Properly remembering Charlie Kirk

Kirk woke each morning determined to make the world a little bit worse than it was yesterday.

Whatever else he was, Charlie Kirk was a husband and father, so it is tragic to look at photos of Kirk’s family—a reminder that he was more than just his political persona. Among our first reactions, acknowledging the pain of those who loved him must be one of them.

A second reaction involves cognitive dissonance—holding two disparate ideas in our head at one time. I am not saying he “deserved it.” No one should say that, in part because it will be used by the far right to attack any efforts to deliver a somber assessment of Kirk’s career.

Yesterday, Daily Kos named people and organizations trying to say something nice about Kirk: The New York Times editorial board; its columnists Ezra Klein and David French; Politico’s Capitol bureau chief Rachel Bade; and Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media analyst. Perhaps grant them fewer days in purgatory for those efforts.

But no white washing or “sane washing” of his life should get in the way of the fact that Kirk was not a source of good in the world. He delivered an “endless geyser of hate, bigotry, and misinformation” according to Daily Kos. He was “a bigot, a misogynist, and a racist who regularly excused the very same sort of gun violence that ended his life.” He leaves behind a flame of reactionary anger and bigotry that keeps this country at a boiling point.

Too soon? I don’t think so. Cognitive dissonance again. We can honor the sadness millions are feeling over Kirk’s murder, and at the same time maintain basic civil human decency and honesty about what he stood for. We can try to say “good words,” for sure. But by comparison, no assessment of Jeffrey Epstein;s life could ignore the harm he did, and the same goes for Kirk.

Christopher D. Cook has detailed in an essay in “Common Dreams” examples of Kirk’s violent rhetoric. I will quote these at length.

Consider what Kirk said about Black women leaders and affirmative action. Assailing affirmative action “picks” Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Ketanji Brown Jackson, and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, Kirk said, sickeningly, “you do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken seriously” without affirmative action. “You had to steal a white person’s slot.”

Kirk was an equal opportunity hater who called Martin Luther King, Jr. “awful,” and “not a good person,” while insisting, “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”

In his gruesome rage against affirmative action and diversity, equity, and inclusion, Kirk also spat out, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’” That is some deeply racist garbage.

Kirk called gay and transgender people “groomers” who are “destructive,” opposed gay marriage, and campaigned against gender-affirming care for transgender people, insisting, “We must ban trans-affirming care—the entire country. Donald Trump needs to run on this issue,” Media Matters reported.

Cook concludes, “What needs to be said now, even or especially in this moment, is that Charlie Kirk mightily helped foment the rage and division that seems to engulf and define our nation today. Kirk helped create this toxic, poisonous stew we are drowning in—he fed it and profited from it.”

Daily Kos piles on in a story from September 11. Quoting:

· In 2023, Kirk said, “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”

· Kirk said in 2018 that gun violence in Chicago was the fault of “a lack-of-father problem in the Black community.”

· Promoting racism was one of Kirk’s most consistent stances as he led the right-wing pressure groups Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action.

In 2024, he launched a campaign attacking the legacy of revered civil rights icon Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Kirk said King was “[a] myth has been created and it has grown totally out of control.” At a conference he held the previous year, Kirk said King was “awful” and “not a good person.”

· Kirk claimed that the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 had become a “beast” and is an “anti-white weapon.”

· In 2023, Kirk said, “I don't believe Black History Month is worth the kind of full month that it is, at all.” He said the celebration “only deepens any sort of racial wounds and creates more bigotry.”

· Kirk was a promoter of the racist “great replacement” conspiracy theory, which falsely claims Latino migrants are attempting to replace white people. As part of that crusade in August, he falsely accused Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett, who is Black, of engaging in an “attempt to eliminate the white population in this country.”

· In Kirk’s eyes, Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first Black woman to serve on the court, was an “unqualified” nominee and the “recipient of affirmative action.”

· Following flooding in Texas in July, Kirk said the “death toll likely would not have been as high if it wasn't for DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion].”

· Kirk repeatedly pushed anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, with a specific focus on opposing transgender existence.

· During a discussion of gay rights in 2024, Kirk referenced the Bible and noted that passages indicating “lay with another man and be stoned to death” were “God’s perfect law when it comes to sexual matters.”

· Kirk also used antisemitic stereotypes as part of his broadcasts. In one show, he said, “Jewish dollars” had funded “Cultural Marxist ideas.” In another, he invoked the longstanding antisemitic trope of Jewish control of colleges, Hollywood, and nonprofit groups.

These lists are just a portion of his hate-filled rhetoric.

Kirk’s powerful influence will remain, even after his death. He was a role model for thousands upon thousands of young people who are seeking to mimic Kirk’s take-no-prisoners, violent form of rhetoric. It’s not even correct to say that he “sowed seeds of discontent.” No, he poured gasoline on the fires of the nameless, reptilian discontent of those who seek to divide and make enemies, not address any specific challenges to our country.

We can hold two ideas in our head: Kirk’s killing was wrong. But also, he wasn’t a good person; he was not a force for good in the world, but its opposite. That latter sentiment needs to be remembered whenever Kirk and his death are discussed.

Kirk woke each morning determined to make the world a little bit worse than it was yesterday.