I am begging y'all to have a SHRED of media literacy. How is speaking about this man's wishy-washiness, his own quotes, his own media, speaking ill of him???
Stay on topic I repeat, Charlie Kirk was free speech political activist and welcomed debate from people he disagreed with. He spoke many truths and also many theories that were not always true or impossible to know if true or not. What is true is that he was a man of faith - that was his truth
He could have been a future conservative president too. What a tragedy he is gone the way he did during free speech debate. I hope his killer is caught . And it’s highly unlikely it is Israel. That is irrational.
Orphans have no parents, so they are not orphaned. Wife is just as bad as he was. But I guess you just disappeared her. She doesn't count. Kids are orphaned now, according to you.
I've been looking through X the last couple of days and what I keep seeing is commentary about Kirk's ability to debate with respect and decorum from both people who disagree and agree with him. I can't remember anyone claiming he was some sort of purveyor of truth. Everyone knows he's a political operative. The nature of of the job inherently involves trade-offs and compromises. The story is that he was assassinated for non-violent political speech. A husband, a father, and a person who lived his life with purpose. So to publish an article that focuses on his lack of truth telling in certain situations as a political operative and to pretend that tons of people have been running around elevating him to some some sort of saint for being a purveyor of truth outside the realm of other political operatives is just contrived click bait.
Was looking for this comment. The people saying he’s a truth teller are fellow traveler conservatives who appreciate that he spread conservative values on campuses. Did anyone actually frame him as a journalist or something similar? Tracey took a shot at a strawman.
What are you talking about? There has been no motive established whatsoever about him being assassinated for non-violent political speech. Charlie only ever punched down on the vulnerable, never up. He never challenged power. He mouthpieced for the corrupt US Empire and got rich in the process. POS.
The contrarian position isn't enlightening, Tracey. The country is fractured and barreling toward a civil war. People are out for blood. Your hot takes are irrelevant. Enjoy the clicks, while you can.
This isn't a hot take, Tracey dove deep into Kirk's history. Why are we celebrating a guy who took billionaire money to propagandize? It's awful he was murdered and even more awful his wife and kids are deprived of Kirk's companionship, but someone needs to push back against the hagiography.
Okay fair enough. I do disagree with Kirk's politics and one man's propagandist is another man's truth teller.
How about this? What sort of personal struggle did Kirk endure on behalf of his views? Was he arrested? Saw personal relationships damaged? From what I see Turning Points USA was well funded. Kirk seemed to dress well, flew first class, and stayed in nice hotels.
Michael Tracey has narrated 2 instances when Kirk changed his positions to obey Trump and his paymasters. This doesn't make him a grifter, but it doesn't elevate him to the stature of a national hero. He was a good advocate for those who retained his services and he probably sincerely believed a lot of his positions. But like Rush Limbaugh, he has no business collecting the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Crazy to me that you yourself came to the conclusion that the Epstein story was an overblown hoax, and yet you hold it against Charlie that he came to the same conclusion by trusting his friend.
That was my favorite thing in the article – the way MT has no use for Kirk coming over to what MT sees as the rational side on Epstein since it was (in MT’s view) just lickspittle obedience rather than an honest evaluation of the evidence. It’s the opposite of the enervating tribalism on every issue that is so ubiquitous.
Both are appropriate in their own way. Kirk was a friend of Trump and they had a shared vision/mission for the country. Having some trust and faith in your leader is a good thing sometimes. Tracey, much to everyone’s chagrin, but ultimately to his credit, marches to no flag and accepts no leaders. I think Trump is a good leader and Kirk was a good man. But we will always need a Michael Traceys around, as much as he annoys the shit out me sometimes.
Good take. I think Tracey needs to up his grooming game or looksmaxx because I swear that’s why so many people write him off. Sometimes he acts/looks like a goober.
Charlie Kirk's views were the kind that frighten me.
I had never heard of Charlie Kirk... Apparently until 2022 he was a secular individual who believed in the separation of church and state who then underwent a reactionary transformation into someone with ideas that more resembled what Chris Hedges describes as dangerous,and warns about In his book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.
This article says these were Kirk's principles..."America will only be put right when it returns to Christian laws or principles. This view of political disagreement is inherently binary. There are those who trust in God and support God’s work to transform society. Then there are those who oppose it. These people are mired in spiritual darkness." ( That would include me)
While deep empathy must be felt for his family and his children, as any human would feel for any other human, murdered... I've heard no one discussing this and that's why I post this article. Charlie Kirk's views were the kind that frighten me.
" Many commentaries on Kirk’s life will focus on his significance as a political activist and the important – some would say decisive – role he played in turning out the youth vote for Trump’s presidential election victory in 2024. But it is important to recognise how significant he had become as a public leader for what a growing number of scholars have referred to as white Christian nationalism.
While there is some variation in political views and theological beliefs among white Christian nationalists, a central, shared conviction is that the US was originally established as a Christian nation. For Christian nationalists, the idea of the separation of church and state is taken to refer only to not having an official state church. The complete separation of Christianity from public institutions is anathema and secular institutions such as public schools and universities are often regarded as hostile ground.
Given their view of America’s original religious calling, many Christian nationalists therefore believe that secular, liberal society is in terminal crisis.
' America will only be put right when it returns to Christian laws or principles.' This view of political disagreement is inherently binary. There are those who trust in God and support God’s work to transform society. Then there are those who oppose it. These people are mired in spiritual darkness."
What are you so afraid of. This nation was founded on Christian principles. Read history man. If it goes so against you. Go join Rosie in Ireland!!! Oh wait there are Christians and Catholics there. Damn man you are lost.
The country was founded as a secular republic, with declared openness to those of other religions than Christianity, or no religion at all.
As President, George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, on 18 August 1790, as follows:
"May the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."
On 9 April 1803 Thomas Jefferson wrote to his friend Joseph Priestley -- himself a freethinker who had emigrated from his native England under charge of atheism -- as follows:
"I had promised some day . . giving my view of the Christian system. . . . I should do justice to the branches of morality they [Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers] have treated well; but point out the importance of those in which they are deficient. I should then take a view of the deism and ethics of the Jews, and show in what a degraded state they were, and the necessity they presented of a reformation.
"I should proceed to a view of the life, character, & doctrines of Jesus, who sensible of incorrectness of their ideas of the Deity, and of morality, endeavored to bring them to the principles of pure deism, and juster notions of the attributes of God, to reform their moral doctrines to the standard of reason, justice & philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of a future state.
"This view [remember, this is Jefferson's own, considered, view] would purposely omit the question of his divinity & even even his inspiration. . . . "
On 31 October 1819 the Author of the Declaration of Independence wrote to another friend, William Short, with the admission:
"As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian."
He spends a paragraph expanding on the meaning and significance of that assertion.
We then have primary source evidence of the secular nature, by the first President, of the Republic, and of the admiration, by the Third one, of his totally non-Christian appreciation of Jesus Christ, and his self-identification as an atheist.
You are the one, my dear Julie Harris, who is in need of reading the pages of history.
Yes, these super scary Christian nationalists marching through our streets and taking over all of our institutions are really super duper scary and stuff!! Won't someone please stop them!!! It's like 1930s Germany all over again!!!
As my mother’s family was persecuted in Germany. You have no fucking idea what you are talking about. Stop making up nonsense! You are insulting my dead relatives!
I read it as sarcasm. Trump is not Hitler and there are not Christian Nationalist Brownshirts marching in our streets. I sorry for your family is loss. (Really, I am.)
"This view of political disagreement is inherently binary. There are those who trust in God and support God’s work to transform society. Then there are those who oppose it. These people are mired in spiritual darkness." " Any less binary, self-righteous, or dogmatic than the view of the Woke toward the non-Woke?
What's astounding to me is that a supposed journalist is so focused on demonizing a political opponent one last time that you've completely failed to notice the diametrically opposed reactions to Charlie's death, and especially the reaction to the huge number of people basically singing ding dong the witch is dead while dancing with glee over Charlie's metaphorical grave.
The mainstream right see Charlie as a guy willing to respectfully debate all comers and who routinely did so on often hostile college campuses. And now he's been permanently silenced most likely by a supporter of the left who bought into their rhetoric that speech itself is violence, and that a violent response to words they don't like is completely justified.
Turns out the party of compassion and inclusivity is anything but.
And the last step in the thought process on the mainstream right is that if progressives that thrilled to off Charlie, that means they're also willing to off the very average joes who think much like Charlie.
They now clearly understand that people who claim words they don't like are violence, are a clear and present danger to free speech itself.
By extension, the right now sees the left not as political opponents, but opponents of the first amendment and democracy itself.
Amd no, that conclusion is not the least bit far fetched.
“The incident will probably now be used to justify clampdowns on organic political exchange and debate”
Uhhh dude. Dont you think the assassination itself did exactly this? I’m getting a little tired of the constant “but the right” hysterics. Every time the left does something horrific all anyone seems to care about is the hypothetical overreaction that the right may or may not engage in as a response. It’s all so tiresome.
This journalistic self-immolation is exactly why I follow you. Never change.
Also, nobody really thinks of him as a “truth-teller;” every fawning tribute speaks to his energy, generosity, persuasive talent, bravery, and outspoken cultural and religious (not political) principles. Sort of a mantle bearer of Glenn Beck you might say.
But he knew his role as the youth mouthpiece, nobody’s made any secret of that, and there’s also nothing wrong with it.
As much as it's possible for anyone to be martyred in the current year, outside of an Isis camp, Charley Kirk was 100% martyred. Or at least, given that we don't know exactly yet for certain why he was murdered, you are 100% wrong to say with certainty that he was not. That does not mean that he was a saint or that he was without fault or that everything he said was true. It simply means that he was murdered specifically because he spoke dangerous, unacceptable truths, which is exactly what he did every day and why he rose to prominence. Whatever else may be true is beside the point. You've jumped the fucking shark here Michael. Tell me where I'm wrong, please.
Honestly, I feel like I've been rage-baited with this turd you've posted today.
If you got shot tomorrow, nobody would even know who you were. Yes, too soon Michael. And, once again, a post that just had to make reference to the Epstein story. This is pathetic. You aren't as smart as you imagine yourself to be. Great stylistic writer, but NOT another penny from this guy for your substack platform. In the words of Matt Walsh, "You are today, CANCELLED!"
Hey! How much have you written about the ONE person who was killed-sorry-murdered on January 6-and the licensed gunman who shot to death an unarmed female…
Lol this is why I enjoy your politics. Defending alleged pedophiles on pedantic grounds and speaking ill (but the harsh truth about what a hack Charlie was) even though he’s barely dead. No niceties. Straight shooter. I enjoy the no-bullshit takes, Michael!
It is really low of you to speak ill of the dead before the body is cold.
Do better.
As it stands it is very difficult to discern the spark of the divine in you.
But hey, at least you kept your progressive credentials in good standing while his widow and orphans cry over his MARTYRED corpse.
I am begging y'all to have a SHRED of media literacy. How is speaking about this man's wishy-washiness, his own quotes, his own media, speaking ill of him???
It’s hard to discern the spark of the divine in the likes of you.
Do better.
Start by refraining from ad hominem attacks. You dishonor Charlie’s memory by degenerating to that level. But then, that's what haters do.
So let go of the hate and debate the policies on their merits.
Stay on topic I repeat, Charlie Kirk was free speech political activist and welcomed debate from people he disagreed with. He spoke many truths and also many theories that were not always true or impossible to know if true or not. What is true is that he was a man of faith - that was his truth
He could have been a future conservative president too. What a tragedy he is gone the way he did during free speech debate. I hope his killer is caught . And it’s highly unlikely it is Israel. That is irrational.
Orphans have no parents, so they are not orphaned. Wife is just as bad as he was. But I guess you just disappeared her. She doesn't count. Kids are orphaned now, according to you.
It especially hard to see in you. A microscope may be indicated, as well as an exorcism.
Why do you hate God as well as man?
Has it occurred to you that the two may be related, as they were in the assassin who martyred Charlie?
I've been looking through X the last couple of days and what I keep seeing is commentary about Kirk's ability to debate with respect and decorum from both people who disagree and agree with him. I can't remember anyone claiming he was some sort of purveyor of truth. Everyone knows he's a political operative. The nature of of the job inherently involves trade-offs and compromises. The story is that he was assassinated for non-violent political speech. A husband, a father, and a person who lived his life with purpose. So to publish an article that focuses on his lack of truth telling in certain situations as a political operative and to pretend that tons of people have been running around elevating him to some some sort of saint for being a purveyor of truth outside the realm of other political operatives is just contrived click bait.
Was looking for this comment. The people saying he’s a truth teller are fellow traveler conservatives who appreciate that he spread conservative values on campuses. Did anyone actually frame him as a journalist or something similar? Tracey took a shot at a strawman.
Beautiful metaphor! Yes Tracy took a close up shot at a straw man. Well done Tracy. You got him.
What are you talking about? There has been no motive established whatsoever about him being assassinated for non-violent political speech. Charlie only ever punched down on the vulnerable, never up. He never challenged power. He mouthpieced for the corrupt US Empire and got rich in the process. POS.
The contrarian position isn't enlightening, Tracey. The country is fractured and barreling toward a civil war. People are out for blood. Your hot takes are irrelevant. Enjoy the clicks, while you can.
This isn't a hot take, Tracey dove deep into Kirk's history. Why are we celebrating a guy who took billionaire money to propagandize? It's awful he was murdered and even more awful his wife and kids are deprived of Kirk's companionship, but someone needs to push back against the hagiography.
Propaganda. Truth. Who decides? You? Tracey?
What is there to "push back" against? Find me a public figure that isn't a propagandist, and I'll tell you what your politics are.
Okay fair enough. I do disagree with Kirk's politics and one man's propagandist is another man's truth teller.
How about this? What sort of personal struggle did Kirk endure on behalf of his views? Was he arrested? Saw personal relationships damaged? From what I see Turning Points USA was well funded. Kirk seemed to dress well, flew first class, and stayed in nice hotels.
Michael Tracey has narrated 2 instances when Kirk changed his positions to obey Trump and his paymasters. This doesn't make him a grifter, but it doesn't elevate him to the stature of a national hero. He was a good advocate for those who retained his services and he probably sincerely believed a lot of his positions. But like Rush Limbaugh, he has no business collecting the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
"Find me a public figure that isn't a propagandist" Michael Tracey. As far as I can tell, he has no agenda other than trying to figure things out.
Crazy to me that you yourself came to the conclusion that the Epstein story was an overblown hoax, and yet you hold it against Charlie that he came to the same conclusion by trusting his friend.
I think Tracey would argue that he came to that conclusion by doing actual journalistic work, while Kirk just took Trump’s word.
That was my favorite thing in the article – the way MT has no use for Kirk coming over to what MT sees as the rational side on Epstein since it was (in MT’s view) just lickspittle obedience rather than an honest evaluation of the evidence. It’s the opposite of the enervating tribalism on every issue that is so ubiquitous.
Both are appropriate in their own way. Kirk was a friend of Trump and they had a shared vision/mission for the country. Having some trust and faith in your leader is a good thing sometimes. Tracey, much to everyone’s chagrin, but ultimately to his credit, marches to no flag and accepts no leaders. I think Trump is a good leader and Kirk was a good man. But we will always need a Michael Traceys around, as much as he annoys the shit out me sometimes.
Good take. I think Tracey needs to up his grooming game or looksmaxx because I swear that’s why so many people write him off. Sometimes he acts/looks like a goober.
I was just thinking the same thing!!
Charlie Kirk's views were the kind that frighten me.
I had never heard of Charlie Kirk... Apparently until 2022 he was a secular individual who believed in the separation of church and state who then underwent a reactionary transformation into someone with ideas that more resembled what Chris Hedges describes as dangerous,and warns about In his book American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.
This article says these were Kirk's principles..."America will only be put right when it returns to Christian laws or principles. This view of political disagreement is inherently binary. There are those who trust in God and support God’s work to transform society. Then there are those who oppose it. These people are mired in spiritual darkness." ( That would include me)
While deep empathy must be felt for his family and his children, as any human would feel for any other human, murdered... I've heard no one discussing this and that's why I post this article. Charlie Kirk's views were the kind that frighten me.
" Many commentaries on Kirk’s life will focus on his significance as a political activist and the important – some would say decisive – role he played in turning out the youth vote for Trump’s presidential election victory in 2024. But it is important to recognise how significant he had become as a public leader for what a growing number of scholars have referred to as white Christian nationalism.
While there is some variation in political views and theological beliefs among white Christian nationalists, a central, shared conviction is that the US was originally established as a Christian nation. For Christian nationalists, the idea of the separation of church and state is taken to refer only to not having an official state church. The complete separation of Christianity from public institutions is anathema and secular institutions such as public schools and universities are often regarded as hostile ground.
Given their view of America’s original religious calling, many Christian nationalists therefore believe that secular, liberal society is in terminal crisis.
' America will only be put right when it returns to Christian laws or principles.' This view of political disagreement is inherently binary. There are those who trust in God and support God’s work to transform society. Then there are those who oppose it. These people are mired in spiritual darkness."
What are you so afraid of. This nation was founded on Christian principles. Read history man. If it goes so against you. Go join Rosie in Ireland!!! Oh wait there are Christians and Catholics there. Damn man you are lost.
The country was founded as a secular republic, with declared openness to those of other religions than Christianity, or no religion at all.
As President, George Washington wrote to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, on 18 August 1790, as follows:
"May the children of the stock of Abraham, who dwell in this land, continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants; while every one shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree, and there shall be none to make him afraid."
On 9 April 1803 Thomas Jefferson wrote to his friend Joseph Priestley -- himself a freethinker who had emigrated from his native England under charge of atheism -- as follows:
"I had promised some day . . giving my view of the Christian system. . . . I should do justice to the branches of morality they [Ancient Greek and Roman philosophers] have treated well; but point out the importance of those in which they are deficient. I should then take a view of the deism and ethics of the Jews, and show in what a degraded state they were, and the necessity they presented of a reformation.
"I should proceed to a view of the life, character, & doctrines of Jesus, who sensible of incorrectness of their ideas of the Deity, and of morality, endeavored to bring them to the principles of pure deism, and juster notions of the attributes of God, to reform their moral doctrines to the standard of reason, justice & philanthropy, and to inculcate the belief of a future state.
"This view [remember, this is Jefferson's own, considered, view] would purposely omit the question of his divinity & even even his inspiration. . . . "
On 31 October 1819 the Author of the Declaration of Independence wrote to another friend, William Short, with the admission:
"As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurian."
He spends a paragraph expanding on the meaning and significance of that assertion.
We then have primary source evidence of the secular nature, by the first President, of the Republic, and of the admiration, by the Third one, of his totally non-Christian appreciation of Jesus Christ, and his self-identification as an atheist.
You are the one, my dear Julie Harris, who is in need of reading the pages of history.
Yes, these super scary Christian nationalists marching through our streets and taking over all of our institutions are really super duper scary and stuff!! Won't someone please stop them!!! It's like 1930s Germany all over again!!!
As my mother’s family was persecuted in Germany. You have no fucking idea what you are talking about. Stop making up nonsense! You are insulting my dead relatives!
Seriously where are Christians marching in the streets. Stop lying!!
I read it as sarcasm. Trump is not Hitler and there are not Christian Nationalist Brownshirts marching in our streets. I sorry for your family is loss. (Really, I am.)
Not at all what I said.
"This view of political disagreement is inherently binary. There are those who trust in God and support God’s work to transform society. Then there are those who oppose it. These people are mired in spiritual darkness." " Any less binary, self-righteous, or dogmatic than the view of the Woke toward the non-Woke?
What's astounding to me is that a supposed journalist is so focused on demonizing a political opponent one last time that you've completely failed to notice the diametrically opposed reactions to Charlie's death, and especially the reaction to the huge number of people basically singing ding dong the witch is dead while dancing with glee over Charlie's metaphorical grave.
The mainstream right see Charlie as a guy willing to respectfully debate all comers and who routinely did so on often hostile college campuses. And now he's been permanently silenced most likely by a supporter of the left who bought into their rhetoric that speech itself is violence, and that a violent response to words they don't like is completely justified.
Turns out the party of compassion and inclusivity is anything but.
And the last step in the thought process on the mainstream right is that if progressives that thrilled to off Charlie, that means they're also willing to off the very average joes who think much like Charlie.
They now clearly understand that people who claim words they don't like are violence, are a clear and present danger to free speech itself.
By extension, the right now sees the left not as political opponents, but opponents of the first amendment and democracy itself.
Amd no, that conclusion is not the least bit far fetched.
“The incident will probably now be used to justify clampdowns on organic political exchange and debate”
Uhhh dude. Dont you think the assassination itself did exactly this? I’m getting a little tired of the constant “but the right” hysterics. Every time the left does something horrific all anyone seems to care about is the hypothetical overreaction that the right may or may not engage in as a response. It’s all so tiresome.
This journalistic self-immolation is exactly why I follow you. Never change.
Also, nobody really thinks of him as a “truth-teller;” every fawning tribute speaks to his energy, generosity, persuasive talent, bravery, and outspoken cultural and religious (not political) principles. Sort of a mantle bearer of Glenn Beck you might say.
But he knew his role as the youth mouthpiece, nobody’s made any secret of that, and there’s also nothing wrong with it.
Oh shut up
As much as it's possible for anyone to be martyred in the current year, outside of an Isis camp, Charley Kirk was 100% martyred. Or at least, given that we don't know exactly yet for certain why he was murdered, you are 100% wrong to say with certainty that he was not. That does not mean that he was a saint or that he was without fault or that everything he said was true. It simply means that he was murdered specifically because he spoke dangerous, unacceptable truths, which is exactly what he did every day and why he rose to prominence. Whatever else may be true is beside the point. You've jumped the fucking shark here Michael. Tell me where I'm wrong, please.
Honestly, I feel like I've been rage-baited with this turd you've posted today.
If you got shot tomorrow, nobody would even know who you were. Yes, too soon Michael. And, once again, a post that just had to make reference to the Epstein story. This is pathetic. You aren't as smart as you imagine yourself to be. Great stylistic writer, but NOT another penny from this guy for your substack platform. In the words of Matt Walsh, "You are today, CANCELLED!"
I think I’m done with you now.
Man you lost me. You are evil
Hey! How much have you written about the ONE person who was killed-sorry-murdered on January 6-and the licensed gunman who shot to death an unarmed female…
Lol this is why I enjoy your politics. Defending alleged pedophiles on pedantic grounds and speaking ill (but the harsh truth about what a hack Charlie was) even though he’s barely dead. No niceties. Straight shooter. I enjoy the no-bullshit takes, Michael!
Suck a dick