Can The Left Have a Kirk? [View all]

https://washingtonspectator.org/can-the-left-have-a-kirk/

https://archive.ph/omZXL



A day after Charlie Kirk’s mega-funeral—which corralled tens of thousands of young people, far right politicians, a roster of Christian Nationalist pastors and an otherwise distractible president, all into an Arizona stadium—political pundits on the left are already wondering: Can we have a Charlie Kirk? If you believe that Kirk’s inflammatory rhetoric towards Black women, trans people, and a whole host of other Americans he openly despised was his main appeal, then you have your answer: No.

But I spent countless hours with Charlie Kirk, his donors, co-workers and members of his loyal fan base while writing my book Raising Them Right, the Untold Story of America’s Ultraconservative Youth Movement and its Plot for Power, a narrative account of how the modern conservative youth movement was birthed; and while I found his hateful rhetoric increasingly distasteful and ultimately very frightening, I don’t actually think hate was his main appeal.



More central I think was Kirk’s understanding of what today’s generation of anxious, rudderless young people want —and need. If the broad—and increasingly hapless—coalition that makes up the American left wants to cultivate a young charismatic personality prepared to spread the pro-democracy, anti-MAGA message, that person will need to follow a few guidelines that Kirk and the multitude of donors who generously supported him understood to be essential. Hate does not have to be part of the equation.

Offer A Road Map

For the modern GOP, Charlie Kirk was a powerful political strategist. But for his young fans, he was first and foremost a motivational speaker, who carried his MAGA message to them through a self-empowering focus on bettering their own lives. Kirk, who had 5.4 million followers on X, did a hefty amount of political ranting about diversity initiatives, overly woke campuses, “sick” gender confused young people, and the war in Gaza – usually blaming some subset of the Democrats and/or minorities whom he spoke of in the cruelest of terms.

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