The early ’90s were an interesting time to be a troubled teenager. After I spent years in a glorified orphanage, the New York state courts emancipated me at 16. I’d never have to go back to the house where my abusive mother ruled like a mental asylum nurse sicker in the head than her patients.
But it also meant living rough. The Salvation Army paid for me to live in a welfare apartment with a drug dealer roommate while I got on my feet after dropping out of high school. At night I’d wake up to go to the bathroom; when I turned on the light, three or four roaches on the wall would skitter away. It was worse in the kitchen, where at least half a dozen would greet me when I flipped the switch.
‘The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.’
That’s what’s been happening across America since Charlie Kirk’s murder on September 10, 2025. The lights went on, and thousands, maybe millions, of human cockroaches were caught in the fluorescent glare.
Cluster B nation
This is the first time many of you have seen the extent of the infestation. Before this, you comforted yourself with statements like, “It’s only a few troubled kids,” and, “It’s just a small minority of crazy people on social media.”
Now you know differently. Just like cockroaches, there are at least two or three functionally psychopathic people for every one you notice. The explosion of gleeful grave-dancing about Charlie Kirk’s murder has shocked the nation.
It didn’t shock me. For almost five years, I’ve been putting out a weekly show, “Disaffected,” that has a thesis: We are living in a Cluster B world.
What is “Cluster B?” This is the term for a set of personality disorders (moral and character disorders, a fancy name for “bad people”) that feature unbridled narcissism and exploitation of other people. My mother had narcissistic and borderline personality disorders; in practice, that meant a woman who screamed, lied, and blamed her own children for the abuse that she enacted on them.
When I figured out what my mother’s moral depravity really was, I saw that the political and cultural left I was then a part of had the same dark character.
Psychopathic society
The left — not just the fringe, but the beating mainstream heart — has a Cluster B personality disorder. It is narcissistic, emotionally unstable, pathologically dishonest, abusive, and conscience-free. The leftist mind delights in the murder of godly men like Charlie Kirk. The leftist heart turns black with erotic frisson contemplating how a lunatic exploded Mr. Kirk’s carotid artery with a rifle while thousands stood watching.
The Cluster B disorder grouping includes psychopathy, the state of having no conscience or care for the well-being of others, only a selfish desire to get what you want no matter the cost. Psychopathy frequently includes sadism, and sadism is everywhere right now.
Again, it’s not just the fringe.
Liberal podcaster “Destiny” (real name Steven Bonnell) indicated on Piers Morgan that Charlie Kirk was to blame for his own murder because he helped elect President Trump.
Have you noticed how many nurses, doctors, and other professionals, like pilots, feel comfortable cheering? If you haven’t, you’d better start noticing right quick or you’re not going to make it. That’s not a joke or a turn of phrase: You have liberals in your family and social circle who would see you dead, you personally.
Beyond the political
Nor is today like the political disagreements of the past. There has never been a time in American history when it was socially acceptable to display naked psychopathic glee over assassination. Bill and Carol may have voted for different candidates in the 1960 presidential election, but they didn’t go further than squabbling about it over dinner before turning in for bed. But today? If you were Bill, would you get into a bed with Carol without worrying that she might knife you in the night?
We are in a national emergency.
What you’re seeing is not political disagreement. It is not “clashing worldviews.” It is a battle between good and evil.
I don’t say that lightly. After years of functional atheism, I am only beginning to figure out what I think about God. But like most Americans, I grew up in a society that was steeped in Christian morality, no matter how much we try to deny it now. And I can see this for what it is: spiritual warfare.
‘The day is at hand’
This moment calls to mind a verse from St. Paul’s letter to the Romans: “The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”
Charlie Kirk understood the urgency of this task. Although he was raised an evangelical Christian, when he started his political project, he was determined to keep religion out of it. But as time went on, he began to realize how inextricably the two were linked. Embracing Christianity is what made him such an effective speaker — and, for some, a dangerous one.
Like all of us, Kirk was human. You can go through the vast amount of footage of him talking off the cuff and find moments where his phrasing is perhaps less charitable than it should be, but to watch him engaged in his one-on-one debates — as few of his detractors seem to have done — is to see a man clothed in “the armor of light.”
This armor is what gave Kirk the confidence to confront the most hostile crowds. He knew he was right. Not because of his preternatural calm, or his quickness on his feet, or his impressive rhetorical skill. But because he possessed the truth. What drove him to work so hard, to make so many appearances, was his conviction that this truth was worth sharing.
RELATED: Reckless hate cannot win: Christ has already broken it
Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images
Truth heals
You can see it again and again in the clips: A student — often with the usual leftist signifiers of purple hair, tattoos, and piercings — approaches the mic, clearly nervous beneath the bravado. In the current liberal fashion, they often lead with their “identity,” as if daring Kirk to ridicule them. But Kirk doesn’t play into it. Instead of attacking their self-conception, he gently asks them to examine it.
One telling example has been making the rounds after Kirk’s death. In it, a shy young woman identifies herself as a “transgender male” and earnestly asks Kirk’s opinion on whether she should take hormones.
Kirk begins by thanking her for her honesty and willingness to speak, and then responds:
So, I’m going to have an opinion that very few people will ever tell you, which is, I want you to be very cautious putting drugs into your system in the pursuit of changing your body. I instead encourage you to work on what’s going on in your brain first.
I think what you need first and foremost is just a diagnosis, just someone that is going to listen to what you’ve gone through, listen to what else is going on.
My prayer for you, and again, very few people will say this, I actually want to see you be comfortable in how you were born. I know that you might not feel that way, but I think that is something that you can achieve. I think that with the right team and the right people, you don’t have to wage war on your body; you can learn to love your body.
At his best, Kirk wasn’t so much “debating” people as he was inviting them to examine their own arguments and assumptions in the hopes that they, too, could be guided to the truth. Whatever “win” Kirk sought would benefit his interlocutors more than him.
Donning the armor
Kirk’s talent, good will, and faith could not, in the end, protect him from an assassin’s bullet. People have called Kirk a “martyr,” but this 31-year-old man with a young family and big plans for the future didn’t willingly embrace death.
Of course, he knew it was a risk to address the audiences he did, and to do so took great courage. But he was not reckless; he was well aware of the threats against him and traveled with security. What he couldn’t imagine — what none of us could imagine — is that we now live in an America where an ordinary citizen can be killed in cold blood merely for expressing an opinion, an America where some will even cheer on the murder.
We understand now. And part of honoring Kirk’s legacy is to be ever vigilant to the threat his death revealed and to protect ourselves and our families from the evil forces marshaled against us.
We must also order our lives in accordance with the truth, as Kirk did. We must live in such a way that we encourage those already with us and inspire those who have yet to come around.
Yes, there is real evil in the world, and there’s nothing we can do with genuine psychopaths except to avoid or contain them. But for every stone-cold killer there are countless men and women who have slowly been poisoned by an insidious, evil ideology without even realizing it.
Ordinary people like you and me can guide them to the antidote, and we can hope they’ll be willing to take it. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and persevere in the battle Kirk fought with such honor and conviction.
Put on the armor of light.
Cluster b, Charlie kirk, Charlie kirk assassination, Leftism, Liberals, Culture, Christianity, Bible, Saint paul, Intervention
