I’ve seen so many people say they don’t understand why Charlie Kirk’s murder hit them so hard. They can’t explain it. Maybe my perspective as a recovering California liberal who now mourns his memory can help.

I attended my first Turning Point USA event in 2022, right around the time I committed myself to Christ. I was a fish out of water.

For context: In late 2021, CBS News fired me from my job at its San Diego affiliate for resisting the COVID shot. That deserves its own chapter someday, but the short version is this: I no longer knew where I belonged.

I had spent years climbing the small-markets-big-dreams world of local TV news, always chasing the hope of one day reporting for a major left-leaning outlet. My laptop carried a feminist bumper sticker my mom gave me. That was my identity.

But everything shifted when I saw the crimes against humanity news agencies committed during the COVID years. It was like someone ripped off my rose-colored glasses and stomped them into the ground.

My husband — then my boyfriend — and I fled to a quiet island in Florida, home mostly to retirees. I reported independently on Rumble, without a political identity. The “inclusive” Democrats had exiled me. And plenty of Republicans revealed themselves as spineless accomplices to the lies.

If 2020 didn’t wake you up to evil, let 2025 be the year that finally does.

On my channel I interviewed fellow truth-seekers, many of whom had been censored into silence elsewhere. Then I noticed something: A number of those same people were scheduled to speak at an event about an hour from me.

So I applied for a press pass and was accepted. It was the Turning Point USA Student Action Summit in downtown Tampa, July 2022.

I barely knew who Charlie Kirk was. That’s no disrespect. I had lived too long inside an ideological echo chamber. Back in college in California, I remember hearing about TPUSA and assuming it was a gun club that met for target practice. I had no idea.

My husband asked me, “Why are you going to this? You could interview these people over Zoom.” I told him I felt isolated and needed to see that I wasn’t alone. It was refreshing to witness what Charlie had built — to look around and see young people who shared my concerns about the world or at least were curious.

Thousands packed the convention center. I don’t know the exact number, but I know what I saw: a full hall of people. At the time, our online communities were censored and deleted almost daily. We had to meet in person. And there they were — young, unmasked, unafraid.

As press, I’ve always felt comfortable covering events. That comes naturally after years on the job. But this was different. I wasn’t sure I “fit in,” almost in the high-school sense. What I discovered was a community where I could question the lunacy of those times without being shunned.

The building itself was massive, the air conditioning blasting to fight the summer humidity. Lines stretched all day for the headliner: President Trump. I hadn’t seen him in person since his visit to South Dakota in 2018. At the time, I told friends and family that I thought he was a buffoon.

Back in Florida in 2022, the energy inside that building felt less like a political rally and more like a concert I might have danced at in my 20s — electric, charged, alive. The speakers, staff, and volunteers knew how to connect with young people without condescension.

I remember Karoline Leavitt’s debut as a congressional candidate. She was young, but her off-the-cuff remarks blew me away. At a time when the modern Democratic Party punished dissent and silenced questions, Charlie created a space where people felt at home. We had been locked down, socially distanced, and starved for connection. He gave it back.

RELATED: The ‘normie conquest’: Millions just joined the right overnight

Photo by Eric Thayer/Getty Images

At first, I assumed most of the crowd were lifelong conservatives — country-club Republicans with Ronald Reagan portraits on their bedroom walls. I was wrong. Again and again, I met people with stories just like mine: raised in progressive circles, until COVID shattered their illusions. Wash, rinse, repeat. The same pattern everywhere.

That’s what TPUSA became to me — speakers, roundtables, booths — but more than that, a community. I’ll never forget Charlie walking right past me as I fumbled with my phone tripod, too respectful to interrupt as he hurried to his next commitment.

Since then, I’ve interviewed and built relationships with members of his team. We even share mutual friends. Charlie’s pastor introduced my husband and me to his son-in-law, who later counseled and married us in 2023, quoting Corinthians as the Santa Ana winds carried our vows before family and friends.

I never spoke to Charlie. I still don’t know exactly where I “fit in” or if TPUSA defines that. What I do know is this: God called me to be a journalist — to report fearlessly and to love people with the grace He’s shown me. And now, I wish I had stopped to shake Charlie’s hand and thank him for giving the so-called silent majority a space to breathe.

Fast-forward to September 10, 2025. I was at a train station in Connecticut when my phone lit up with the horrible news. Charlie Kirk was gone. An assassin’s bullet had taken him. I closed my eyes and prayed. When I opened them, I saw his name and face glowing on the iPhone screens of strangers around me.

For me, the grief quickly gave way to something else — a reality check. A line had been crossed.

The satanists want us dead. Some radical leftists want us silenced. Maybe you think that sounds dramatic. But scroll through their posts. Read the bile. You’ll lose your appetite.

Over the last five years, I’ve paid a price for my changing beliefs. Maybe you can relate. I’ve been quietly dropped from parties without explanation. Longtime “friends” unfollowed me out of fear they’d lose opportunities if they stayed connected. People I knew in real life viciously targeted me online. Immediate family members met me with insults instead of hugs — one even blocked me altogether.

No stranger, no random keyboard warrior, ever treated me with as much hatred as those close to me. Not even close. I’ve received threats to my safety. And yet, Jesus — and the people He placed in my life — carried me through in ways I can hardly describe. Some relationships even deepened through mutual respect. But Charlie bore a cost none of us can fully imagine. He put his grassroots efforts on stage for the world to see. The consequences he accepted ultimately claimed his life.

I knew refusing the COVID shot, loving God, flying an American flag instead of a Pride or Ukraine flag, and voting on principles rather than celebrity endorsements would make some people dislike me. I expected a few would even hate me. I prayed others might come around. I was naïve.

Now I know some people don’t just hate us. They want us dead. And they no longer bother to hide it. Read that again: A nauseating number of people openly wish death on us. Scroll social media and you’ll see it — teachers, military members, nurses, even mental health workers. For me, it’s my own town’s pharmacist.

Unfortunately, assassinations and assassination attempts against presidents have marked American history. Deranged people have always sought to kill presidents. But Charlie Kirk wasn’t president. He wasn’t even old enough to run. He never held office.

He was 31 years old. He was a Christian. He was a conservative.

In 2025, that alone was enough for a death sentence — and for neighbors to mock and celebrate his murder online.

RELATED: ‘Demon-possessed’: Why spiritual darkness is behind recent killings

The Hell. Found in the Collection of Battistero di San Giovanni, Firenze.Photo by Fine Art Images/Heritage Images/Getty Images

That’s the gut punch. Some knew this already, but I still carried a sliver of rose-colored hope until it was ripped away last week.

The satanists want us dead. Some radical leftists want us silenced. Maybe you think that sounds dramatic. But scroll through their posts. Read the bile. You’ll lose your appetite.

These people, consumed by rage and virtue-signaling darkness, write declarations of violence like a virus eating away at their souls. Not all will pull the trigger. But plenty of the people you pass at the pharmacy, the school drop-off, or the grocery store openly posted that killing us would be a service to the world. One less Trump supporter. One less Bible-thumper. One more enemy erased.

That’s what mass Trump derangement syndrome looks like. That’s what a godless society produces.

Now you understand why Charlie’s murder hit you harder than you can explain. If 2020 didn’t wake you up to evil, let 2025 be the year that finally does.

And if you’re one of the people who think fellow Americans deserve to be brutally murdered — whether you boasted about it online or just let it rot inside you — seek help. Immediately. Humbly. Turn it over to God. He can heal you.

May God save us from the depravity we’ve unleashed. May He bless Charlie Kirk’s grieving family. And may we take up the charge together. Charlie’s voice has been silenced. It’s up to us to be his angels.