America grieves a savage, senseless attack on one of our brightest voices, Charlie Kirk, who was shot while speaking at a university in September — a tragedy that stunned conservative communities and galvanized millions to mourn and to fight for truth. The scene was chaotic and horrifying, and every honest patriot should be focused on justice and on supporting Charlie’s family, not piling on suspicion without facts.
Within days a short clip circulated that purported to show Mikey McCoy, Charlie’s longtime aide and chief of staff, calmly turning and walking away as the shots rang out — and social media exploded with accusations that he “abandoned” Charlie or worse. That clip was amplified by partisan commentators and anonymous analysts who framed the moment as evidence of betrayal, turning grief into a sensational online feeding frenzy.
Any conservative worth their salt should reject the reflex to believe the loudest, angriest clip on the internet without context. Video snippets can lie by omission; angles, timing, and what happens in the seconds before and after matter enormously. Before accusing a man who stood by Charlie for years, demand the full footage and clear explanations instead of breathless conspiracy threads.
Worse still, the same corners of the internet that chew people up and spit them out for sport turned their cruelty toward Charlie after his death, celebrating and weaponizing his murder rather than offering basic decency. That rot went so far as to surface at institutions where a student reportedly celebrated the killing, prompting consequences — a reminder that our cultural elites and their campus cheerleaders often answer violence with indifference or worse. Conservatives should be the first to call this out and to insist accountability where celebration of murder occurs.
Mikey McCoy has not lurked silently; he has spoken publicly, mobilized to defend Charlie’s name, and read an open letter condemning those who cheered the assassination — actions inconsistent with the caricature of a traitor. Meanwhile, Charlie’s family and allies have led with faith and resolve at memorials and on air, turning immense grief into a movement to keep fighting for the country Charlie loved. That is the record we should weigh, not a seven-second internet clip.
Conservatives must also call out the double standard: when similar ambiguous footage involves left-wing figures, the mainstream press leaps to judgment, but when a conservative is targeted the mob mentality and conspiracies take over without evidence. Protecting truth means protecting our people from defamatory rushes to judgment, but it also means exposing the media narrative machines that gladly amplify conspiracies when it suits a hostile agenda.
We owe it to Charlie, to his grieving widow Erika, and to patriotic Americans to demand full transparency and to refuse the moral shortcut of piling on a man based on edited clips. Defend the presumption of loyalty and the presumption of innocence until proven otherwise, and channel righteous anger toward real enemies of our country — not toward the aides and friends who stood in Charlie’s corner for years.
