You Really Don't Have to Give It Up to Charlie Kirk

Sanitizing his legacy helps nothing except the fascist project he promoted.

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Much has already been said about the killing of conservative pundit Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus on Wednesday, and we’re nowhere near the end of it. But as you seek to stake out the proper take to have, with the correct dose of disdain for “political violence,” you absolutely, positively do not have to sanitize his legacy.

I woke up today to Ezra Klein writing about Kirk in The New York Times, a clear gesture at the necessity for crossing-the-aisle civility in moments like these. Klein writes in the piece (emphasis mine):

You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. 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 did not know Kirk, and I am not the right person to eulogize him. But I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness. In the inaugural episode of his podcast, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California hosted Kirk, admitting that his son was a huge fan. What a testament to Kirk’s project.

Reading one of our apparently preeminent liberal thinkers say the words “Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way” makes me feel fully insane.

Conveniently, Klein doesn’t say anything about what “Kirk’s project” consisted of, which was no less than an all-out fight to turn back the clock on decades of social and political progress in this country. To document all of his far-right-wing beliefs would take an age, but a short accounting includes his frequently arguing that passing the Civil Rights Act was a “mistake,” stirring up hate for transgender people, whom he once called a “throbbing middle finger to God,” promoting the Great Replacement Theory both at home and abroad, arguing abortion is worse than the Holocaust, and backing Israel’s war on Gaza to the hilt. (Tellingly, both Benjamin Netanyahu and his son Yair posted their sympathies, praising his defense of “Judeo-Christian civilization.”)

It’s also been fairly pointed out that Kirk was a steadfast supporter of gun rights, even when weighed against the loss of human life. After his death, video resurfaced of the Turning Point USA founder saying gun deaths are a cost “worth” paying for the Second Amendment. Indeed, just before he was fatally shot, Kirk was responding to a question about mass shootings and giving credence to the latest conservative conspiracy theory that trans people are disproportionately to blame for them.

This is the “project” Klein apparently sees as the “right” way to do politics in America. But Kirk’s version of “practicing politics” was no less than stoking the flames of violent extremism in this country. Allowing Kirk’s worldview to win would mean no less than subjugating people of color, LGBTQ people, immigrants, and anyone else deemed an other to the will of people who are white, cis, American, and male. His vision of liberty was premised on stripping away the rights and freedoms of anyone viewed as unworthy.

This isn’t “practicing politics,” it’s promoting fascism and extremism. And while we don’t yet know who killed Kirk or their motive, what we do know is that extremism breeds more extremism, and that calls to stir up violent hatred will eventually be answered. Pointing that out isn’t celebrating Kirk’s death. It’s just being honest.