The Scene at Glendale
The memorial for Charlie Kirk was never going to be quiet. A man whose career thrived on microphones and grievance could hardly be remembered in whispers. So when President Donald Trump stood at the podium in Glendale and declared that this was a time for “respect” and “civility,” it was almost touching—if you forgot who was speaking. Trump leaned hard into solemnity, insisting that anyone speaking ill of the slain activist was crossing the line. It was, for a fleeting moment, a call for basic decency.
And yet—like every Trump pivot into humanity—it came with a glaring footnote, a “see also” that curdles the moment into theater. Because this is the same man who, four months earlier, upon learning that Joe Biden had stage-4 prostate cancer, decided the only appropriate presidential response was mockery and contempt. The same man who, on May 30, told supporters: “Don’t feel sorry for him. Don’t feel sorry.”
In Glendale, empathy was mandatory. In May, empathy was for suckers. Welcome to America’s new standard of civility: conditional, partisan, and as stable as Trump’s spray tan in the rain.
The Biden Timeline of Cruelty
To understand how surreal Trump’s “respect for the dead” sermon was, let’s lay out the Biden saga. It doesn’t require interpretation—just a timeline.
- May 18: Joe Biden announces he has stage-4 prostate cancer. Trump, briefly, plays the role of a human being, saying, “We wish him well.” This is the rarest of Trump performances: the baseline decency most adults can summon without cue cards.
- May 20: Trump fumbles into cruelty. At a rally, he calls Biden’s diagnosis “stage 9” cancer, joking that he’d heard it was “the highest stage” and “the worst one.” The crowd laughs. A slip of the tongue wrapped in mockery, the kind of gallows humor you expect in a locker room, not from a former president about his rival’s mortality.
- May 27: The mask drops fully. Trump reposts a meme referring to Biden as a “decrepit corpse.” Not even bothering with euphemism, he turns a man’s cancer into a punchline. The meme—cheap, cruel, and wildly popular in his orbit—goes viral.
- May 30: Trump seals the cruelty in official language: “Don’t feel sorry for him. Don’t feel sorry.” The message is crystal clear. Empathy is weakness. Compassion is for losers.
Now fast-forward to September 21. The same man who mocked a dying president suddenly insists that no one should speak ill of Charlie Kirk.
Glendale vs. May: The Juxtaposition
The double standard is not subtle.
- Toward Biden: Public illness becomes a running gag. Death imagery is reposted. Crowds are instructed to harden their hearts, to expel empathy like a bad habit.
- Toward Kirk: Public death becomes sacred. Criticism is sacrilege. Any sharp word is indecent. Trump positions himself as guardian of the grieving family, arbiter of what counts as “respectful.”
The line isn’t drawn at mortality. It isn’t drawn at suffering. It’s drawn at tribal allegiance. If you’re on Trump’s team, grief is holy. If you’re not, grief is ammunition.
The Politics of Policing Empathy
This isn’t just hypocrisy; it’s strategy. By declaring certain grief untouchable while mocking other grief, Trump and his allies create a chilling new standard: empathy as political capital.
When empathy becomes partisan, every tragedy is measured for its utility. The death of a conservative activist? A solemn call for unity and civility. The illness of a Democratic president? Open season for jokes. The funerals of police officers killed in the line of duty? Heroic rituals of sacrifice. The funerals of Black Americans killed by police? Overblown distractions, if mentioned at all.
It’s not simply inconsistent. It’s selective enforcement. And selective enforcement always breeds abuse.
The Post-Kirk Speech Economy
Since Kirk’s assassination, we’ve seen the speed with which grief is weaponized. Congress rushed through symbolic resolutions. Statehouses drafted bills for “Charlie Kirk Free Speech Plazas.” Commentators declared criticism of Kirk tantamount to complicity in violence.
And hovering above all this is Trump’s Glendale sermon: civility for me, cruelty for thee. It becomes the baseline for future speech politics. If conservatives canonize Kirk in marble and resolution, then any critical commentary about him—or, by extension, about conservative martyrdom—will be painted as inhumane. Meanwhile, the same crowd will gleefully mock Biden’s cancer, or Pelosi’s husband’s assault, or any Democrat’s misfortune.
It’s not just hypocrisy. It’s asymmetric warfare. One side claims monopoly over empathy, while denying it to the other.
The Congressional Symbolism Game
Let’s remember how Congress works in this moment. Symbolic resolutions are the currency of the realm. Actual governance is too messy, too hard, too politically risky. But a resolution? That’s free PR.
So when Trump frames Kirk’s death as sacrosanct, it gives Congress cover to churn out symbolic gestures: resolutions honoring Kirk, bills mandating memorials, floor speeches denouncing “those who speak ill.” These measures don’t prevent violence. They don’t fund healthcare. They don’t shore up democracy. But they do enforce a cultural script: conservatives are to be mourned, liberals are to be mocked.
That script is sticky. Once codified in resolutions and state laws, it shapes public discourse. It tells journalists what counts as “respectful coverage.” It tells universities what counts as “civility.” It chills dissent.
The Chilling Standard of “Humane”
The real danger is not just that Trump is cruel. Cruelty is expected. The danger is that cruelty and civility are now parceled out by political allegiance.
If you question Kirk’s legacy, you’re indecent. If you laugh at Biden’s illness, you’re joining the choir. This sets a new, warped baseline for what counts as humane.
Humane is no longer about compassion, fairness, or basic decency. Humane is about who you serve.
- Humane toward conservatives: Silence your criticism. Lower the flags. Build the statues.
- Humane toward liberals: Harden your heart. Mock their suffering. Amplify their pain for likes.
This isn’t empathy. It’s branding. And branding masquerading as morality corrodes everything it touches.
The Stakes Beyond Kirk and Biden
At first glance, this may look like just another Trump hypocrisy story. But it’s bigger than that. It sets a precedent for how America processes tragedy.
If grief is only respected when it’s politically convenient, then tragedy becomes another partisan weapon. Deaths become leverage. Illness becomes fodder. Mourning becomes propaganda.
And when mourning becomes propaganda, there’s no shared humanity left. There’s only performance.
The Meta-Irony
The irony, of course, is that Trump’s Glendale sermon will be quoted endlessly by those who once cheered his Biden cruelty. “Respect for the grieving family” will become a cudgel, wielded by people who reposted corpse memes in May.
This is not irony as accident. This is irony as governance. By normalizing selective empathy, leaders inoculate themselves from accountability. Every call for compassion is weaponized, every absence of compassion is excused.
It’s a world where Biden’s cancer is a punchline and Kirk’s memorial is sacred ritual, and both positions are maintained with a straight face.
Why Satire Struggles Here
Satire thrives on exaggeration. But how do you exaggerate this? A president telling Americans not to feel sorry for a man dying of cancer, then demanding solemn silence for a political ally murdered months later—this is already parody. To write it as fiction would be dismissed as heavy-handed.
And yet it’s real. Which means satire has only one job here: to underline the absurdity so loudly that no one can pretend it’s normal.
Summary: Civility for Me, Cruelty for Thee
At Charlie Kirk’s memorial in Glendale, Donald Trump declared that this was a time for respect and civility. But just months earlier, he mocked Joe Biden’s stage-4 prostate cancer with a series of callous performances: the initial “stage 9” flub, the “decrepit corpse” repost, and the May 30 instruction to “don’t feel sorry.”
The juxtaposition is stark. Empathy is not a universal principle—it’s a partisan weapon. For conservatives, grief is sacred. For liberals, suffering is comedy. This selective policing of empathy fuels post-Kirk speech politics, congressional symbolism, and a chilling new standard for what counts as humane. In this America, decency isn’t a shared value. It’s a partisan privilege.