Charlie Kirk, influential right-wing commentator and founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated on September 10th. Since then, he has been made into a martyr on the right, and the Trump administration has vowed to crack down on the left, despite details about the shooter’s motivation remaining hazy. Among liberals, there has been a baffling rush to hold Kirk up as a paragon of democracy—despite his participation in the attempt to overthrow the 2020 election—and to demonstrate their own grief at his death. In this episode, editor-in-chief Arielle Angel, contributing editor David Klion, assistant editor Maya Rosen, and contributor Ben Lorber, a researcher of antisemitism and white nationalism, discuss reactions to Kirk’s assassination across the political landscape, the mostly imagined specter of left violence versus the reality, the meaning of Kirk’s deification in Israel, and the ways reactions to his death have become a proxy for conversations about the genocide in Gaza. 

Thanks to Jesse Brenneman for producing and to Nathan Salsburg for the use of his song “VIII (All That Were Calculated Have Passed).”

Articles Mentioned and Further Reading

“Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way,” Ezra Klein, The New York Times

“How to mourn in our polarized age,” Rachel Cohen Booth, Vox

“Charlie Kirk’s Murder Is a Tragedy and a Disaster,” Ben Burgis and Meagan Day, Jacobin

“JD Vance threatens crackdown on ‘far-left’ groups after Charlie Kirk shooting,” Rachel Leingang, The Guardian

Sarah Schulman on the sublimation of the Palestinian genocide into mourning for Charlie Kirk on X

“Light Among the Nations,” Suzanne Schneider, Jewish Currents

“The Group Forging a ‘Judeo-Christian’ Zionism for the New MAGA Age,” Ben Lorber, Jewish Currents

“A Jewish clothing brand is making Charlie Kirk yarmulkes,” PJ Grisar, The Forward

“In Israel, public tributes to Charlie Kirk include a street naming, a mural and a missile in Gaza,” Grace Gilson, JTA

“The Measure of the World,” Claire Schwartz, Jewish Currents

“Since the Hamas attack, Israelis have begun arming themselves the American way,” Jonathan M. Metzel, The Los Angeles Times

Transcript forthcoming.