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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