It doesn't have to be like this

 Hi friends, Andy Moore here with Let's Fix this. Um, like many of you, I've been sitting in front of my computer on my phone for the last several days, um, reading news about political violence in America again. Um, on Wednesday when Charlie Kirk was murdered. I was in Washington DC um, in a meeting, uh, of organizations, uh, organizational leaders from, uh, cross partisan networks who work on everything from electoral reform to, uh, bridge building to university presidents, to um, uh, young legislators, state and congressional legislators across the country.

There were. A wide range of folks politically in the room. Uh, and when text messages started pinging people's phones about the violence that had erupted in Utah, um, one woman was, um, moved to tears because her children attend a university that is, I guess, adjacent to UVU where the shooting occurred. And it hasn't happened often in my life that.

I've that I've been directly impacted by violence like this, and it probably hasn't happened to most of us. Even still, when you are faced with someone else who feels like they or their loved ones or immediately threatened, it's scarring even that way. Uh, and I'm sure like many of you, I've somewhat struggled looking for.

The leaders, the voices, right, the comfort that our country needs in times of hurt, um, in times of fear and anxiety. And we've certainly been living in those times for a long time now, I would say even for me, the past. Nine months or so of this year, of 2025 have been some of the most existentially, stressful and draining that I can remember.

Um, you know, I will admit that there were aspects of Trump's first term that were deeply concerning to me, and then certainly living through the COVID-19 pandemic, um, and losing my mother, um, to it were deeply, deeply difficult. Um. I think I keep hoping every day, right, that the dam will break, that something will give that a fundamental shift in the direction our country is headed will happen and it'll feel immediately relieving and it hasn't happened yet.

Um, the last few days, you know, I've been looking for, I don't know, Mr. Rogers, someone, someone to offer a comforting word. And in fact, I saw a headline the other day, um, about maybe just this morning, I think in on Politico actually, that said, Charlie Kirk's death exposes an absence of a leader to Calm America.

And the headline alone hit me like. A gut punch and also like an affirming hand on my shoulder, I guess, right? That this is, that I'm probably not alone in feeling like we're looking for something. I don't know if things will change after this, but I do think it is important for us to pause, if only briefly, to reflect on.

Where we are right now and how we might move forward as a country, as a state, as a local community. I'm recording this on Fridays Eptember 12th. We've already released, uh, a podcast for this week, but I felt responsible, I guess, in some way to share a good word or what I hope is a good word. In just a few hours, we will convene nearby at Skydance Brewing for our monthly democracy drinks happy hour like we do every month.

I look forward to seeing old friends and new. Um, I look forward to finding or forcing a laugh at something, and I hope there's hugs, honestly. If you're, if you happen to listen to this before you come, I'm probably gonna hug you, or I am welcome to hug you. Uh, I am open to it. If you are, it's okay if you're not, but like sometimes, like nothing else feels quite right, like the warm embrace of someone that you know cares.

And so even if you aren't there or you listen to this afterwards, I hope that in some way this audio or this video, if you're watching, is a bit of that. I, I do wanna read some words from two other people that I consider influential in our world. Um, there don't get it. Write all the time, but I thought what they had to say was helpful.

Um, the first is from the, um, publisher or CEO of Axios, uh, which is a, a news outlet. And I read this because, um, my good friend Scott's sent it to me and some others this morning. Axios CEO Jim VandeHei writes:

Break the fever. Or it might break us.

Why it matters: The gruesome killing of Charlie Kirk, on top of the killings or assassination attempts of so many others, gives 340 million of us Americans a chance to reflect — and act.

• Reflect with sadness — and disgust — on senseless violence. Every time. Without pause or caveat.
• And act to prevent murderers — and the small, but loud idiots who applaud — from wholly defining our politics.

Do we let a few crazies define the 44 million registered Democrats? Or a few lunatics define 37 million registered Republicans? Do we let all of this define us?

• It need not. Here are six ways we can help break that fever:

1. Wake up. This is getting worse — and dangerous. Presidents, congressional leaders and lawmakers, cultural leaders like Kirk, state officials and ordinary Americans are getting shot at and gunned down at an alarming rate. Within minutes, small but loud groups of heartless people justify or even cheer it, and their soulless views are amplified by both sides. Within seconds, your social media feed feels like the apocalypse.

2. Stay grounded. You must realize — and tell others — that the idiot who makes an idiotic comment on MSNBC or X is just that: an isolated idiot. They're not voicing what an entire party or ideology feels or believes. They're getting attention because it's so ludicrous. But the more people "like" it in rage, the more it's pushed to the top of your social media feed. Again, within seconds, you think the world has lost its mind when most of it is grieving.

• It wasn't long ago that the wackiest people could be found at the end of a bar, pounding whiskey, howling nonsense. You didn't hear it because it was one person in one bar in one town. Now, that person pops off, other drunks "like" it, and he seems like the most popular guy at the bar. Yet he's still just a howling drunk. That's social media, folks.

3. Tone it down. Don't let the nuts or algorithms suck you into making matters worse. Don't share this stuff. Don't stare at this stuff. Your brain and heart grow twisted or cold when you do. It's OK to just be sad or mad in silence.

4. Shut it off. I know it's hard. But social media is pure evil in these moments. It's not just the awfulness getting amplified. Every clown with a handle is suddenly a forensic expert or coroner. The amount of misinformation is staggering and soul-sapping. Put down your phone. Go outside. Say a prayer.

5. Open up. We won't solve this by drifting deeper into our bubbles. It's easy to hate a faceless party or person. But you'll discover complexity, heart and struggle if you engage the vast majority of people out of curiosity, not judgment. Find someone you disagree with and simply ask: Can we have a calm, nonjudgmental chat about life? This might seem corny. Give it a try.

6. Love. I'm not a self-help guru or cheeseball. In fact, I'm a ruthlessly pragmatic introvert who happens to run a media company. I share many of your worries and worst fears. But the only antidote to division and despair is hope and repair. It starts with each of us. Watch your words. Hug someone. Help someone.

The big picture: Most people are good and peaceful. But a few bad ones can hurl our nation into true chaos. A series of small choices by each of us will write this ending.

➡️ A short story about Charlie to give you hope: Axios is hardly MAGA's comfort food. But we've marveled at the calm, clinical exchanges we've enjoyed with many MAGA leaders, including Kirk. He was responsive and respectful, even when we wrote things he didn't like or agree with.

• The same is true of some of the most controversial voices on the left. People can hold views you question, dispute or even abhor. They're still people.

➡️ A second short story about Congress to give you hope. Hours after Kirk was killed, I joined my wife, Autumn, for a reception honoring parents who adopt or foster children. Autumn is the newest board member of the Congressional Coalition on Adoption Institute (CCAI). You want hope? Listen to parents who take in forgotten kids.

• You want hope in politics? Turns out, the largest bipartisan, bicameral caucus in Congress, 135 lawmakers strong, is the Congressional Coalition on Adoption. You won't read that on X or see it on cable.

So, uh, that was from Jim VandeHei, the CEO of Axios. I don't agree with everything, but I found that helpful. Maybe you will as well. Um, the next piece is from Ezra Klein, who many of you who listen or watch regularly know I'm generally an Ezra fan and also an Ezra's skeptic, right? Um, he strikes me as someone who is very smart, sometimes too smart in an annoying way.

Sometimes he's wrong. He has a role to play in this ecosystem as we all do, and I appreciate when he uses his voice for what I feel to be good. Um, I'm not gonna try to do an impression of Ezra's voice. He has a very distinct voice and I wish he would, uh, read this on his own podcast. Maybe he has, I haven't listened this week because, um, I've tried to sit in silence and more and quietly, not so much for Kirk necessarily, but for his family, yes, and for democracy, for sure.

Anyway, Ezra Klein says:

The foundation of a free society is the ability to participate in politics without fear of violence. To lose that is to risk losing everything. Charlie Kirk — and his family — just lost everything. As a country, we came a step closer to losing everything, too.

We’ve been edging closer for some time now. In 2020, a plot to kidnap Gretchen Whitmer, the governor of Michigan, was foiled by the F.B.I. In 2021, a mob stormed the Capitol in an effort to overturn the result of the election and pipe bombs were found at the Democratic and the Republican National Committee headquarters. In 2022, a man broke into the home of Nancy Pelosi, speaker of the House at the time, intending to kidnap her. She was absent, but the intruder assaulted her 82-year-old husband, Paul, with a hammer, fracturing his skull. In 2024, President Trump was nearly assassinated. That same year, Brian Thompson, the chief executive of UnitedHealthcare, was murdered.

In 2025, Molotov cocktails were thrown into the home of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania during Passover. Melissa Hortman, the former House speaker of Minnesota, and her husband were murdered, and State Senator John Hoffman and his wife were severely injured by a gunman. And on Wednesday, Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was gunned down during a speech at Utah Valley University.

You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.

That was not all Kirk’s doing, but he was central in laying the groundwork for it. I did not know Kirk, and I am not the right person to eulogize him. But I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness. In the inaugural episode of his podcast, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California hosted Kirk, admitting that his son was a huge fan. What a testament to Kirk’s project.

On social media, I’ve seen mostly decent reactions to Kirk’s murder. There is grief and shock from both the left and the right. But I’ve seen two forms of reaction that are misguided, however comprehensible the rage or horror that provoked them. One is a move on the left to wrap Kirk’s death around his views — after all, he defended the Second Amendment, even admitting it meant accepting innocent deaths. Another is on the right, to turn his murder into a justification for an all-out war, a Reichstag fire for our time.

But as the list above reveals, there is no world in which political violence escalates but is contained to just your foes. Even if that were possible, it would still be a world of horrors, a society that had collapsed into the most irreversible form of unfreedom.

Political violence is a virus. It is contagious. We have been through periods in this country when it was endemic. In the 1960s there were the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., Robert F. Kennedy and Medgar Evers. In the 1970s, Gov. George Wallace was shot by a would-be assassin but survived, and Gerald Ford faced two assassination attempts in one month. In 1981 Ronald Reagan survived after John Hinckley Jr.’s bullet ricocheted off his rib and punctured his lung. These assassins and would-be assassins had different motives, different politics and different levels of mental stability. When political violence becomes imaginable, either as a tool of politics or a ladder for fame, it begins to infect hosts heedlessly.

American politics has sides. There is no use pretending it doesn’t. But both sides are meant to be on the same side of a larger project — we are all, or most of us, anyway, trying to maintain the viability of the American experiment. We can live with losing an election because we believe in the promise of the next election; we can live with losing an argument because we believe that there will be another argument. Political violence imperils that.

Kirk and I were on different sides of most political arguments. We were on the same side on the continued possibility of American politics. It is supposed to be an argument, not a war; it is supposed to be won with words, not ended with bullets. I wanted Kirk to be safe for his sake, but I also wanted him to be safe for mine and for the sake of our larger shared project. The same is true for Shapiro, for Hoffman, for Hortman, for Thompson, for Trump, for Pelosi, for Whitmer. We are all safe, or none of us are.

Just before I started recording this today, uh, the news came out that the, um, alleged perpetrator of this violence that would be, or I guess the assassin of, um, or alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk has turned himself in, is, um, admitted to the crime and, um. What happens next is an unfurling of every aspect of this young man's life.

At 22 years old, his life was really still just beginning and he made a grave decision to end the life of another.

The pictures are already coming out, uh, and whether you want to see them or not, you know, it's photos of a family that was very involved with guns, photos of his mom holding assault rifles, and this was a thing their family did together and it is the thing that has undone their family as well as Kirks and so many others.

Moments after Charlie Kirk was shot on Wednesday, CNN had to cut their news short, um, to pivot to dis to discussing a school shooting in Denver. And indeed one of my colleagues on Wednesday who had just left to head to the airport to fly back to Denver, um, undoubtedly got the news while in the airport and I'm certain was immediately terrified for her children who were attending school back home.

This is the great anxiety that all of us who our parents live with, and now all of us who exist in this country fear every day.

I saw a man, uh, wearing a gun dangling precipitously from his athletic shorts inside a donut shop at eight o'clock in the morning on a Sunday. The only people in the store were the employees, myself. This man and his like three or 4-year-old daughter, I cannot understand why he felt the need to carry a firearm much less, have it dangle from his shorts.

It was an unsafe way to carry a firearm, and it was an unnecessary situation.

For those of you who may be listening or consuming our, our media that have been victims or adjacent to gun violence or any kind of violence, my heart is with you. I have dear friends who worked for Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona, um, at the time that she was shot and. They too, like have a strong PTSD response when anything like this happens in the news, even when it happens to people with whom they disagree strongly on almost everything,

there are policy things we could do there, change this. They're not easy as most meaningful policy things aren't. So often the fact that it is hard means that it is the right thing to do. But too often we let easy solutions slip from our fingers because we don't feel like they're meaningful enough because political will is not there because someone somewhere is more concerned with getting reelected than they are with what's doing with than they are with doing what's right.

I know that we have a number of elected officials, lobbyists, state agency heads, influential people who listen to this show regularly. Thank you. It is perpetually weird to me that I've been able to have a voice in politics in our state. Or in our country, and to the extent that my small voice here in the wilderness resonates with any of you, may I use my platform to plead for change?

I met this morning with two state legislators and I could not help myself, but think about the very real possibility that they too could be gunned down for their political ideology. They're not radicals. They fight for people that are, uh, disabled and hungry and homeless. They fight for public schools and for like reasonable, you know, tax policy.

Things that genuinely do benefit all of us, if not directly then indirectly.

There are those who have different policy perspectives, things that I might disagree with, but I don't want them murdered.

I believe in a public square where good ideas and bad are shared, and the good ones went out through words and persuasion, not through fists or bullets or bombs.

I didn't know Charlie Kirk either. Like Ezra said, I'm not the one to eulogize him. I honestly knew his name and that he was vaguely conservative, but, and I follow this stuff pretty