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When Death Comes, Rhetoric Matters
America has a basic moral rule that used to be understood without explanation: when someone dies, especially violently, you put down the rhetorical knives.
You don’t dance on graves, and you don’t treat a coffin like a political prop.
This rule is not about pretending we agree with the dead. It is not about suspending our convictions. It’s about preserving the last thin strand of decency that keeps politics from becoming blood sport.
In 2025, America learned again what happens when that strand snaps.
When Charlie Kirk was assassinated at Utah Valley University on September 10, the country did not just witness a murder, we witnessed a national test. Would we respond like a serious people, or like a civilization that has forgotten the difference between a political opponent and an enemy?
We all saw what followed. Social media was filled with people eager to prove they had no soul left to guard. Some didn’t simply mourn differently. They mocked. They rationalized. They insinuated that Kirk somehow “deserved it.” One of the most grotesque examples came from longtime left-wing commentator Keith Olbermann, who wrote that someone should “burn in hell… alongside Charlie Kirk,” a post that quickly spread before being deleted.
That moment felt clarifying — and damning. For years, conservatives have argued that parts of the modern Left have normalized a kind of moral vandalism: that if you label someone “dangerous,” you can justify anything done to them. That if you call someone “literally Hitler,” the next step is always implied. The reaction to Kirk’s murder made that argument impossible to ignore.
But something else happened, too.
In the immediate aftermath, many conservatives made a conscious choice to be better. They mourned a young father and husband. They prayed for his family. They condemned the violence without qualification. They insisted that assassination can never be a political tool.
Even voices on the Left noticed the contrast. Bill Maher, hardly a conservative, criticized the ghoulish reactions from his own side and condemned those who mocked or justified the killing. He warned about what happens when tribalism makes basic humanity optional. That acknowledgment mattered, not because it redeemed anyone, but because it underscored something essential: this was no longer a Left-Right debate. It was a human one.
Then, this week, the country faced the test again.
Director Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Singer Reiner, were found murdered in a horrifying family tragedy, with their son arrested in connection with the killings. Reiner spent years as one of Donald Trump’s most relentless critics. Conservatives have no shortage of reasons to oppose his politics, his activism, or his rhetoric. But this was not a policy dispute. It was a tragedy.
And once again, conservatives initially rose to the moment.
Prominent right-of-center voices expressed sympathy and restraint. Ben Shapiro wrote that, regardless of political differences, “The murder of Rob Reiner and his wife is horrific, and their family deserves prayers and privacy.” Speaker Mike Johnson called it “a heartbreaking loss” and urged Americans to “lower the temperature and remember our shared humanity.” Even figures known for sharp rhetoric paused, recognizing that death demands humility, not point-scoring.
In that moment, conservatives were proving something — to the country and to ourselves. We were showing that our condemnation of the Left’s reaction to Charlie Kirk was not merely tribal outrage. We were passing our own test.
And then Donald Trump logged on.
Trump took to Truth Social to frame Rob Reiner’s murder through the lens of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” writing that Reiner “spent his life consumed by hatred” and implying that his death was somehow a reflection of that obsession.
It was not restraint. It was not leadership. It was mockery dressed up as commentary — and it detonated the moral high ground conservatives had just earned.
This is why the Reiner tragedy is not just another cycle of outrage. It’s a verdict.
Conservatives can argue, correctly, that the Left’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s assassination exposed something deeply broken. But if we insist we are better, we have to prove it when it costs us something — when the deceased is someone we disagree with, someone who attacked our side, someone who spent years calling our leaders names.
This is the leadership test. And Trump failed it.
Some will dismiss this as overblown. It was just a post, they’ll say. Just Trump being Trump. Just rhetoric. But that defense collapses under scrutiny. Rhetoric is not incidental to leadership; it is central to it. Leaders do not merely reflect the temperature, they set it. When the most powerful voice on the Right treats murder as an opportunity for mockery, he licenses the very sickness conservatives claim to oppose.
The Right cannot be a movement that condemns grave-dancing only when the dead wear our jersey. We cannot demand dignity for our slain and deny it to others. That is not strength, it is tribal weakness. It is not principle, it is reflex.
After Charlie Kirk’s assassination, conservatives promised the country we would not become what we despise. In the immediate aftermath of the Reiner murders, many conservatives honored that promise. Our most influential leader did not.
There is still time to recover what has been lost, but it will require making some adult decisions:
That we will treat death with dignity, not like content.
That we will make room for grief even when we disagree.
That we will reserve our sharpest words for arguments, not funerals.
And that we will demand more from our leaders because if they cannot pass the decency test when blood is on the ground, they become unfit to lecture the country about moral decline.
* * *
Gates Garcia is the host of the YouTube show and podcast “We The People.” Follow him on Instagram and X @GatesGarciaFL.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
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