On Nov. 30, 2023, the New York Yankees released a statement memorializing former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger following his death the previous day. Messages highlighting Mr. Kissinger’s upstanding nature flooded in from political figures and outlets on both sides of the aisle.
When Dick Cheney passed away, Kamala Harris posted on X, highlighting how saddened she was by his death. She seemed to emphasize, along with many others, how tremendous a loss this was not only for the nation, but for the world.
While necessary to grieve and to emphasize the tragedy that is the loss of life of a fellow human, there exists a dissonance here. Upon the death of much-derided public figures, particularly Republicans, we de-emphasize their moral failings. This creates a culture of complicity, voiding accountability for those who left a negative mark on the Earth. One cannot reckon with a past ill if all one engages in is a commemoration of the dignity and poise upon the death of harmful public figures.
Kissinger was, simply put, a butcher; illegally authorizing the secret indefensible overspill of the Vietnam War into Laos and Cambodia, two nations the United States was never at war with. The civilian death toll of this military action was of monumental scale, particularly in Laos, which holds the title of the country most bombed by the U.S. He is also directly responsible for the ascension of General Augusto Pinochet’s dictatorship, a brutal period of Chilean history that saw thousands murdered, disappeared or forced into political exile.
In much the same vein, Cheney lied to the American people and orchestrated a pernicious invasion of Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians. His expansion of vice presidential power fostered a dangerous precedent of overreach and extrajudicial action, one with little regard for the rule of law or for any sort of adherence to moral values. And yet, we continue to honor these figures as though they were upstanding citizens, worthy of respect now that they have passed on. Despite the harms wrought by these individuals, our society insists on commemorating their lives and subsequently engages in a sanitization of their legacies.
I am not advocating for a celebration of any person’s death. Nor do I believe that we should call for the death of any living person. Life is the most basic of rights, and no one should be able to take it away from another person. In the same vein, no one should look forward to, or praise, a person’s passing.
But that does not mean we have to continue to highlight the “positive” aspects of a dead public figure in the name of remembering that person. In doing this, we ignore the failings of those figures, allowing for the atrocity, terror and destruction to escape our collective associations with that person.
In order to have nuanced dialogue about public figures’ passings, we cannot go on like this. Instead, our response ought to be proportional to the legacy of people, emphasizing their actions whilst alive as the main arbiter of morality.
The dominant culture seemingly demands liberal consternation of death for those on the other side of the political spectrum. Those of us who identify as left-wing or progressive are expected to answer for, and emphasize, the awfulness that a right-wing figure has died, no matter the horror associated with their track record while alive, to prove our tolerance. Republicans often look out for number one.
There was hardly any condemnation or statements of remembrance from the Right for Melissa Hortman and John Hoffman, two Minnesota elected representatives assassinated earlier this year. Trump didn’t extend the courtesy of lowering flags to half mast because “he wasn’t asked to.”
Furthermore, just this past Tuesday, the President hosted Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman, a meeting in which he effectively endorsed the political assassination of leftist journalist Jamal Khashoggi, justifying it because Khashoggi was allegedly “controversial.”
Yet on Sept. 10, 2025, the president ordered flags to be flown at half mast to honor the political assassination of right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk. As well, the House of Representatives passed a resolution that not only condemned his death, but also went so far as to honor his life. Liberals joined in: Kirk’s death was largely decried as a tragedy and a symptom of radicalization, and thereby his sins were swept under the rug.
Political violence should always be condemned and we must work towards a society in which it has no place. But a conditional belief in this principle discredits any sort of insistence that we pay equal tribute to all dead public figures, highlighting how political agendas have been warped to endorse political assassinations when beneficial, all the while commanding commemoration of genuinely dishonorable people.
Although Kirk’s death was tragic and assuredly reprehensible, he received more attention and sympathy, and crucially less scrutiny, precisely because he was a conservative. Trump, and broad conservative hypocrisy, fosters a culture where right-wing influencers actively call for the deaths of those they view as opposed to their line of thinking and should dissuade any impulse for liberals to take the high road. While important to recognize the tragedy of the circumstances of his death, his life is not one to be looked back on fondly. Kissinger and Cheney, however, lived long and full lives. So, why do we feel pressure to elevate them in death?
The tendency to scrub clean the legacies of the morally reprehensible exists specifically to ensure that no progress gets made. That the evil associated with their actions continues to subsist and avoid any sort of reckoning. A system that allows us to refer to Dick Cheney as one of the “finest public servants” is a system that effectively endorses his horrific viewpoints and allows for the continuation and expansion of his specific strain of evil.
It is possible to simultaneously condemn the conditions that brought about Kirk’s horrific assassination, while recognizing the deeply dreadful role he played in current political dialogue. Our system of purposeful omission of the gravest ills of the dead points to a broader cultural trend of ours to downplay the past — and ongoing ills — of American society.
Kirk believed in a strain of heterosexual white nationalism that endangered marginalized communities across America. His rhetoric inflamed cultural tension, while he was profiting off weaponizing social issues with real repercussions to create a far-right youth movement in the United States. He directly enabled other right-wing figures such as Nick Fuentes, who, following the death of Kirk, has emerged as a deeply problematic and dangerous leader of the young far-right.
It is much easier to revere Henry Kissinger and idolize him as a powerful Secretary of State who won the Nobel Peace Prize than to actively take into account the destruction he wrought. Because doing so would be to reckon with the political state and the U.S. imperial structure that allowed for such barbarity to occur in the first place.
In place of the necessary condemnation and insistence on remembering a person’s true nature, we instead hope that the malevolence dies with these figures. The problem then comes when that does not happen. The expansion of executive power that was honed and mastered by figures like Kissinger and Cheney is now being used by the Trump administration to bomb Venezuelan boats without any sort of legal approval, along with a plethora of other extrajudicial activities. The continuation of a system that allows for this counts on the fact that we forget these past atrocities were ever perpetuated.
In order to have a society with any sort of emphasis on moral values and continued adherence to those values, this propensity must end. Collective condemnation of the actions of the dead is essential to remedying those actions. When those who left a negative mark on this Earth depart from it, we must adhere to remembering and denouncing those repugnant actions. If this fails to happen, the wrongdoing is only permitted to continue. And thus, there is no progress made.
Alex Benach PO ’28 is from Washington, D.C. and watched the movie Vice one day with his mom and was never the same.
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