You Will Love and Celebrate Charlie Kirk

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/11/nx-s1-5550366/charlie-kirk-social-media-firings

There are many stories similar to this one that have been lost in the fog since the September assassination of Kirk. The irony here is that the 'Alexandra' in question was only using Kirk's own words and morally dubious framing of the Paul Pelosi attack - which was attempted murder. She more or less quoted Kirk and yet because it was directed against him - it turned her life upside down.

The message from the Right is abundantly clear - you will love and celebrate Charlie Kirk. There is a determined effort to make him into a martyr and cultural icon akin to Martin Luther King Jr.. I look for not only a holiday but monuments as well.

It's ironic given that when efforts to honour King emerged in the late 1970's (over a decade after his death) there was considerable resistance. Reagan finally capitulated in 1983 with the official holiday coming into effect in 1986. My wife and I both remember the stiff resistance within Right-wing and Evangelical circles. And yet the narrative switched by the late 1990's and today, Evangelicals try and 'claim' or appropriate King. The Right uses his rhetoric to argue against civil rights and affirmative action-type programmes. They pretend to uphold his legacy even while they seek to destroy it. In other words, there's just not a lot of honesty when it comes to these issues.

And while King's life and Christian testimony is fraught with problems, it doesn't seem to matter. Everyone wants to claim him and use him as a kind of moral authority and means of stirring up the conscience of audiences.

Charlie Kirk is dead and yet already the legend is being created. Soon it won't matter who he really was or what he stood for. He is basically becoming a modern day saint for the Christian Right and they will milk his legacy for all they can. And whether willingly or coerced, his widow is playing along. I say coerced because not a few people have been left scratching their heads at her conduct and demeanour - for some who are familiar with 'grief counselling' and the like, it's downright odd. But to be fair, everyone is different and people deal with the things in different ways.

Opposing Kirk or being critical of him is being painted as 'celebrating his murder', which is completely deceitful. It is not only possible but right to oppose what he was about (which was not New Testament Christianity) and yet to also deplore his slaying. Such nuance has no place in the mind of political operatives. Everything has been leveraged and transformed into capital - and this is no exception.

While not wielding a gun or club in the streets, Kirk was nevertheless a man of violence who employed rhetoric meant to stir up the people on the streets. This is why he stood on stage with filth such as Kyle Rittenhouse and why he called the Paul Pelosi attacker (who wanted to to torture and possibly murder former speaker Nancy Pelosi) a hero and patriot that deserved financial support. Kirk's comments were unabashedly sick and Alexandra simply pointed this out by recycling them in connection with Kirk's own death. It was apropos though certain to embitter his allies. They in turn responded with a different type of violence - a campaign to upend her life and put her at risk - knowing full well the kind of people (the violent fanatics and mentally unstable) that inhabit the fringe of their movement.

In hindsight, I'm sure Alexandra has reconsidered her wading into the controversy and the price it required of her. But, at the same time the praise of Kirk has been nauseating and deceitful. And from a Christian standpoint, it's a clear case of twisted ethical calculation and a distortion of the truth. Murder is always an abomination - but so was Kirk - all the more given his professed (and obviously counterfeit) Christianity. Despite the narratives about his supposedly winsome life, he lived by the sword and he died by it. Trump was his saviour-Messiah and mammon his god. The Christ of Scripture was unknown to him, but it's safe to say Kirk hated His teachings.

And for those willing to point out his inconsistencies and immorality - they must pay a price. You will love Charlie Kirk and celebrate his life. The double-standard is lost in the fog of distortion and deceit. It doesn't matter to these folks. They simply want to acquire power and they'll use any and all means to do so.