Charles James Kirk

The murder of Charlie Kirk defines our differences, amplifies our fears and deepens our divisions. This moment in America is an object lesson in how poorly we perceive ourselves and how distanced we are from critical analysis when our ego and self-worth feel like they’re on the line. Charlie Kirk was murdered. We can start there in unpacking what America is feeling and experiencing right now. He was shot down in cold blood in a heinous act, in front of thousands of admirers, (some detractors,) and his family. I got an alert from the New York Times on my phone yesterday saying Charlie Kirk had been shot while conducting one of his recruitment events at a university in Utah. I didn’t think that much of it. I’ve always thought he was a despicable man-child, but no one deserves to be murdered, especially when all they’re trying to do is have a conversation. Later I got another alert that he had died from the gunshot wound. I felt a sense of surprise primarily from seeing Gabbie Giffords survive a political gunshot wound from point blank range to the head. (Political gunshot wound-what a crazy term, right?) Paul Pelosi had also survived a hammer to the head in another politically motivated attack. Steve Scalise survived a political gunshot wound as well, at a softball game. My initial reaction was one of sadness. I did not know Charlie Kirk was 31 but I did know he was 18 when he started Turning Point America with a benefactor who took a shine to his debate skills, and my thought was: what the hell does anyone know with any amount of certainty at 18 that would make them go start an organization through which they would change the hearts and minds of people towards their world view? I don’t like that idea-it is anathema to me. I can barely vouch for 31. Personally, I seemed to wake up at 27. 18 though? Nobody has enough life experience at 18 to be giving advice on how one should view the world or live their life. “The best lack all conviction while the worst are filled with passionate intensity.” W,B, Yeats All Kirk could have possibly been doing at that point really was parroting the views given to him by his parents and his community and his religious leaders and teachers. We should all normalize helping 18-year-olds to understand that their lived experience is inadequate. I’m inclined to mention here too, that I was a young Charlie Kirk. When I was 18 I headed off to a fundamentalist Christian college to live in the dorms and attend chapel three times a week and study the Bible, along with some liberal arts courses. I was energized as fuck. My most ardent wish at 18 was to help others get to heaven. I felt like I had found something amazing, and I had a deep need to share it. I was a natural born evangelist. I judged my friends for engaging in sin, even as I more slowly engaged in some myself. I read and studied the Bible almost ferociously. I know Charlie Kirk came from an affluent background, but I don’t know that it was particularly religious. I find for the wealthy class religion is there as a salve to apply on an as needed basis, to make oneself feel better about any number of downers in their realm of material security. For the rest of the classes, we tend to believe it. We mean it. For us everything about the Bible is real. Jesus walked the earth and was the actual son of God and he was crucified like any number of other would-be saviors, the difference being he was the real one. Ours is to live for the next world and if we just believe enough, we can get through this life smiling and comfy knowing that when this light goes out, another one will. . . Kirk had a convenient transformation just a few years ago. He had previously denounced the role of religious belief in politics but changed his mind, most likely as he recognized the odd coalition of gun lovers and anti-abortionists and fundamentalists and wealthy tech bros that had formed and ultimately elected Donald Trump. A bigger tent was at least more lucrative for Kirk and Turning Point. I did not expect the outpouring of grief that followed Kirk’s death. Trump blamed the left. Following suit so did a multitude of Trump sycophants including Kristi Noem, Kash Patel, (who doesn’t seem to realize the agenda of MAGA is to MAWA,) Mike Johnson, Jesse Waters, Elon Musk, Laura Loomer and many more. I happened to see a family in my neighborhood, a Latino man and presumably his wife, and two small children about four and six, (they were truly the cutest little family,) out on my street where overflow rush hour traffic often rolls through, with an American flag and big sign of support for Charlie Kirk. My best friend posted a screenshot of a Kirk tribute our local sportsbar put up on IG in our “4 Besties,” group chat. In response a friend expressed how sickening and tragic this murder was. The most reasonable of my three Trump supporting friends said, “So sad for young family.” He’s not wrong whatsoever. Still, I did not expect this because I had thought of Charlie Kirk as fairly fringe given the vast amount of intolerant, antisocial views he spread with all the fervor of a big top preacher covering scorched earth in the bible belt. Later in the day I went to Facebook just as I was chilling a bit before having to do some things and I came upon a response from a childhood friend to a meme I had posted which had a photo of Madeleine Albright accompanied by a quote, “There is a special place in hell for women who do not help other women.” Below that the meme said, “For all the women in Congress, who vote against helping the Epstein victims.” I posted this meme because I like it a lot. I don’t think Albright is actually wishing people spend eternity in a place of fire and brimstone and wailing and gnashing of teeth. I think she is just trying to say look, men having been giving it to us for thousands of years. We’re the better creatures. We endure childbirth. We raise children. We cook and clean and because they’re physically stronger than us, they’ve bullied us and made us feel inferior and even written it into their sacred texts that we should somehow be subservient to them. “There’s a special place for those who incite hate and condone violence with memes such as this one,” he wrote. I responded, “Are you okay,” and I included a snowflake emoji. I don’t have notifications on for fb. It’s not my priority-I never have. My childhood friend responded twice. “Snowflake? Do explain.” Some amount of time later that was imperceptible on fb I think he grew impatient, so he weighed in again. “We both know your cowardice won’t answer the question about the snowflake. And it’s more than apparent that you attributed my prior comment to the assassination of Charlie Kirk. The fact that you would comment with a snowflake makes it obvious that you are celebrating this murder. It says a lot more about you than it does me. The majority of Americans do not harbor this anger, hate, and mental health disorder, even on the left. The small minority of the radical left along with the one man, one gun, and one bullet has sealed the deal. Everything you wish for is gone forever. Best of luck with your memes and hate mongering moving forward.” Next a childhood friend with whom I’ve kept in closer contact through more recent years also commented. He said, “Well said, name. Sad day for AMERICA.” Was I hurt by this exchange? Yeah. It bothered me. My childhood friend and I have been going back and forth on fb for several years now and I think he thinks of it as a sort of game. He tries to best me with his rhetoric. I do the same though as you might imagine, my interest springs from my altruism and represents my honest effort typically to share a perspective not seen on Fox News or heard on the AM radio or local news broadcasts. The debate has grown increasingly acerbic, and his derision doesn’t bother me much. The comment of my other childhood friend who was my neighbor really bothered me. I remember talking to him when I moved into my house, which happens to be back in our old neighborhood. We discussed Trump and I explained a few details about Trump in response to him suggesting he liked Trump because he is an outsider in the political world. He backed down while expressing that he didn’t really follow these things. As with so many people I know he has become a more vocal supporter of Trump and all things Maga, which can be inferred from his capitalization of AMERICA. Of course, Maga is filled with people who feel a sort of hyper-patriotism, which I consider to be a faux patriotism. My friend, (both of them for that matter,) didn’t serve. I did. Their patriotism is devoid of any sense of responsibility. They don’t read up on the issues of the day. They go with how they feel, which is precisely why they are such easy targets for the proagandists of our day. If Trump disregards the established laws of our land in the name of the boats were carrying drugs to our streets, or they’re taking our jobs, or they’re indoctrinating our children with woke culture, or we can’t afford to help people in faraway lands, (but check out this ballroom I’m having built and love the tax break I’m giving to the wealthiest of my friends.) I could go on and on but the point is my childhood neighbor isn’t truly patriotic or he’d take the time to study and understand the issues he is increasingly inclined to comment on. So, when he said the original comment was well said, even though that comment was based on absolutely nothing, it hurt because I’ve always had such high regard for him. I’ve always loved him like a real brother. Four hours later or so I saw these comments on fb and I replied to both old friends. To the first I said, “Dude, wtf are you talking about? You called an innocuous meme condoning solidarity among the sisterhood in response to rape, sexual assault and pedophilia, condoning violence and inciting hate. Does “Are you okay,” while glib, not seem appropriate considering how triggered you sounded over a common metaphor about a “special place in hell?” “I’m well aware of what happened today but my comment was about your inordinate comment. Buy a vowel or something man. I’ve never been a person who celebrates murder. When I’m accused of such things though I might be the guy who calls you a dick. Your assumptions about me have never been right by the way. You’ve never been close. You concocted a whole interpretation and scenario in your brain and then spoke on it.” Next, I responded to the childhood friend who was my neighbor. “It’s not well said. It’s a wildly misguided accusation from a childhood friend levelled at another. Why would you ever think that’s accurate in any way, shape or form? I feel attacked by an old friend, you, not the other guy, whom I’ve only ever thought of in glowing terms and would typically defend, help or do anything for if called upon.” That’s where it ended for that first day, the day of the murder. Trump came out and blamed liberals and the left and Democrats sans any semblance of evidence and no one can be surprised by that. All the regular talking heads came out swinging from Laura Ingraham to Alex Jones, calling the liberals the party of hate and murder and so on. I felt sort of obtuse because I didn’t expect this. When these things have happened it seems collectively, we wait. We wait until we know. Not this time. Elon Musk had a few of the most ignorant tweets ever tweeted. The barrage of accusations at liberal members of society and support for the very idea of Charlie Kirk were astonishing. On fb I saw several friends lambasting the crass posts denigrating Kirk along with the posters. I didn’t see many of these posts. I saw one from an elderly lady I worked with years ago and I thought it was fine and in no way in bad taste. It was around this time, the day following the murder, when I decided my response would be to journal about all of this. By Day Three I began to see the retorts in social media, (primarily BlueSky and fb.) Karen Attiah posted a Charlie Kirk quote: “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. “You have to go steal a white person’s slot.” That quote identifies Charlie Kirk as a racist. He said it. There is no other explanation. Moreover, the time was right to bring it up considering the self-righteous backlash so many were perpetrating. I’m sure there were those who lacked any sort of empathy towards Charlie Kirk and his family who were left behind, who said and posted things that were inappropriate and worse. To stop congress however for a moment of silence and then a prayer however is outrageous considering who Charlie Kirk was. Congress did not pause when Melissa Hortman was murdered. Flags were not flown at half-staff and Trump did not denounce her killer or that person’s side in the American political divide as wholly evil and worthy of our collective retribution. If we are to be a fair-minded people, interested in truth and goodness, then yes, Attiah’s post was right on time. We have to recognize when we are being gaslit. Just like Trump stoked the fears and aggression of the January 6th insurrectionists, the larger Maga apparatus was engaged in a similar hoax, raising up a racist who would say Black women have inferior brains, presumably for the purpose of pushing their agenda whatever that may be. Mehdi Hasan was personally attacked by Charlie Kirk who called him a lunatic and a prostitute and demanded his deportation. Hasan responded by writing, “Nothing, *nothing*, justifies killing him, [Kirk}, or robbing his kids of their dad. “We don’t know the identity or motive of the shooter but murder can *never* be the response to political disagreements.” Hasan took the high road and deserved credit as one who was personally attacked by Kirk. Another BlueSky poster posted a picture and a story about Melissa Hortman and dubbed his account in appreciation of her for the next 24 hours. Classy, right? It’s worth noting she was a well-respected lawmaker in Minnesota who was murdered along with her husband and her dog by what turned out to be someone who arrived at their outrage and bloodlust from the right end of the American political spectrum. (My tongue is in my cheek when I add, there is a special place in hell for mother-fuckers who kill dogs.) Asha Rangappa added, “I’d think what you’d want during a highly volatile, politically polarized time marked by violence is a president who can appeal to our common values and humanity and inspire calm and unity, rather than promising revenge. “If you cared about the collective well-being of the country, that is.” Another account had this to say: “When conservatives are targeted, the language shifts instantly to existential war. Leaders rush to frame it as an attack on freedom, on the nation, on civilization itself. But when children are massacred in schools, the same voices tell grieving families to accept it as the price of liberty. That asymmetry is not just hypocrisy, it’s cruelty disguised as politics. Th refusal to mobilize outrage for the most vulnerable while weaponizing it for partisan figures reveals the true priority, power, not protection. If this country can summon declarations of war today, it could have done so for the countless classrooms turned into battlefields. It chose not to.” I think I understand why this one happens this way. Without the gun lovers the coalition risks falling apart. As it is they barely got Trump elected the first time and who even knows what happened the second time? It’s a tenuous voting block and it has no room to lose those who fear gun control will end their power to hunt or to protect their families and their property. The voices of those who came to say hey, we’re being reasonable by calling out the glut of double standards as well as Charlie Kirk’s character, rose for me around Day 3. I saw more of them, and they were so accurate and poignant with what they had to say. I saw this list of things Charlie Kirk said on BlueSky:

That’s a lot of evidence, right? If Kirk were on trial for being a racist or maybe just an anti-social prick, the court term would be a preponderance of evidence. We could convict on this-he’d be guilty. Still, from the day of the assassination right up to as I write this, the voices decrying anyone who would in any way comment in a way which might appear to be reveling in the murder or celebrating it, have been legion. I’m in agreement about that. It’s easy, like any old platitude. Several friends on fb including the woman who cuts my hair, (and will be doing so this afternoon,) expressed some hardcore aversion to anyone who would denounce Kirk, seemingly from her mama bear instinct of wanting to protect those precious two little ones Kirk has left behind. Many others chimed in along the same lines. Conversely, I have a few fierce friends as well who braved the harsh political climate and spoke truth to the dour. They did not celebrate Kirk’s death however, they merely commented on the vast irony of all the support for an unempathetic racist prick when school shootings garner zero calls for a solution anymore, when Melissa Hortman’s murder registered little more than a blip on the radar by contrast, (and by all accounts Hortman and her husband were standup members of society loved and admired by many to say nothing of their dog; Gilbert, who was well regarded as “good boy,” and was in training to be a service dog with Helping Paws,) Back on fb my childhood friend devised a narrative in his head based on absolutely nothing beyond my posting left leaning memes, on fb since the day Trump was inaugurated, on the daily. He sees these issues of the day in right and left terms. He posted some video of Canadian guy talking about how, “when Charlie died,” he thought for a moment he might have to go home to Canada due to civil unrest but then he realized everyone on the right is a saint who lives in the countryside and would never think to riot or loot. While everyone on the left is a baby-killer and so on-you get the picture. What is actually striking about this video is how clearly right-left this guy sees everyone. There’s no difference or nuance for him. Everyone on the left is bad. Everyone on the right is good. This is my primary complaint about my childhood friend. He colors everything in those broad strokes and can’t be dissuaded. For him and Captain Canada there, the world is black and white. Period. I responded by telling my friend I had not said one word to that point, several days post murder, about Charlie Kirk on fb. I shared what I had read just that day, that the murderer was a gamer who played Helldiver II, that he a groyper and that they follow Nick Fuentes, that Fuentes complaint about Kirk was that he left the racism as subtext and did not just say it loud and proud, that the story the WSJ ran about trans messaging on a bullet was false, and that the vast majority of Americans on the left politically stood down. The guy shot back that I would be proven wrong but not admit any error. Then separately he wrote, “your hate for Charlie Kirk is as clear as can be in your message. “You don’t have to say the words, we already know how you feel about his assassination.” My retort was mostly just to indicate that this narrative he concocted about me was based on nothing and was inaccurate. Why are people deep in their feels about Charlie Kirk, more so than they were about the Minnesota legislator, or Paul Pelosi, or Josh Shapiro? I think there are two answers. They see a young man with a beautiful family, and they feel the tragedy on a deep and personal level. Others prefer not to see Kirk in any way glorified given what he stood for. When so many in the public realm show more empathy for his family and his legacy, lowering flags and praying in congress, they believe it sends the wrong message to our children and lends credence and viability to his values of intolerance and hate. Charlie Kirk was murdered in cold blood six days ago in front of his wife and two small children. That is heartbreaking. Everyone should feel that. The ideas he sought to convert others to are reprehensible. Will the Trump beholden law enforcement apparatus make interviews with the killer public or will they fashion the narrative they prefer, to continue to mobilize Americans against righteousness, against goodness, against the rule of law, against fiscal responsibility, against kindness, against conservation for future generations, against truth, against accountability, against trust in international relationships, and against their own best interests? Both sides of this story are valid. While I find him an odd choice at least given his views and the work he did, Americans can choose to honor and mourn Charlie Kirk. Americans can also choose to comment on his character, (or relative lack thereof.) That choice while against the grain, is actually the more important for the health of society.