A Point not to be Overlooked.
https://www.erininthemorning.com/p/w...ously-sanitize
Yesterday, while giving a campus speech, far-right activist and anti-LGBTQ+ influencer Charlie Kirk was assassinated by a gunman—another grim marker of how political violence has become a recurring feature of American life. Quickly, political figures and pundits rushed to denounce the killing, as they should. But some went further, valorizing and lionizing a man who built his career on contempt of people he viewed as lesser. Political violence is corrosive and we must not excuse it—killing Charlie Kirk was horrific. But we also must not sanitize the memory of a man who wished harm on those he disagreed with, and who spread a message of hate to anyone willing to listen or pay him to so. We can denounce the violent killing of Charlie Kirk without praising his abhorrent legacy.
Yesterday, Gavin Newsom tweeted that we should “continue the work” of Charlie Kirk and honor his memory. This morning, centrist columnist Ezra Klein published a column titled “Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics The Right Way.” Both paint a portrait of an open-minded Kirk, a man of dialogue and principle. But this is not his legacy. To call for “continuing his work” or to praise how he “practiced politics” is to erase what that work actually was: a relentless campaign of hate directed at LGBTQ+ people, racial and ethnic minorities, and anyone who refused to fall in line.
I first reported on Charlie Kirk years ago, at the beginning of the modern anti-LGBTQ+ panic—back when Riley Gaines was rising to far-right fame and her fifth-place swim finish was weaponized against transgender people. In one interview with Gaines on Real America’s Voice, Kirk railed against “the decline of American men” and blamed it for transgender equality. Then he added that people should have “just took care of” transgender people “the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s and 60s.” Let’s be clear about what that meant: the 1950s and 60s were not kind to transgender people. The “standard treatments” were lobotomy, shock therapy, and involuntary institutionalization. Police commissioners openly described queer people as “a cancer in the community” and promoted “vigilant detecting.” Violence was the norm. So when someone calls for “continuing his work” or praises him for “practicing politics the right way,” this is the work they are honoring.
Charlie Kirk’s violent rhetoric toward transgender people in that clip was not an aberration—it was his brand. He preached hate and violence as a matter of routine. In another interview, he mocked Christians who followed scripture about loving their neighbor, scoffing that God also “calls for the stoning of gay people,” which he described as “God’s perfect law.” This was not a slip of the tongue. Hate was and continued to be central to his message. So when people invoke Kirk’s “work” and urge us to carry it forward, when they valorize him as some open-minded political figure, this is what they are valorizing: praising violence, contempt for human dignity, and the politics of fear dressed up as principle.