Sparks fly from spark machines as Erika Kirk steps out on stage at Charlie Kirk’s memorial with TPUSA in Phoenix. Thousands of supporters cheer out at State Farm Stadium, showing support for the late husband’s widow. This woman, the wife of a man who was publicly executed. A man who had blood squirting out of his neck like a breached water balloon as his lifeless body fell back against the ground – a man whose entire life’s work had been reduced to a shock video, stood atop the stage. Her dry, tearless eyes gazed upon the crowd of thousands of supporters. Erika, the well-connected heir to her husband’s throne, gave a speech to millions across the country, announcing she had forgiven her husband’s assassin. All of this took place for the death of a podcaster who argued with teenagers for a living.
Charlie Kirk wasn’t a national hero; he wasn’t a brave revolutionary or even a respectable man; he was an internet personality whose claim to fame was resonating with the reactionary backwater of American society. His legacy was arguing with teenagers and getting murdered by an avid Discord user. The only reason he got even a fraction of the recognition he did after his death was because of the graphic nature of his assassination. If he had announced he had stage five cancer and died the next month, there would’ve been a small ceremony, and that’s it.
Charlie Kirk was a laughing stock turned martyr by the reactionary wing of the liberal media. The mourning of a man who did nothing but spew grotesque chauvinism is the peak of American self-righteousness. Kirk’s death is the embodiment of first-world indifference to imperialism. Only when reactionaries get the tiniest fraction of the violence they direct at the third world, do they suddenly sing a tune of peace and civil debate.
I don’t think I’ve seen a better example of selective outrage this decade. Such a reaction for such a feeble man, but radio silence to the countless deaths in foreign countries because of our tax dollars. You post memorials on your story for a reactionary podcaster but not for lost lives directly caused by the system he vigorously upheld, until his last breath. Only condemning the violence when you see it happen on your for you page is the peak of compliance.
Maybe if they showed footage of the hooded man, or footage of American forces gang raping an Iraqi teenager, they’d change their tune. Or ongoing aggression against Venezuela, or police violence so predictable that people commit suicide with it. Speaking of suicide, why don’t they speak about the possible lynching in Mississippi, which was ruled a suicide? Maybe even more locally, the hundreds of rotting bodies on Kensington Avenue. Maybe, just maybe, if they saw some of the violence with their own eyes, they’d have a change of heart.
But they won’t, because right now, America’s reactionary masses are too comfortable to care. What they fail to realize is that as American society continues to fall into decadence, suburbia, too, will fall into crisis. The same arrogance that once sent bombs abroad, the same boot worn by your grandfather, is now returning home to stomp on your face. When American decadence comes to fruition, it won’t be the battle of Baghdad or Damascus. It’ll be the Battle of Miami, Boston, Philadelphia, and only then will American hubris finally meet consequence.
