Here’s what I didn’t think I’d be writing a year ago. Charlie Kirk was not MLK Jr. To be fair, I wasn’t all that sure who Charlie Kirk WAS 12 months ago.
Some of Kirk’s supporters point to “opening” dialogue, like King attempted to do. “Social media is awash in AI fantasy-tributes of Kirk standing with fallen American heroes such as John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., Abraham Lincoln, and even Jesus Christ himself.” Some I have seen are gagworthy.
But as John-Paul Hyde wrote on Substack, “Charlie Kirk isn’t Martin Luther King — He’s Nick Naylor.” Naylor is the protagonist in the movie Thank You for Smoking, which I saw and loved in 2006. “Canonizing a partisan spin doctor as an American Saint is just another layer of spin.”
One way Kirk was unlike King was that, even as King would attempt to prod the government to take action, such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act, he wasn’t co-opted by Lyndon Johnson or other politicians.
Flip-flop
Whereas, “this is what we saw with Charlie Kirk whenever Trump changed narratives. Kirk beseeched America to turn away from a war with Iran. Then Trump bombed Iran, and Kirk applauded him as a ‘man made for the moment.’ Charlie Kirk was a staunch free-trader. Then Trump started pushing tariffs, and Kirk instantly became a protectionist. Charlie Kirk used to believe in the separation of church and state. Then Christian nationalism grew and merged with the MAGA movement, and Charlie Kirk became a Christian nationalist defender. “
Brian Recker wrote: “King spent his life battling for what he called ‘the beloved community,’ a world of racial justice, material equality, and peace. He worked to tear down the forces that rip us apart and the systems that dominate the vulnerable. His words inspired us to see the best in each other—towards empathy and solidarity…
“King showed us that we are ‘caught in an inescapable network of mutuality.’ His triumph was the Civil Rights Movement, which secured dignity and civil liberties for Black Americans who had long been denied their humanity. At the end of his life, he was marching with sanitation workers carrying signs that read, ‘I Am a Man.'”
Opportunist
Kirk was an opportunist. From WIRED:
Conservative activist and Turning Point USA cofounder Charlie Kirk has a lot of opinions on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
In 2015, Kirk called him a “hero.”
In 2022, MLK was a “civil rights icon.”
In December 2023, speaking before a group of students and teachers at America Fest, a political convention organized by Turning Point USA, Kirk struck a different tone.
“MLK was awful,” Kirk said. “He’s not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn’t believe.”
“Kirk’s attempt to discredit civil rights law is an example of how ‘the fringe moves to the center at the speed of light’ in right-wing politics, says public policy scholar Jonathan Rauch.
“‘If they’re going to say the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was the death of the Constitution and freedom in America, then that’s going to be extremely divisive, because a lot of people are going to say, ‘Well, if that isn’t racist, I don’t know what is,’’ Rauch says. ‘This is the federal law that ended segregation.'”
So was Kirk merely an opportunist, someone who was willing to take his Turning Point USA group in whatever direction the winds were blowing? Or is the litany of racist and sexist comments a real reflection of his bigotry?
MLK III
I’ll leave the final words to MLK’s son, Martin Luther King III, who “respectfully disagrees” with the MLK Jr/Kirk parallels.
King III pointed out instances in which Kirk had previously attacked what Martin Luther King Jr. stood for. “While King III admits Kirk had a right to his opinion, he says what he represented was quite different than his father, who King III said was about ‘bringing people together.’
“‘It’s not just about blackness,’ King III said. ‘The whole notion of what that means is sad that we are minimizing what made this country what it is, which is, I always say, a potentially great country, because I can’t universally say we are great as long as we’re mistreating people and we are.'”