The Charlie Kirk assassination was front-page news this week. The coverage ignited a set of incendiary arguments on both sides of America’s ideological/cultural/political divide.

Conservatives, Libertarians, and free speech advocates are outraged and brokenhearted. The response of Liberals and Progressives has been more varied, from what seems to be genuine sympathy and concern to jubilant celebration.

I asked one Kamala Harris voter, whom I very much like, what she thought of the assassination. She said she barely knew Charlie Kirk. That the only thing she knew about him was that he said Martin Luther King was a “bad person.” (Which is not exactly true. Although Kirk often praised MLK, there was a moment when he criticized not him, but the way he was lionized as if he was not a sinner.)

My reaction to Charlie’s murder was first shock and then outrage. Lit up by that anger, my thoughts ranged from joining a right-wing paramilitary group, to disassociating from everyone I knew that I suspected might be celebrating it, to moving to a remote piece of property I own overseas and spending the rest of my life in isolation.

What I did instead was start an argument with K, which I regretted as soon as she left the room, leaving me with the very awkward job of whimpering and pleading my way back into her good graces and the difficult job of thinking about whether there is some better direction to channel this anger that I’m quite sure will not leave me any time soon.

I called Gio and had her cancel the two meetings I had scheduled for the day, as well as my two workouts. Then I went to my office, this office in the corner of a warehouse I built last year, where I am writing this.