| From | Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect <[email protected]> |
| Subject | Charlie Kirk’s theocracy |
| Date | September 22, 2025 7:01 PM |
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Will his brutal murder bring Americans together—or create justification for more vilification, vengeance, and violence?View this email in your browser [link removed]
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****SEPTEMBER 22, 2025****
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****Kuttner on TAP****
**Charlie Kirk’s theocracy**
**Will his brutal murder bring Americans together—or create justification for more vilification, vengeance, and violence?**
Until the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk, the alliance between the Christian right, the corporate right, and Trump’s MAGA right was just a marriage of convenience. After all, Donald Trump, serial womanizer, absent worshipper, and narcissistic hater, is a travesty of Christian love and far from a plausible figurehead. But yesterday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, at Kirk’s memorial spectacle, we saw a full fusion of Church and State in a combination revival meeting and Nuremberg rally.
It remains to be seen whether this was a fleeting moment of theocratic glory, or in Kirk’s phrase, a “turning point” with durable political consequences. For more than three hours, speakers including several cabinet members stuck to a fuzzy and brilliantly produced script, rebranding Kirk as someone who cherished open debate and loved his enemies, and above all was Christlike. Some of it was genuinely moving if you suspended disbelief about what Charlie Kirk was actually promoting.
His widow, Erika Kirk, a former Miss Arizona, who is taking over as leader of Turning Point USA, was heartbroken, eloquent, and disciplined—a steel magnolia. She eulogized a model Christian husband whose goal, above all, was to rescue lost boys who were leading aimless and dissolute lives and bring them to Christ and conservatism. “My husband Charlie, he wanted to save young men,” she said, “just like the one who took his life. On the cross, our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” She paused and dabbed at her eyes. “That young man, I forgive him. The answer to hate is not hate, the answer … is love.”
JD Vance followed on: “Because Charlie believed that we were all children of God, he treated everyone with grace … He knew it was right to love others, your neighbor, your interlocutor, your enemy.” Would that Vance, a convert to far-right Catholicism, practiced that brand of Christianity.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explicitly compared Kirk to Christ, adding, “Charlie’s other passion was free speech … He always gave the biggest microphone to the people who were most passionately aligned against him, because he believed that we need to talk to each other.”
To hear several of the speakers invoke Kirk as a martyred champion of free speech, you might have thought this was an ACLU convention. Erika Kirk said, “The First Amendment of our Constitution is the most human amendment … Because when you stop the conversation, when you stop the dialogue, this is what happens.”
Well, yes, but Charlie Kirk was devoted to an administration determined to destroy free speech.
And then, as the closer, Donald Trump spoke.
His scripted remarks were carefully in keeping with the soft airbrushed tone of the afternoon. “He’s a martyr now for American freedom,” Trump said. “I know I speak for everyone here today when I say that none of us will ever forget Charlie Kirk, and neither now will history.” But then Trump, being Trump, could not resist hogging the spotlight and raining on Kirk’s carefully choreographed parade.
Trump kept wandering off-script and promoting his tariffs, his cure for autism, his greatest election victory ever. And at one point, he effectively ruined the halo effect that Kirk’s Christlike martyrdom was supposed to extend to his own presidency. “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them,” Trump said, reading the script. But then he blurted out, “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry. I am sorry, Erika.”
Trump thus blew open the hypocrisy that was so thick in speech after speech in the massive stadium that an innocent observer could almost miss it. Hypocrisy, as La Rochefoucauld said, is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. Vance, Kennedy, and company invoked Christian love in their words, but not in their earthly deeds.
[link removed]
A day later, we are back to reality. Trump continues killing the economy. He is doubling down on using the full force of the state to destroy his opposition. The virtues of free speech were left in Phoenix as the FCC tries to silence Trump’s critics. The lost boys whom Kirk wanted to bring to Christ still have dwindling life prospects that will worsen under Trump. Though it remains to be seen whether high doses of Tylenol should be avoided in pregnancy, the supposed “cure” for autism is another fake.
But the assassination and martyrdom of Charlie Kirk have nonetheless wrong-footed the Democrats and diminished their ability to speak with a compelling and consistent voice to resist Trump’s relentless march to dictatorship. Top Democrats could not bring themselves to point out that Kirk’s murder was an abomination
**and** that Kirk also preached hate.
Chuck Schumer: “Political violence has no place in America. This shooting is horrifying, and I’m praying for Charlie Kirk and his family.”
Hakeem Jeffries: “Political violence is NEVER acceptable. My thoughts and prayers are with Charlie Kirk and his family.”
The Senate passed a resolution by unanimous consent designating October 14, 2025, as a National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk. In the House, Democratic leaders and nearly 100 rank-and-file Democrats joined Republicans to adopt a measure celebrating Kirk on a 310-58 vote. The resolution praised Kirk “as a model for young Americans across the political spectrum” who was known for “engaging in respectful, civil discourse across college campuses, media platforms, and national forums, always seeking to elevate truth, foster understanding, and strengthen the Republic.”
This was dangerous nonsense, yet most Democrats were afraid to oppose it. Our former colleague Jamelle Bouie **was pitch-perfect in this column** [link removed], published September 13. He wrote, “We can mourn Kirk. We can send prayers to his friends and family. We can take stock of the gravity of this event. We can—and should—do all of this and more without pretending he was something, as a public figure, that he was not.”
AOC also got it just right when she said, in refusing to vote for the House resolution, “We should be clear about who Charlie Kirk was: a man who believed that the Civil Rights Act that granted Black Americans the right to vote was a ‘mistake,’ who after the violent attack on Paul Pelosi claimed that ‘some amazing patriot out there’ should bail out his assailant, and accused Jews of controlling ‘not just the colleges—it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it.’”
Charlie Kirk an antisemite? Trump’s crusade against antisemitism somehow missed that.
Here are a few other choice Kirk quotes:
“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”
**—The Charlie Kirk Show, January 23, 2024**
“We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.”
**—The Charlie Kirk Show,**
**April 1, 2024** [link removed]
“The American Democrat Party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.”
**—The Charlie Kirk Show,**
**March 20, 2024** [link removed]
“Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”
**—Charlie Kirk**
**social media post** [link removed]
**, September 8, 2025**
It’s worth recalling that while Jesus of Nazareth preached a gospel of love and gentle compassion and lived accordingly, the Church that was organized in his name carried out sadistic crusades against nonbelievers, especially Jews and Muslims. If Christianity is the revealed word of God, those who reject the word of God must be destroyed.
The Church also engaged in systematic corruption, opportunistic alliances with despotic kings, and centuries of priestly pederasty. Those who have nominated Charlie as a candidate for sainthood invoke the one face of Christianity, while most of them, Trump above all, practice the other.
With the grace of God, this too shall pass; but it is far more likely to pass if our Democratic friends recover their souls and their wits.
**~ ROBERT KUTTNER**
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[link removed]
****SEPTEMBER 22, 2025****
****On the
**Prospect **website****
[link removed]
Capture the Media, Control the Culture? [link removed]
Trump’s attack on Jimmy Kimmel helps spotlight an even bigger problem.
**BY PAUL STARR** [link removed]
[link removed]
Clamoring to Tax the Rich [link removed]
In Berkeley, New York, Paris, and Vatican City, it’s become central to political battles—and religious concerns.
**BY HAROLD MEYERSON** [link removed] [link removed]
[link removed]
Down and Out on the Crypto Frontier [link removed]
In Wyoming, the Delaware of cryptocurrency, industry players celebrated their fortunes and said everyone will benefit. But workers haven’t seen it.
**BY WHITNEY CURRY WIMBISH** [link removed] [link removed]
****Kuttner on TAP****
**Charlie Kirk’s theocracy**
**Will his brutal murder bring Americans together—or create justification for more vilification, vengeance, and violence?**
Until the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk, the alliance between the Christian right, the corporate right, and Trump’s MAGA right was just a marriage of convenience. After all, Donald Trump, serial womanizer, absent worshipper, and narcissistic hater, is a travesty of Christian love and far from a plausible figurehead. But yesterday at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, at Kirk’s memorial spectacle, we saw a full fusion of Church and State in a combination revival meeting and Nuremberg rally.
It remains to be seen whether this was a fleeting moment of theocratic glory, or in Kirk’s phrase, a “turning point” with durable political consequences. For more than three hours, speakers including several cabinet members stuck to a fuzzy and brilliantly produced script, rebranding Kirk as someone who cherished open debate and loved his enemies, and above all was Christlike. Some of it was genuinely moving if you suspended disbelief about what Charlie Kirk was actually promoting.
His widow, Erika Kirk, a former Miss Arizona, who is taking over as leader of Turning Point USA, was heartbroken, eloquent, and disciplined—a steel magnolia. She eulogized a model Christian husband whose goal, above all, was to rescue lost boys who were leading aimless and dissolute lives and bring them to Christ and conservatism. “My husband Charlie, he wanted to save young men,” she said, “just like the one who took his life. On the cross, our Savior said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” She paused and dabbed at her eyes. “That young man, I forgive him. The answer to hate is not hate, the answer … is love.”
JD Vance followed on: “Because Charlie believed that we were all children of God, he treated everyone with grace … He knew it was right to love others, your neighbor, your interlocutor, your enemy.” Would that Vance, a convert to far-right Catholicism, practiced that brand of Christianity.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. explicitly compared Kirk to Christ, adding, “Charlie’s other passion was free speech … He always gave the biggest microphone to the people who were most passionately aligned against him, because he believed that we need to talk to each other.”
To hear several of the speakers invoke Kirk as a martyred champion of free speech, you might have thought this was an ACLU convention. Erika Kirk said, “The First Amendment of our Constitution is the most human amendment … Because when you stop the conversation, when you stop the dialogue, this is what happens.”
Well, yes, but Charlie Kirk was devoted to an administration determined to destroy free speech.
And then, as the closer, Donald Trump spoke.
His scripted remarks were carefully in keeping with the soft airbrushed tone of the afternoon. “He’s a martyr now for American freedom,” Trump said. “I know I speak for everyone here today when I say that none of us will ever forget Charlie Kirk, and neither now will history.” But then Trump, being Trump, could not resist hogging the spotlight and raining on Kirk’s carefully choreographed parade.
Trump kept wandering off-script and promoting his tariffs, his cure for autism, his greatest election victory ever. And at one point, he effectively ruined the halo effect that Kirk’s Christlike martyrdom was supposed to extend to his own presidency. “He did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them,” Trump said, reading the script. But then he blurted out, “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent, and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry. I am sorry, Erika.”
Trump thus blew open the hypocrisy that was so thick in speech after speech in the massive stadium that an innocent observer could almost miss it. Hypocrisy, as La Rochefoucauld said, is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. Vance, Kennedy, and company invoked Christian love in their words, but not in their earthly deeds.
[link removed]
A day later, we are back to reality. Trump continues killing the economy. He is doubling down on using the full force of the state to destroy his opposition. The virtues of free speech were left in Phoenix as the FCC tries to silence Trump’s critics. The lost boys whom Kirk wanted to bring to Christ still have dwindling life prospects that will worsen under Trump. Though it remains to be seen whether high doses of Tylenol should be avoided in pregnancy, the supposed “cure” for autism is another fake.
But the assassination and martyrdom of Charlie Kirk have nonetheless wrong-footed the Democrats and diminished their ability to speak with a compelling and consistent voice to resist Trump’s relentless march to dictatorship. Top Democrats could not bring themselves to point out that Kirk’s murder was an abomination
**and** that Kirk also preached hate.
Chuck Schumer: “Political violence has no place in America. This shooting is horrifying, and I’m praying for Charlie Kirk and his family.”
Hakeem Jeffries: “Political violence is NEVER acceptable. My thoughts and prayers are with Charlie Kirk and his family.”
The Senate passed a resolution by unanimous consent designating October 14, 2025, as a National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk. In the House, Democratic leaders and nearly 100 rank-and-file Democrats joined Republicans to adopt a measure celebrating Kirk on a 310-58 vote. The resolution praised Kirk “as a model for young Americans across the political spectrum” who was known for “engaging in respectful, civil discourse across college campuses, media platforms, and national forums, always seeking to elevate truth, foster understanding, and strengthen the Republic.”
This was dangerous nonsense, yet most Democrats were afraid to oppose it. Our former colleague Jamelle Bouie **was pitch-perfect in this column** [link removed], published September 13. He wrote, “We can mourn Kirk. We can send prayers to his friends and family. We can take stock of the gravity of this event. We can—and should—do all of this and more without pretending he was something, as a public figure, that he was not.”
AOC also got it just right when she said, in refusing to vote for the House resolution, “We should be clear about who Charlie Kirk was: a man who believed that the Civil Rights Act that granted Black Americans the right to vote was a ‘mistake,’ who after the violent attack on Paul Pelosi claimed that ‘some amazing patriot out there’ should bail out his assailant, and accused Jews of controlling ‘not just the colleges—it’s the nonprofits, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it.’”
Charlie Kirk an antisemite? Trump’s crusade against antisemitism somehow missed that.
Here are a few other choice Kirk quotes:
“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”
**—The Charlie Kirk Show, January 23, 2024**
“We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.”
**—The Charlie Kirk Show,**
**April 1, 2024** [link removed]
“The American Democrat Party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.”
**—The Charlie Kirk Show,**
**March 20, 2024** [link removed]
“Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”
**—Charlie Kirk**
**social media post** [link removed]
**, September 8, 2025**
It’s worth recalling that while Jesus of Nazareth preached a gospel of love and gentle compassion and lived accordingly, the Church that was organized in his name carried out sadistic crusades against nonbelievers, especially Jews and Muslims. If Christianity is the revealed word of God, those who reject the word of God must be destroyed.
The Church also engaged in systematic corruption, opportunistic alliances with despotic kings, and centuries of priestly pederasty. Those who have nominated Charlie as a candidate for sainthood invoke the one face of Christianity, while most of them, Trump above all, practice the other.
With the grace of God, this too shall pass; but it is far more likely to pass if our Democratic friends recover their souls and their wits.
**~ ROBERT KUTTNER**
Follow Robert Kuttner on Bluesky [link removed]
[link removed]
To receive this newsletter directly in your inbox, click here to subscribe [link removed]
**Click to Share This Newsletter**
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
[link removed]
The American Prospect, Inc., 1225 I Street NW, Suite 600, Washington, DC xxxxxx, United States
Copyright (c) 2025 The American Prospect. All rights reserved.
To manage your newsletter preferences, use our preference management page [link removed].
To unsubscribe from all American Prospect emails, including newsletters, follow this link to unsubscribe [link removed].
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