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The whitewashing of Charlie Kirk’s toxic legacy is underway



Conservative activist and pundit Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on
Wednesday, becoming another victim of America’s epidemic of gun violence.

Kirk’s death was a tragedy for his friends and family. But the response to it
from many political leaders, journalists, and news outlets has whitewashed the
substance of Kirk’s activism, which involved an endless geyser of hate,
bigotry, and misinformation.

President Donald Trump baselessly blamed Kirk’s death on the political left in
a video released Wednesday night, arguing, “For years, those on the radical
left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's
worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly
responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today and it
must stop right now.”

Trump then announced on Thursday he would award Kirk the Presidential Medal of
Freedom, which Trump previously awarded to notorious racist Rush Limbaugh.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, wrote, “The best way to honor
Charlie's memory is to continue his work: engage with each other, across
ideology, through spirited discourse.”

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, also Democrats,
both ordered flags flown at half-staff in honor of Kirk.




 



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The New York Times editorial board wrote about the incident in a column
initially headlined “America Mourns Charlie Kirk,” which was later changed
without editorial notation, something that has frequently happened at the Times.

Times opinion columnist Ezra Klein, who is a liberal, wrote a piece that
hailed Kirk for “practicing politics the right way” and lauded Kirk for his
“moxie and fearlessness.”

His fellow Times columnist David French, a conservative, wrote of Kirk,
“[W]hen he died he was doing exactly what we ask people to do on campus: Show
up. Debate. Talk. Engage peacefully, even when emotions run high.”

Rachel Bade, Politico’s Capitol bureau chief, wrote, “Agree with him or not,
Charlie Kirk was a force of nature who embraced open debate and engaging with
those who disagreed with him.”

Brian Stelter, CNN’s chief media analyst, has been among the most blatant in
whitewashing Kirk’s career. In appearances on the network and in his “Reliable
Sources” column, Stelter has portrayed Kirk as earnestly seeking fair debate
across the political aisle. “He invited people to try and prove him wrong,”
Stelter solemnly noted.

Stelter has covered Kirk for years and is thoroughly aware of his bigoted
remarks and actions, but Stelter chose instead to distort the record following
the pundit’s death, dishonestly offering up a false portrayal to millions of
people.

Kirk was a bigot, a misogynist, and a racist who regularly excused the very
same sort of gun violence that ended his life.

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.”





 



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Discussing Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024, Kirk urged his favored
candidate to trigger “Nuremberg-style” trials for doctors performing
gender-affirming care if he won. The Nuremberg trials were post-World War II
court trials that sought to prosecute leaders of Nazi Germany for crimes
against humanity.

Kirk described transgender people as “groomers,” and said transgender children
were “mutilat[ing]” their bodies. He also called for transgender athletes to be
physically confronted for the purported sin of trying to play sports.

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.

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Kirk said vaccine requirements
were “medical apartheid” and used his group to oppose vaccination. Kirk also
peddled the baseless conspiracy that 1.2 million people died from vaccinations.

After Trump lost the 2020 election, Kirk called for then-Vice President Mike
Pence to reject Electoral College votes for President-elect Joe Biden and
violate the Constitution.

Kirk’s group also operated a website called Professor Watchlist, which listed
college professors’ names and their pictures as part of an attempt to incite
harassment against those who deviate from conservative groupthink on a host of
issues.

Kirk’s killing was wrong. It was an outgrowth of the pro-gun culture that he
himself helped foster. But he wasn’t a good person, and the news media and
others should not erase what the man stood for throughout his time in the
public eye.



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