The Context is the Content.

The defense of Charlie Kirk’s legacy is that criticisms of his controversial statements are made in bad faith. The argument is that his comments are clipped and taken out of context, designed to mislead those unfamiliar with his work into forming a negative opinion.

As someone who knew little of Kirk before his death, I was introduced to him through these very clips. One statement, in particular, stood out: his assertion that the Civil Rights Movement was a “mistake.” Hold my beer, because I cannot imagine any context in which declaring the Civil Rights Movement a mistake would be justifiable. The only mistake associated with that era was the government’s role in the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and that was not the context Kirk was referencing.

These statements weren’t clipped to distort the context; they were clipped because of the context. Think about it: most people have only heard a small fraction of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. Yet, from the single line about his dream for black and white children to one day unite, we understand the entire speech’s theme of inclusion. We don’t need to hear the full hour to grasp its meaning. For a great communicator like Charlie Kirk—someone who could articulate his thoughts with precision—we shouldn’t have to listen to a two-hour debate to understand what he meant. What he said is exactly how it sounded.

Ideology and Injustice

Watching Kirk’s debate at the University of Tennessee, my hometown, I found a rare point of agreement: his stance that biological women shouldn’t share locker rooms with biological men. As a father, I do not want my daughter competing against biological males or imagine her sustaining an injury in that scenario. But from that point of consensus, the conversation quickly pivoted to a defense of his political cult.

When asked if MAGA is a cult, Kirk deflected. Yet, from an outside perspective, the movement displays characteristics of one, where loyalty to a leader often supersedes all else. January 6, 2021, is a prime example. Thousands descended on the Capitol, fueled by the singular belief that the election was stolen because Donald Trump said so. Kirk later argued for pardoning the rioters, claiming they were denied due process and held in “gulag-style” conditions.

But this concern for justice appears selective. Kirk never leveraged his platform to condemn the inhumane conditions at immigration detention centers. The silence suggests a troubling double standard: are due process and humane treatment only for those who share your political ideology?

Then his argument that some rioters were non-violent—like the woman who simply walked in and prayed—ignores a fundamental lesson: you are judged by the company you keep. Whether you pray or piss on someone’s desk, the only purpose of being at the Capitol that day was to overturn the election. While punishments should fit the crime, the intent to participate in a criminal act carries its own culpability. If January 6th had been a protest led by left-wing activists or Black Lives Matter, would Charlie Kirk have championed their right to due process? The swift and forceful response to other protests suggests not. Trump’s pardons were not a correction of injustice; they were a reward for loyalty.

A Limited Perspective

Kirk’s commentary on the Black community was stereotypical of someone who grew up in a sheltered worldview. He reduced systemic issues to individual choices—a choice to commit crime, a choice to do drugs. This is an overly simplistic explanation that ignores the complex socioeconomic factors at play. It’s a lazy argument that dismisses a community’s struggles to get back to more “important” things. It sounds like the opinion of someone who never loved someone who went to jail or did drugs. Ask most people who have a loved one addicted to drugs and they wouldn’t say the person just woke up one day and chose drugs. They would give you a story on how circumstances, situations, and choices led to their addiction. And reducing crime and drugs to choices reduces empathy. 

For a “martyr of Christ,” Jesus didn’t tell the adulterous woman that she chose to sleep with a married man therefore, she deserved her stoning. 

Growing up in Arlington Heights, a Chicago suburb with a Black population of less than 2%, Kirk’s perspective was inevitably shaped by a lack of diversity. Where did he get his information about the Black community? It seems it was from sources that already confirmed his biases, especially given his dismissal of works like “The 1619 Project” as mere left-wing propaganda.

Kirk also used this blame rhetoric with abortions. He argued that people know that sex makes babies and if you don’t want a baby then you don’t have to have sex before marriage. But Kirk never advocated for more Sexual Health training.

I don’t agree with women who get abortions all willy-nilly, but it’s also not my place to take away that right. And I cannot police peoples’ reasoning for their rights. Just as Trump cannot police the 1st Amendment just because he doesn’t like what people say about him.

The Method of a Polemicist

Charlie Kirk was not a philosopher seeking truth; he was a skilled debater built to win arguments. After just one semester of college, he founded Turning Point USA at 18, limiting his exposure to the diverse viewpoints that higher education can offer. 

How could he learn when his events were filled with cheering supporters, ready to applaud every punchline? He debated nervous college students, who struggled to formulate their thoughts in front of their peers. He controlled the microphone and the clock, deciding when a topic had been discussed enough. People often noted his respectful tone, but politeness is not the same as intellectual honesty. Being kind does not negate the laughter from a partisan crowd at your opponent’s expense. And for all his campus tours, Kirk never visited a single HBCU.

Ultimately, people loved Kirk because his style was a polished departure from the political ugliness of the last decade, and because he quoted the Bible beautifully. But his message was not one of inclusion. His viewpoints did not encourage young people to come together; they encouraged young men to see empathy as a weakness and to rally behind a single political banner. He was a gifted speaker, but the gospel he preached was one of division because of his literal interpretation of the bible and his MAGA ideologies.