GNO, Inc. Sunday Night Highlight – A Personal Note from CEO Michael Hecht
I’m replacing the usual weekly highlight with a personal reflection; thank you for indulging me.
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24 years ago last week, I stood in front of the television with my father, watching the World Trade Center come down. We stood in silent disbelief, and then my father turned to me and said, “This changes everything.”
He was right. 9/11 permanently reshaped global security, politics, and our daily lives.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk feels like a similar breakpoint. We don’t yet know how it will change our world.
Kirk’s murder is foremost the tragic loss of a man, husband, and father. But moreover, it is a blow to the foundation of our democracy. He was killed while practicing politics as it should be: face to face, in open debate, with words, not violence. This stands regardless of whether you agreed with Kirk’s positions.
His death is part of a dark trend. In recent years, America has witnessed a chilling acceleration of political violence. Worse, it is becoming normalized. In a recent survey, 34 percent of college students said that the use of violence to prevent someone from speaking on campus is acceptable. It is not. Each act, regardless of target or motive, chips away at the shared compact that allows elections and arguments to remain peaceful contests rather than existential wars.
The important truth is that disagreement is not danger, and that debate is a civic duty. To accept the “assassin’s veto,” where fear dictates who speaks, is to abandon ourselves. I agree with Utah Governor Spencer Cox, who said the murder of Kirk is “much bigger than an attack on an individual. It is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on the American experiment. It is an attack on our ideals.”
It’s said that violence is a virus. We know this to be true in New Orleans, where we have seen violence beget retributive violence. But even more importantly, we have seen peace beget peace, as 2025 looks to be the least-deadly year in New Orleans in five decades. If we come together, then the assassination of Charlie Kirk can be remembered as the moment that we broke the cycle of political violence.
Here at GNO, Inc., we find that one of the special powers of economic development is that it is a non-partisan issue. Everyone wants good jobs for good people. So, we use economic development as a framework to bring diverse people together, on issues from public policy (e.g., our national work on homeowners’ insurance) to public safety (e.g., the NOLA Coalition).
And what can we do as individuals? Engage in an issue of personal importance; we can all make a difference. Log off social media; it’s just digital road rage. Most of all, practice kindness. Say hello, give someone eye contact and a smile, reach out to an old friend. You never know when someone is having a tough day, and your simple act can mean the world to them.
The killing of Charlie Kirk will change things. The nature of that change is yet unknown. But one thing is certain: safety is indivisible: either we all share it, or we all lose it.
Let’s come together.
