Wrong to celebrate someone's death, wrong to distort their life

By the time I think I might get caught up in reading the news, more news happens. So I’m still a bit behind. On Tuesday Oliver Willis of Daily Kos wrote on a topic that for me is quickly getting old:

Conservatives are engaged in a coast-to-coast witch hunt meant to punish people who aren’t marching in lockstep with the right’s attempts to lionize slain bigot Charlie Kirk. In a push led by Republican lawmakers, people are being hounded, fired, and even arrested for not going along with the right’s sanitized narrative of Kirk’s life. Kirk spent his years as a political influencer and organizer attacking the rights of trans people, women, racial minorities, and others. He promoted baseless smears and conspiracy theories and delighted in antagonizing his political rivals. Kirk even belittled the dangers of the gun violence that ultimately took his life. The right is now pushing for all of this to be forgotten in favor of a cleaned-up version of Kirk that emphasizes the loss experienced by his friends and family while omitting the harm he did to public discourse.

Willis then provides many examples. In Sunday’s pundit roundup for Kos Chitown Kev quoted Heather Cox Richardson of the Substack Letters from an American. She talked about Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook who the nasty guy tried to fire because of the claim she had declared two homes to be her principle residence to get better mortgage rates.

It appears the documents that director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency Bill Pulte used to accuse her of mortgage fraud were standardized forms that her personal application specifying the house was a second home overrode. It also appears that Cook never applied for a primary residence tax exemption for the Georgia home and that she referred to the home on official documents as a “2nd home.” ... Trump hoped to use the allegations against Cook to advance his control of the Federal Reserve. Now the revelation that those allegations appear to be false highlights the degree to which this administration is attempting to achieve control of the country by pushing a false narrative and getting what its officers want before reality catches up. Senator Joe McCarthy (R-WI) pioneered this technique in the 1950s when he would grab media attention with outrageous statements and outright lies that destroyed lives, then flit to the next target, leaving fact checkers panting in his wake. By the time they proved he was lying, the news cycle had leaped far ahead, and the corrections got nowhere near the attention the lies had.

In the comments is a cartoon by Graeme MacKay. It shows street signs at the intersection of “1st Amendment” and “2nd Amendment.” At the base of the signs is a memorial to Charlie Kirk. Filling the intersection is an accident where a car labeled “Intolerant rhetoric” has been smashed by a car labeled “Gun freedom.” Off to the side a man asks, “Which car was he in?” A woman replies, “Both.” In the comments of Tuesday’s roundup are several good memes and cartoons. Nick Anderson drew one titled Republican Politicians. It shows a family posing in front of a Christmas tree for the seasonal photo. Dad, Mom, and the kids each have a high powered gun. Mom looks at her watch and says, “We need to wrap this up. I don’t want to be late to my press conference condemning leftists for promoting violence.” Dr. MacLeod cartoons shows two men talking:

Red hat: I can’t believe these disgusting people saying bad things about a man who has been assassinated. No hat: Do you mean like when Charlie Kirk said that Martin Luther King was “awful” and that he was “not a good person”?

A meme posted by Feminist News Now:

The truly, truly strange thing about Kirk is that I have not seen his supporters quote one statement by him that illustrates his supposed nobility of character. Normally, when a civil rights leader is assassinated, their supporters spend days reciting their greatest quotes and preachings. So, it’s notable that the right has devoted the past two days trying to get Olive Garden waitresses fired for being critical, while completely avoiding his body of work.

A meme posted by exlrrp and written by AesPolitics says, “I remember a time when shootings like these didn’t end with the sitting president blaming 48.3% of the country for something they didn’t even do.” Trilemma posted a cartoon based on the well known trio of figures that include the words “Hear no evil...” This time is is three men in red hats that have the words, “See no crimes. Hear no facts. Speak no truth.” In Wednesday’s roundup Greg Dworkin quoted Berny Belvedere of The UnPopulist discussed what the nasty guy has done in response to Charlie Kirk’s murder, then wrote:

But he has already proved, yet again, that he represents a radical departure from past presidents in similar circumstances. Those presidents did not shy away from calling out the perpetrators or the destructive ideologies they stood for—but neither did they cynically seize on such occasions and use them to turbocharge a partisan crackdown on political opponents. It is really important to understand the contrast between Trump’s behavior and those of previous presidents for two reasons: First, to get a clear measure of the extent of our moral descent. And second, to fully understand the authoritarian dangers our republic is facing.

David Russell Moore, on his own website wrote:

There’s a fixation, in online political debate, about voting in federal elections held every two years. Liberals tend to lash out at progressives or independents who suggest they might not vote for Democratic candidates. So much political oxygen gets taken up by the debate over Biden-vs.-Trump. Voting becomes an obsessive focus because Democratic Party leaders fight efforts to create official channels where changes to policy, like U.S. support for Israel’s war on Gaza, can be openly debated and formally considered. Free technology tools and meaningful deliberation programs that would increase participation within the party, often called “liquid democracy,” are unused. There’s little discussion on MSNBC, Pod Save America, or in New York Times op-eds about practical ways the Democratic Party could increase participation among its members in the here and now. By keeping such reform options in the dark, party leaders succeed in keeping them off the table. Even in the age of social media, the Democratic Party remains a stubbornly closed-off enterprise. At the top, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) is a private corporation, as opposed to a membership organization like a labor union, and its leaders have impunity over how they set and enforce party rules. For decades, DNC insiders have gone to war to prevent basic transparency and grassroots reform efforts from gaining steam.

That last paragraph has a dozen links to articles detailing the points Moore is making. Kevin Kruse wrote about what others are calling the whitewashing of Kirk’s legacy.

As the nation reckons with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, there has been a notable trend from mainstream pundits and press outlets. They have tended to downplay or outright ignore the ugly things that he said and instead to stress the polite ways he said them. It's an emphasis on style over substance. This approach has been widespread in the punditocracy, which has almost uniformly moved to hold Kirk up as a rare avatar of civil disagreement in an uncivil era. Ezra Klein's opinion piece in the New York Times, literally titled "Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way," is a perfect example of this argument, but only the most prominent. Just this morning, a journalist with The Atlantic Monthly stirred up Bluesky by asserting flatly that Kirk was admirable because he "argued with civility." While I think it's absolutely wrong to celebrate someone's death, I think it's equally wrong to distort their life after they're gone. These pundits' paeans to Charlie Kirk's "civil" approach to politics ignore the many illustrations of his incivility. He had a record of making anti-Semitic comments, racist and sexist comments, attacks on religious minorities and immigrants that extended to spouting and defending the white supremacist "great replacement theory" that presents immigration of non-whites as a sinister conspiracy to destroy America.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme by The Complex Rebel discussing the political organization Kirk founded at age 18.

Turning Point wasn’t grassroots. Bradley Impact fund alone dumped $8,100,000 USD into Kirk’s machine then added a $108,000,000 war chest for 2024. Billionaires fund the class war. Charlie Kirk sold it as a race war. The money keeps them rich. The hate keeps us divided. That’s the playbook.

Also posted by exlrrp are a pair of tweets: First by Charlie Kirk: “Kentanji (sic) Brown Jackson is a diversity hire. She is only there because she’s a black woman.” Alex Cole responded, “Ketanji graduated magna cum laude from Harvard. You dropped out of community college to cosplay as a fascist. ‘Diversity hire’ is what racists say when a Black woman earns something they never could.” A meme from former GOP Congressman Joe Walsh:

When I was a tea party Congressman and right wing radio talker, I made fun of the snowflakes on the left who couldn’t handle speech that offended them. Well lookie here. Now the free speech wussies, the way too easily triggered/offended snowflakes, are all on the MAGA right. Hilarious.

A meme from chescaleigh: “If glorifying violence is so bad, why did y’all make Kyle Rittenhouse a celebrity?” A meme posted by exlrrp shows the rainbow crosswalk near the Pulse nightclub site, where dozens of people were gunned down, had been painted over. “Next time you think art doesn’t matter; just think about how scared, in 2025, the fascists are of sidewalk chalk.” In Thursday’s roundup Kev quoted Jake Lamut of Wired. Here’s a bit of it:

As time went on, there appeared to be only one source of true unity: Agreement between the ultra MAGA and Silicon Valley wings of the party over who the they responsible for Kirk’s murder really is. It’s anyone Republican leaders want it to be. According to one expert, that’s the entire point...

Lily Conway of The Contrarian discussed the messages on Kirk’s shooters unfired cartridges:

For someone unfamiliar with the tactics and communication styles of the online alt-right, these messages may appear as a jumble of nonsense (or even leftist messaging, especially the second and third engravings). However, the alt-right does not communicate through straightforward, earnest speech. Rather, it “weaponizes irony to attract and radicalize potential supporters, challenge progressive ideologies and institutions, redpill normies, and create a toxic counterpublic.” They communicate through terse, coded, and generally offensive phrases meant to signal group recognition. Nothing is said in earnest–in fact, any expression of earnestness is roundly mocked. Every true meaning is hidden under double or triple layers of irony only accessible to the in-group. As Julia Rose DeCook argues, “trolling itself has become a kind of political aesthetic and identity.” Indeed, it’s not unreasonable to question if these users carry any political ideology beyond mockery, irony, and bitter cynicism.

In the comments exlrrp posted a meme from Jojo from Jerz:

So let me see if I have this right, the same Republicans who are saying Charlie Kirk was murdered for exercising his freedom of speech because he said things some didn’t like, are punishing people for exercising their freedom of speech because they said things they didn’t like?!”

A cartoon posted by paulpro and created by Dr. Seuss shows the sideshow at a circus. A man is on stage with his jacket labeled “Appeaser.” Between his jacket and trousers are suspenders and no body. The barker says, “And on this platform, the most amazing marvel of the age! He lives; he talks...yet he has no guts!”