The Case Of Charlie Kirk

On September 11, Charlie Weimers, a Swedish Member of the European Parliament and active within the European Conservatives and Reformists Group, rose up during a Parliamentary session and asked for a minute of silence to honour the memory of Charlie Kirk, who the day before had been shot and killed during a political meeting at the Utah Valley University in the U.S.

“Madam President, dear colleagues, the murder of political activist Charlie Kirk, a husband, loving father and patriot has shocked the world. We must strongly condemn political violence and rhetoric that incites violence. Will you stand with me in reflection and prayer in his honour, and I yield the rest of my time for a moment of silence.”

Charlie Weimers began his political career as a member of the Swedish Chrisitan Democrat Party, but later switched to the Sweden Democrats, a nationalist, right-wing populist party, which in spite of efforts to tune it down finds its roots in Neo-Nazi fringe organizations. It is now Sweden’s second largest political party with more than 20 percent of the electorate behind it.

There is nothing wrong in condemning murder political violence and defending freedom of speech, but this cannot hinder us from scrutinizing who is canonized as a victim of radical aggression.

Charlie Kirk was 33 years old when he was murdered, leaving a wife and two small children behind. He had admitted that when he in 2012 started Turning Point USA, which eventually would become a rich and powerful organization, he had “no money, no connections and no idea of what I was doing.”

At that time, Kirk had dropped out of college and been rejected by The U.S. West Point Military Academy. Nevertheless, he had rhetorical gifts for countering progressive ideas, being sensitive about cultural tensions, and endowed with an aptitude for making provocative declarations that resonated with frustrated college audiences, who followed and agreed with his web postings.

Kirk’s frequent college rallies eventually attracted tens of thousands of young voters, as well as the attention and financial support of conservative leaders.US President Donald Trump was not wrong when he declared that:’The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.’

After his death Kirk has been praised for showing up at campuses where he talked with anyone who would approach him. Conservative journalists have declared him to be one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. Kirk’s message was readily embraced by youngsters who accepted his view that Democrats had spent hundreds of billions of dollars on illegal immigrants and foreign nations, while the young “lost generation” of the U.S. had to pinch their pennies, but would not be able to own a home, never marry, and even be forced to work until they died, abused and childless.

However, he also gave them hope, telling these unfortunate youngsters that they did not have to stay poor and accept being worse off than their parents. They just had to avoid supporting corrupt political leaders, who were lying to them only to take advantage of their votes.

Kirk assured his young audience that it is an undeniable fact that cultural identity is disappearing, while sexual anarchy, crime and decadence reign unabated, private property is a thing of the past, and a ruling “liberal” class controls everything. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, was probably right when she said that Kirk had inspired millions of young people “to get involved in politics and fight for our nation’s conservative values.”

Kirk allied his Turning Point USA not to any poor radical fringe groups, but to conservative, wealthy donors and influencers. He preached a “Christian Message” well adapted to several members of such groups, declaring that Turning Point USA was dedicated to “recruiting pastors and other church leaders to be active in local and national political issues.”

Kirk fervently defended the 2nd Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, i.e. “The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed “, declaring that it was worth “a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can keep a Second Amendment which protect our other God-given rights”.

However, Kirk was not happy about the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed “discrimination based on race, colour, religion, sex, or national origin in employment, education, and public accommodations.” He stated that the Civil Rights Act was a “huge mistake” and declared that if the majority of Americans were asked if they respected the Civil Rights Act the answer would have been a “no”. Adding the caveat that “I could be wrong, but I think I’m right.”

Undoubtedly, there was a racist ingredient in Kirk’s ideology. He did for example state that the concept of white privilege was a myth and a “racist lie”. In October 2021, he launched an Exposing Critical Racism Tour to numerous campuses and other institutions, to “combat racist theories”, by which he meant the propagation of an understanding of the relationships between social conceptions of race and ethnicity, social and political laws and mass media, all of which Kirk considered to be propaganda and an unfounded brainchild of liberal Democrats. He blamed the DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) programmes for threatening U.S. competitiveness and security, even claiming that upon sitting in a plane and realising that the pilot was “Black”, he could not help thinking “’Hey, I hope he’s qualified”.

Like most populist, “patriotic”, European right-wing political parties, not the least the Sweden Democrats, though they nowadays try to hide it more carefully than before, Kirk endorsed the so-called “great replacement theory”. This way of thinking assumes that powerful, nefarious actors, for some obscure reason, are trying to replace an upright indigenous, generally white-skinned population with immigrants of “doubtfl origin”. Kirk did not even hesitate to state that Democrats supposedly wanted to make the U.S. “less white”.

Kirk also argued that humans have no significant effect on global climate change and joined antivax activists by, among other statements, calling the mandatory requirements for students to get the COVID-19 vaccine “medical apartheid”. Kirk was outspoken when it came to claim that Trump’s loss in the presidential elections of 2022 was due to fraud, supported the “stop the steal” movement and denied that the violent attacks on the Capitol were an insurrection.

Opposing political violence and supporting free speech does not mean that you have to sanctify a victim like Charlie Kirik, who after all was a racist and an incendiary agitator against underprivileged groups, as well as degraded scientists who warned against climate change and vaccine denial.

It is not defensible that such a voice, no matter how despicable it might be, is silenced by violence and murder. However, we cannot refrain from pointing out the great harm the kind of agitation Kirk devoted himself to can cause. As an educator, I have often been forced to experience how children suffer from racism and bigotry preached and condoned by influencers like Charlie Kirk. Accordingly, to sanctify such persons and tolerate their prejudiced ideology is hurtful and dangerous.

Furthermore, let us not be fooled by deceitful propaganda trying to convince us that Charlie Kirk’s so-called “debates” were neither aggressive, nor mendacious. They were brutally provocative; opponents were shouted down, or belittled. The rhetoric was hateful, contempt was poured out over women, Black people, immigrants and Muslims, queer and trans people. Liberals were branded as enemies, science demeaned.

And, yes – Charlie Kirk turned to young people, who felt frustrated, marginalized and despised, telling them that he wanted to give them hope and a will to fight injustice. But at what price? Based on what truth? Incitement to violence and contempt for humanity might be safeguarded in the name of free speech, but it should never be accepted and defended. It must be attacked through an unconstrained press based on facts, a well-founded science, and an unfaltering respect for human rights.

Editors Note -Below are some of Kirk’s quotes culled by Chris Stein in The Guardian:

If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024

If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022

If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024

If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.– The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023

The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024

We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 April 2024

I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023

America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.– The Charlie Kirk Show, 22 August 2025

The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.– The Charlie Kirk Show, 20 March 2024

America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.– The Charlie Kirk Show, 30 April 2025

Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.– Charlie Kirk social media post, 8 September 2025

There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.– The Charlie Kirk Show, 6 July 2022

Inter Press Service