In May, when I first spotted Charlie Kirk surrounded by ecstatic young men at an event at San Francisco State, I gazed toward the rooftops surrounding us and wondered whether it would be the day that someone took a shot at one of America’s most successful political provocateurs.
It was surreal to see that exact scenario unfold at a college in Utah on Wednesday, when Kirk, 31, was shot and killed under a tent just like the one his team had set up at State. It happened during another stop on his cross-country American Comeback Tour of college campuses, where his challenge is clear: “PROVE ME WRONG,” screams the emblazoned text on all his tents.
Kirk’s killing has inspired varying degrees of mourning and celebration commensurate with his reputation as a darling of the far-right Christian nationalist movement and a dangerous propagandist calling for the explicit oppression of, among others, trans people and immigrants. In the aftermath of the shooting, I didn’t see much that surprised or challenged me in any of the many, many op-eds about Kirk’s death I saw.
But I was shocked by the conclusions from two high-profile California liberals, Ezra Klein and Gov. Gavin Newsom.
In the New York Times Thursday, Klein wrote that “Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way.”
Klein, a centrist liberal who probably wouldn’t have had a nice word to say about Kirk before his death, is not merely arguing that Kirk’s virulent, routinely hateful declarations were symptomatic of American politics during the age of Trump. Instead, Klein was effusive: “He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion.”
“[I] envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy,” Klein continued. “Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness.”
Reading that, I had trouble imagining that Klein had ever bothered to actually consume Kirk’s messages or watch him in action, as I did in May.
What I saw on the field at State was not moxie, fearlessness, or persuasion. What I saw was a bully at the pulpit, preaching to acolytes while “owning” dissenters in the crowd with rehearsed turns of phrase. His was a memorized lecture masquerading as discourse, designed to trigger waves of ooooohs from megafans at regular intervals.
I went to the May event hoping for an intellectual brawl. Instead, what unfolded was a version of pro wrestling, with all things “woke” receiving choreographed slams off the top rope. Kirk frequently claimed he was a paragon of free speech; in practice, his speech was often a cudgel to shut people up, especially people he didn’t like.
If Kirk wielded his politics in “exactly the right way,” I shudder to think of what Klein considers the wrong way. Kirk didn’t visit San Francisco in the hopes of changing hearts and minds; he came because this is the heart of Commiefornia, the perfect place for harvesting rage-bait video clips and posting them sans context.
None of this excuses the horror of what happened on Wednesday. I was no fan of Kirk, but the specter of decentralized, vigilante violence is an equal opportunity nightmare. Progressive commentators like Hasan Piker, who was set to debate Kirk in two weeks, are now facing death threats that feel more vivid than ever. Regardless of your political stance, no one really wants to live in a country where assassinations are normalized and used as an excuse for retribution.
That said, sane people can denounce assassinations while also acknowledging that Kirk’s views were in service of literal white supremacy and the erasure of minorities. To paint Kirk merely as a culture warrior does a disservice to history, and sells short the changes Kirk wanted to see in the world.
It doesn’t take much vision to see how Kirk, and his organization Turning Point USA, weaponized discontent into hate. He claimed the Civil Rights Act was a “huge mistake” and repeatedly insinuated Black people were unqualified for their jobs. He didn’t just hate queer and trans people, but portrayed them as deviants and “groomers” who wanted to mutilate children. He wooed his largely white audience with fears that they’re being “replaced” by non-whites, a white supremacist conspiracy known as the Great Replacement that also animated the deadly violence in Charlottesville in 2017. Kirk repeatedly denigrated Muslims as an existential threat to the country, claiming “the left” is using the faith to “slit the throat of America.”
More than just a commentator, Kirk cozied up to President Donald Trump to influence the administration’s agenda. The president has ordered flags to fly at half-staff for him and will reportedly be awarding him a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom.
The mainstream media often painted Kirk as a rising political star, but glossed over just how extreme his positions were. Now, eulogies from both liberals and conservatives are willfully ignoring that.
Gov. Gavin Newsom, many people’s hope for a 2028 Democratic nominee, didn’t just disavow the assasination, but praised his onetime podcast guest’s “success and influence.”
“The best way to honor Charlie’s memory is to continue his work,” he said. “Engage with each other, across ideology, through spirited discourse.”
All due respect to the Governor, I saw Kirk doing his work at State. He “engaged” his audience in a one-sided contest of humiliation, not a spirited discourse. Kirk never evolved his views by listening to his critics. They were merely stepping stones for his own fame and influence.
The other troubling aspect of liberals’ gentle eulogies is how they gloss over Kirk’s embrace of actual political violence. In 2021, Kirk brought Kyle Rittenhouse to the stage at a TPUSA event to award the Wisconsin shooter a literal standing ovation. As so many commentators have pointed out, Kirk also celebrated the 2022 San Francisco hammer attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband Paul.
Maybe Klein and Newsom wish to take the moral high ground in the wake of a homicide, playing to an illusion of American politics as an arena built on fundamental decency. But when I watched Kirk for hours under a blazing sun earlier this year, I saw the power of his silver tongue attract people who barely follow what he was rambling about. His young fans didn’t come for nuance — they watched to memorize his memetic talking points and root for Kirk as he “destroys” his haters, over and over again.
What I remember most now, though, is a time Kirk didn’t use his rhetorical gifts. Didn’t speak at all, in fact. In the fall of 2021, the year of the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, Kirk hosted an event in which an audience member took to the mic to advocate for an escalation in tactics.
“At this point, we’re living under corporate and medical fascism. This is tyranny,” the man said. “When do we get to use the guns?”
Amid audience applause, Kirk didn’t denounce or attempt to soften the man’s call for violence.
“No, and I’m not — that’s not a joke,” the man continued. “I’m not saying it like that. I mean, literally, where’s the line? How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?”
For all his verbal grandstanding, Kirk never replied that political violence was bad for America. Instead, he blamed “the left” for embracing violence. He chose not to draw a moral line at that moment.
That’s as much a part of his legacy as anything else. Klein and Newsom should remember that.
