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There's a rapidly congealing hagiography surrounding Charlie Kirk in the wake of his shooting. Before his assassination, I was only vaguely aware of him as just another political commentator like Destiny, Bannon, Yiannopoulos, Fuentes, etc. I don't recall anyone trying to lionize him as one of the greats or anything like that. Of course, the political calculus changed the instant the bullet entered his body. Cynically, if Kirk looks better and more virtuous, then the more effectively he can be treated as a martyr, and, if need be, used as a cudgel against the left. And of course, it's best to strike while the iron is hot and the outpouring of support is at its greatest. Right-wing rhetoric once again bears a striking resemblance to the woke left of old, with the main retort being some version of "how DARE you!?!" I've seen plenty of conservatives assert that any criticism of Kirk at this moment is tantamount to saying "He deserved to get shot. Also, I 100% support political violence against people who disagree with me". This is flatly nonsense, as it's obviously valid to decry political violence while simultaneously believing Kirk was just a mundane political operative like any other.
In case you're wondering how far the hagiography is going, I'll provide some examples. Yesterday, Trump called him a "martyr for truth" and promised to award him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor that can be bestowed. Congresswoman Luna compared Kirk to previous political martyrs, tweeting a photo that placed him between MLK and Jesus while circulating a letter calling for a statue of Kirk to be erected in the US Capitol. Congresswoman Mace introduced a resolution for Kirk to lie in honor in the Capital Rotunda, and there's a decent chance he'll get a state funeral or a close equivalent. Others have angrily noted how Kirk's Wikipedia page doesn't have identical wording to MLK's assassination -- "assassination by gunshot" vs "gunshot wound" -- as if Kirk's death "was a hunting accident".(?)
I dug into some of the things Kirk has said, and I've found him to be little more than a cynical apparatchik that rapidly changed his views to align with the dominant Republican zeitgeist on several occasions.
@DaseindustriesLtd puts it like this:
And yeah, after doing a bit of research, that's basically what I've found as well.
One of the most steelmanned takes comes from, of all places, Ezra Klein in the NYT. He writes that Kirk was "practicing politics the right way" by being willing to "talk to the other side". This is a ludicrously hagiographic way of saying "he was a political commentator that did not actively advocate for violence". I suppose that, sadly, that last part is becoming an increasingly high bar these days.
In terms of the flip-flopping, there are several examples. Michael Tracey goes into some of them.
First, the Epstein stuff:
Second, in foreign affairs:
Beyond these two bits, I've found a few more.
Third, on TikTok:
At first he was in favor of banning TikTok, saying "It's way past time to ban TikTok. It is a cancer on America." But then, after talking with some investors Trump changed his tune saying "I will never ban TikTok if re-elected, and Kirk dutifully followed. Shortly before Trump's inauguration Kirk ran a story saying TikTok was encouraging gen Z to become more conservative, and thus that Trump should "save TikTok".
Fourth, on Ron DeSantis:
DeSantis had a good burst of publicity in 2021 and 2022, and so Kirk started singing his praises as "the future of conservatism". That changed when Trump entered the primary in 2024. Soon it became clear that Trump was the frontrunner, and so Kirk changed his tune and started saying that DeSantis should drop out "for the heroes of our nation."
Fifth, on mail-in ballots:
At first, Kirk parroted the Trump line mail-in ballots were fake and easily manipulated and so everyone should vote in-person. By 2024, Turning Point Action rolled out “Chase the Vote” and a “Commit 100” early-vote/ballot-chasing machine mirroring the Trump/RNC pivot to embrace early and absentee voting (“Bank Your Vote,” later “Swamp the Vote USA”).
Finally, on political violence (and this is especially relevant given the context in which he died):
Kirk mostly gave anodyne anti-violence answers when questioned, but that didn't stop him from amplifying conspiracy theories when the shoe was on the other foot. When Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer, Kirk smiled, laughed, and suggested a "patriot" go bail out the person who perpetrated it so they could "ask questions". This was almost certainly in reference to the notion that Paul Pelosi was attacked by a gay prostitute, and that the whole episode was little more than a lover's quarrel.
Changing your mind is not a crime, but I start to wonder about political figures who conveniently do so exactly when public opinion shifts. Kirk was almost slavishly loyal to Trump when Trump was the avatar of the conservative movement, but was more than willing to toot DeSantis' horn when it seemed like he might be the next big thing -- despite that DeSantis was always going to have to compete against Trump in a zero-sum race for the nomination.
There's probably more I've missed, but at this point it feels like beating a dead horse.
I mean, give Kirk some credit for absolutely practicing what he preached. Guy was married, two kids, clearly devoted Christian, didn't even use foul language which a lot of the right indulges in. When South Park started ribbing him, he leaned into the joke! He was not one to play victim.
And of course he put himself out there, he was the guy sitting down and talking directly to people, face to face, not 'hiding' behind a camera, only talking through the screen.
Maybe calling him "The Conservative Mr. Rogers" is a bit much. BUT. This is an example of the sort of role model that males might actually find appealing and would pull them away from, e.g. the Andrew Tates of the world.
And one thing I learned in the wake of this is that Kirk was WAY more popular, including among young people, than I anticipated. Despite his flip-flopping on Tiktok, he had 9 million followers on the platform.. Turning Point USA was and is a LARGE Org, well funded. And, as we can now see, pretty well-liked among normies.
And no, being 'better' than Andrew Tate doesn't qualify you for sainthood, but... I will actually make the claim he was at least a step or two above ANY left-leaning commentator you could name.
I looked around and realized that the left doesn't have a real Charlie Kirk equivalent. There is no lefty figure who actively seeks out havens of conservative thought to openly challenge their consensuses, to their face.
I mean, you have Sacha Baron Cohen, he goes into right-leaning spaces... but he's doing it explicitly to mock and parodize them, not to have dialogue.
You have your Jon Stewarts and John Olivers that use their platform to preach without permitting response or critique to them, just endless lecturing and jokes.
Your Hasan Pikers who interact with a self-selected audience in chat, and rarely allow a single contradicting thought to penetrate the bubble.
Your AOCs, your Bernie Sanders', and Mamdanis who WILL go out in Public, and love to do photo ops and heap criticism on the right from the heights of their podium... but once again will not enter any arena where they don't have a clear popularity or numerical advantage.
No, Charlie Kirk wasn't just unique on the right, he was something that ONLY appears on the right.
I don't know of any lefties who ever put themselves in "the lion's den" and attempted to make the case for their ideals directly to their ideological opponents.
What's that say about the state of the left's intellectual honesty? I dunno. I never credited them with much. The lefties who found their way into this space, (Anyone remember Darwin?) they haven't fared well when pressed on their ideas without the ability to falsify a popular consensus.
I think Charlie Kirk is a better man, more deserving of national honor on his popularity alone, and certainly a more consistent and principled man (even if one of said principles was 'don't openly contradict Trump') than literally any lefty you could name. In a time where so, so many public figures are getting outed as sex pests, pervs, frauds, and generally slimy people, I actually think Charlie Kirk was precisely what he presented himself as.
If we want to start pulling people down, we know that there's ample material with which we could smear, e.g. Martin Luther King Jr. But that wouldn't erase their positive accomplishments.
And more directly to the point, he's probably the least deserving of being killed for his speech than most of the righty commentators I can think of, who are often more vicious in their rhetoric.
Well, you listed some examples of people who you don't think meet the criteria, i think probably the most comparable person on the left is Destiny. For all his moral shortcomings, both alleged and photographed, the guy does essentially the exact kind of events Kirk was doing.
I'm not fully aware of the dem college campus debatelord universe but i do imagine there are more examples if i was to look into it. IIRC there was a whole traveling circus of these types who got into an internal struggle session the week they were supposed to start a collegiate tour earlier this year (which, yes this is funny but it also shows that there are more personalities in this space than i am familiar with)
You can say a lot of things about the dire state of the broader left wing's willingness to engage in debate, but there are a number of people of varying levels of success and organizational prowess either doing or trying to do what Kirk did, so i think you are putting too much emphasis on how uniquely brave his actions were.
RIP though, he didn't deserve to die for his beliefs, and certainly not by public execution.
Destiny, of course is now legendary for getting cucked HARD by his wife (they did have an "open relationship", but holy shit), having a teen son who hates him, and possibly having chatted sexually with a minor, and STILL possessing explicit sexual material of said minor.
Intellectual consistency to the point of self-destruction, it seems. I had him, among others, in mind when I spoke of public figures being "outed as sex pests, pervs, frauds, and generally slimy people..."
Anyway, he isn't necessarily intellectually inconsistent or cowardly, but not someone you'd really want to honor as a paragon of your side's virtues.
good thing i wouldn't hold him up as one, but my point isnt that he his a virtuous person or even that he represents my views. That he is on the left and participating in the kind of live events you claimed that NOBODY on the left would DARE to even attempt makes the whole diatribe about how people like him don't exist seem kinda silly.
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Being cucked is the same sort of ideological consistency Kirk had being married with kids. His son hating him is understandable from my PoV but not a universal indictment of him, and I'm not a fan of playing the CP gotcha game when 17 year olds say they're 19 or whatever.
Your overall point - that the left has few-to-none Kirk equivalents - is correct overall. But I think Destiny counts as at least one dark mirror example.
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