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Do Not Sanctify A Scoundrel [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-09-11
I'm certain Charlie Kirk's body wasn't even cold before the right began canonizing him.
I was able to tolerate about 30 minutes of CNN last night during which conservative and Republican guests made the claim that he was just someone who wanted to have discussions. Maybe they believed What they were saying, maybe they did not. Certainly it was part of his marketing efforts. Although there are a few things more dangerous than believing your own PR.
Even a cursory examination of the structure of his events reveals that he was not interested in anything like informed debate or discussion. He was trying to create theater, specifically the theater of outrage. His purpose was to provoke, to incite others to anger, and to capture them on video, which he could then repackage to his audience. He was an effective self-promoter, marketer, and merchant of outrage.
Let me put this a little differently. There was a game to be played, one which paid the bills, and he played it skillfully. He created a product his audience was eager to consume and delivered it to them in generous portions.
He was not some passive observer, he was not a guileless innocent simply seeking discussion, he was an active player in an unprincipled political game. The very same machinery which he exploited to create fame is now working overtime to sanctify him, to silence critique and dissent.
What we are seeing in real time is the frantic rewriting of this man's life to fit a story that serves a quest for power not truth. To describe his public events as public discourse is comparable to calling a demolition derby a transportation summit. Entertaining perhaps, but neither elevating nor illuminating.
We can hold two ideas at the same time. We can absolutely condemn his cold-blooded murder and recognize that Charlie Kirk was a baleful presence in our public life.
There is no circumstance under which his self-packaging should have led to his murder.
Allow me to be abundantly clear about what I already see happening. Any attempt to discuss his political positions or public statements will be condemned as politicizing his death by the very same people who are ruthlessly and amorally politicizing his death. No matter who the suspect is, no matter their beliefs, their identity and actions will be ruthlessly shamelessly politicized.
We must resist the cynical inversion where reasoned critique is labeled politicization, and politicization is disguised as grief. We are not required to sanctify a man whose public legacy was built on provocation and performance. We can mourn his death without mythologizing his life.
If we care about truth, if we care about the health of our public discourse, then we must name what Charlie Kirk was: a merchant of outrage, not a steward of dialogue.
The moment we are in demands restraint and thoughtfulness. It offers, perhaps, an invitation to reckoning, a chance to remember that the politics of theater and outrage do not serve us well. Let us find a way to elevate our public discourse to reflect our true greatness, not our fears or our anger.
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