aisle, and a son who will never receive his counsel as he grows into manhood. A family has been robbed of its anchor. To them, rhetoric becoming reality means empty seats at birthdays, weddings, and graduations, milestones forever marked by absence.

The climate that made Kirk a target has been years in the making. Across America, inflammatory language from the far left too often passes without rebuke from centrist politicians or the mainstream press. Calls to “shut down” events, to “smash fascists,” or to brand conservatives as “vermin” or “nazis” are brushed off as metaphor. Yet every such phrase shifts the boundaries of what is thinkable. What once sounded outrageous becomes the new normal. This is the radicalisation ratchet in action; each click lowering restraint and raising risk.

The silence of the media plays a decisive role. When outlets minimise or ignore violent rhetoric on the left, but treat even minor lapses on the right as national scandals, they create a permission structure. Radicals learn that threats from their flank will be indulged or excused. Moderates, fearful of being ostracised, hold back their rebuke. The asymmetry emboldens extremists and teaches them that intimidation, not persuasion, pays dividends.

Kirk’s murder reminds us where this past leads. Time and again, political movements that tolerated dehumanising speech saw it harden into justification for persecution and bloodshed. Revolutionary regimes in the last century wrapped their violence in moral language, promising liberation, justice, or equality, while normalising slogans that portrayed opponents as pests or parasites. Words framed as civic duty became the pretext for cruelty, and societies discovered too late that failing to challenge violent talk is itself a form of complicity.

The lesson for America is urgent. A republic cannot remain free if it excuses violent rhetoric when it comes from its own side. Media must cover threats honestly, leaders must condemn them without caveat, and citizens must uphold the principle that debate, not intimidation, is the only legitimate path. If these red lines are not restored, the radicalisation ratchet will keep turning, and more families, like the Kirks, will suffer irreparable loss.