Americans were in shock last week after MAGA star Charlie Kirk was shot in the neck on a college campus in Utah.
After his death, tributes began pouring in.
President Donald Trump hailed him as a ‘martyr for truth and freedom’, while Vice President JD Vance said he was the ‘smartest political operative I ever met’.
Even staunch Democrat Rosie O’Donnell offered support, saying, ‘this [assassination] is wrong on every level – #weareallamericans’.
But not everyone was so quick to extend a tribute or offer condolences to Kirk’s wife Erika and their two young children.
Days after the attack, actress Amanda Seyfried wrote that Kirk ‘was hateful’, while Jimmy Kimmel said the right was trying to ‘score political points’ from the attack. His show has now been pulled ‘indefinitely’ from the airwaves.
There was also hate from hordes of everyday Americans, posting hateful reactions online to the 31-year-old’s death.
One individual wrote: ‘rest in piss, scum’, while another said: ‘I despise him and his beliefs… we know how guns work in America’.
And a third even greeted the news of his death by saying it was ‘divine justice’.
Now psychotherapist Dr Jonathan Alpert has revealed to Daily Mail what he thinks may be driving the ‘celebration’ of Kirk’s death, warning it reflects a pattern he is increasingly seeing among patients in his practice.
Charlie Kirk is pictured above in San Diego, California, in May 2025, ahead of speaking to his supporters
The New York City-based expert told this website: ‘The murder itself is horrific, but what is just as alarming is the ease with which people justify it.
‘Once someone is seen as irredeemably “evil,” fantasies of their removal begin to feel like solutions rather than moral transgressions. Violence becomes thinkable, even necessary.’
He added: ‘It’s the same pattern: When our culture treats opponents as pathology, when it normalizes language that casts people as toxic or beyond repair, the fantasy of elimination follows.’
Dr Alpert said people cheering the murder were engaged in a behavior called ‘splitting’, a mental defense mechanism where individuals cast others into rigid categories as either ‘all good’ or ‘all bad’.
While it can serve as a way to fend off perceived threats, Dr Alpert cautioned that it could often escalate into building grievances that make violence feel not only justified, but necessary.
And the top expert warned that splitting could be reinforced, and even encouraged, by poor therapy in which practitioners may validate these points with their patients.
He said that therapists who nod along when clients say it is a good thing a political opponent has been harmed or assassinated, it is reinforcing their patients’ viewpoint.
But that in good therapy, the expert will always interrupt the thought process and push back on demonizing the individual, even if they are a divisive figure.
Jimmy Kimmel has had his show canceled after saying that the right was trying to ‘score political points’ from Kirk’s death
Amanda Seyfried, pictured above earlier this month, wrote online that Kirk ‘was hateful’ in the days after the shooting
Dr Alpert added to the Wall Street Journal: ‘When someone voices rage or fantasies of destruction in the therapy room, too often the reflex is to nod along rather than confront it. That may make people feel heard, but it makes them sicker.
‘In my practice I confront it, because otherwise hurt turns into obsession. In politics, it turns grievance into violence.’
Speaking about his practice, Dr Alpert said that his patients both on the left and the right have engaged in demonizing the other side, which he encourages them to avoid.
He added to the paper: ‘After the assassination attempt against Mr Trump in July 2024, several of my patients admitted they were disappointed he had survived.
‘One said, “It would’ve spared us the next four years.” Another said she felt “cheated” that the shooter missed, then she paused as if waiting for my approval.
‘That expectation was what unsettled me most: the assumption that her hatred was not only permissible but obvious.’
He added: ‘This pathology isn’t confined to the left. In my office and on social media, I have heard conservatives call progressives “traitors,” “radicals” and “groomers.”
‘The logic is the same: Once an opponent is painted not merely wrong but evil, violence begins to feel like justice.’
Dr Jonathan Alpert, a psychotherapist in New York City (pictured), warned people against demonizing their political opponents
Dr Alpert suggested that Kirk’s suspected shooter Tyler Robinson, 22, had engaged in ‘splitting’ to, in his view, justify killing Kirk.
Robinson wrote in texts to his transgender partner Lance Twiggs, also 22, after the attack: ‘I had enough of his [Kirk’s] hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out.’
Dr Alpert said it was likely that Trump’s second would-be assassin, Ryan Routh, 59, had also engaged in this mental mechanism to justify his actions.
Routh is known to hold a confused mixture of political opinions, but before the attack he is reported to have sent a letter warning that if Trump won the election it would mark ‘the end of democracy and the beginning of a Civil War’.
Dr Alpert added to this website: ‘What links these cases is not political affiliation but a collapse of empathy and moral restraint.
‘Both men may have believed that removing a single figure would restore balance or meaning in their own lives.
‘That illusion is at the heart of political violence.’