Charlie Kirk and where we are
Thoughts on an undeniable inflection point
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How to do this in a way that isn’t
redundant, given the barrage of commentary that has come at us in the 24 hours since Kirk’s murder
preoccupied with the inevitable leftist glee that is undeniably happening, as if that stands in for the truth we don’t know yet about the shooter, and gives one an excuse to engage in “they did it” collective guilt assignment
dismissive of the heartache his wife and children feel by too prominent a mention of how his ideology differed from mine
too mawkishly and naively let’s-set-our-differences-aside about an extremely divisive figure?
Taking the full measure of a man such as Kirk who has met death the way he has requires a look at the start of his trajectory. He was raised upper middle class - architect dad, mental health counselor mom - in a suburb of Chicago. I don’t know his parents’ party affiliation or ideological orientation. I pretty much presume it to have been conservative, although the demographic picture - his parents’ professions, where he grew up - would, on the face of it, provide reason to consider the opposite. In any event, he started calling attention in various ways to his teachers’ leftward bias and getting recognized for it. He loved networking in conservative circles.
He co-founded Turning Point USA in 2012 at age 18. That was square in the middle of the Obama years, a period that would certainly have stoked the fire in the belly of someone in his position. I was a lot older that Kirk in 2012, but I spent those years plenty outraged at the cascade of developments: the apology tour, the unprecedented insertion of government into the health care sector, Obergefell v Hodges and the lighting up of the White House in rainbow colors the night of the decision, the “Julia” powerpoint, the JCPOA with Iran, the climate alarmism. If I’d been 18 (when I was 18, I was still a snot-nosed, clueless left-leaner) I may well have sought out mentors and benefactors and become an activist.
I do know something of the exhilaration of speaking abrasive truths in less than receptive settings. I engaged in that, in large part because I found it thrilling to confront leftists, when I did have my conversion experience in my late 20s. And I went through a period in which I cheered on bombastic talk radio hosts who wielded uncomfortable verities like weapons. A major factor in accelerating American polarization was the glee conservatives felt about finding each other, discovering their power in numbers and the sense that they didn’t have to passively swallow the secular anti-Western permutation of our culture.
2012 was three years before the descent on the golden elevator. The Tea Party approach had been tried and found wanting. Republican presidential candidates were generally inadequate to the task of explaining to the American people the stark differences between the visions of the Left and Right. It had to be especially frustrating for a lad in his late adolescence filled with enthusiasm for the conservative enterprise.
And, like so many others, he was ready to buy what Trump was selling at mid-decade. “Many others” includes a number of public intellectuals much older than Kirk who ought to have known better than to swallow a charlatan’s come-on. To this day, I do not fully understand what prompted them to sign on to the Trumpist project.
But it must have been exciting in the extreme for someone like Kirk, in his early 20s, to see this swaggering outsider “owning the libs” and “drinking liberal tears.”
But from the get-go, Trump’s vision was no vision at all. It was incoherent. He’d parrot actually conservative policy proposals - because they were the ticket to self-glorification - but was already foreshadowing the protectionism and isolationism that have characterized his second term. And his mean and crude persona were a complete trashing of the decorum and composure that great conservative figures such as Buckley and Reagan had embodied.
But Kirk was hooked. He was being lauded for his organizational and speaking skills, and the money was rolling in.
So he pushed the envelope, way into Trumpist territory.
Here’s the thing, though. He always did so in a way that left the door open for discourse. He was the first guest on Gavin Newsom’s podcast, and they had a respectful exchange. Consider the name of the tour he was on when he got killed yesterday: Prove Me Wrong. He loved to argue (something I can relate to), but he was genuinely interested in hearing an opposing viewpoint in full.
I don’t know who can fill shoes like that in this climate, especially given the way yesterday afternoon’s horrific event is going to affect that. The stridency we’ll witness in the national screaming match will be leavened by even less grace than it has been for the last several years.
From what I can tell, Charlie Kirk did know his Lord and is with Him now. He made some choices that weren’t helpful to the direction of our nation, but when he started on his trajectory, he was motivated by a noble impulse.
I will personally look for opportunities to extend grace, so that the best of what he stood for may have some chance, however minuscule, of thriving.
I am on Charlie Kirk’s hit list.
His so-called “Professor Watchlist,” run under the umbrella of Turning Point USA, is nothing more than a digital hit list for academics who dare to speak truth to power. I landed there in 2024 after writing commentary that inflamed the MAGA faithful. And once my name went up, the harassment machine roared to life.
For weeks my inbox and voicemail were deluged. Mostly white men spat venom through the phone: “bitch,” “c*nt,” “n****r.” They threatened all manner of violence.
They overwhelmed the university’s PR lines and the president’s office with calls demanding that I be fired. The flood was so relentless that the head of campus security reached out to offer me an escort, because they feared one of these keyboard soldiers might step out of his basement and come do me harm.
And I am not unique.
Kirk’s Watchlist has terrorized legions of professors across this country. Women, Black faculty, queer scholars, basically anyone who challenged white supremacy, gun culture, or Christian nationalism suddenly found themselves targets of coordinated abuse.
Some received death threats. Some had their jobs threatened. Some left academia entirely. Kirk sent the loud message to us: speak the truth and we will unleash the mob!
That is the culture of violence Charlie Kirk built. He normalized violence. He curated it, monetized it, and sicced it on anyone who dared to puncture his movement’s lies.
And now, in the wake of his shooting, there’s all this national outpouring of mourning, moments of silence, yellow prayer hands, and tributes painting him as a civil debater. But the truth is that Kirk and his foot soldiers spent years terrorizing educators, trying to silence us with harassment and fear!
And now the same violence he unleashed on others has come full circle.
But what i find especially jarring is the dissonance in public mourning for a smug white man whose life work was actively hostile to certain groups. Kirk spent years demonizing LGBTQ people, mocking gun survivors, spewing racism about Black folks, and pushing policies that literally shorten lives.
It is so revolting to watch a bipartisan wave of grief sweep over this hateful racist as if he was a neutral community servant.
Kirk promoted gun violence against homosexuals, transgender, women, and academia. He said gun deaths were necessary and mocked empathy. If he had been listening to his Lord and Savior he would have known what empathy is and that they who live by the sword will die from the same. Pretty cut and dried, don’t you think?