This article originally appeared in The Detroit News October 8, 2025.
A wide range of people have needed to talk about Charlie Kirk’s assassination. In the month following his death, I’ve had conversations with business owners, college students, lawmakers, a priest, a barber and a family member who has no interest in politics.
A friend and I met for lunch; he had just attended a memorial held for Kirk. Our waitress quietly broke in, “I’m going to the vigil in my town tonight,” she said.
People feel that the killing is troubling. A sign of national distress. Is this who we are now, using violence to silence people with whom we disagree? What does it mean?
Many people have written about how the nation should move forward. These prescriptions tend to refer to big, collective actions for “us” to do. But what should you do — what should I do?
Here’s something each person can try: Disagree better.
Political scholar Yuval Levin wrote about this in his book, “American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation ― and Could Again.” It is not that we have forgotten how to agree, he said. We have forgotten how to disagree. “A more unified society would not always disagree less, but it would disagree better,” wrote Levin.
An organization called Disagree Better is training people in how to do it. It started in 2023 when Gov. Spencer Cox, R-Utah, called on fellow governors to interact with respect, despite their differences. He and Gov. Wes Moore, D-Md., recruited other elected leaders to the cause.
The organization offers practical tips. “Avoid making assumptions about someone’s motives,” “share a positive story about someone you disagree with on social media,” and “commit to listening more than speaking in your next conversation.”
Healthy disagreement seeks to understand the other person. We call it civility. The word “civility” is rooted in the Latin word for “citizen.” Civility means more than good manners; it is intertwined with respect in the public square.
People are skeptical about civility. “You cannot be civil with a political party that wants to destroy what you stand for, what you care about,” said Hillary Clinton in 2018. Clinton said Democrats should practice civility only if they won the next election.
Perhaps civility sounds too passive, too conflict-averse. Perhaps it lacks the intensity people feel about our country. Perhaps people fear that civility will water down their principles or cause them to tolerate an intolerable situation.
Let’s challenge that assumption. Free speech has a social agreement embedded in it: You may disagree with an idea, but you use your right to speak to convince me and others. Civility despite disagreement requires that you think clearly and persuade with passion.
The Overton Window of Political Possibility, an idea born in Michigan, explains how policies and laws shift over time because people embrace new ideas. Ideas don’t spread and take root through force or violence. They spread because one person convinces another, who convinces another, and so on. When enough people embrace an idea, the law changes.
Not all ideas are equal. Not all ideas are good. But the way to respond to a bad idea is with more communication, not with clubs or mute buttons.
America does not need to be defined by the moment a bullet struck down Charlie Kirk. It can be defined by the moment his wife Erika forgave the killer.
