The national gaslighting about Charlie Kirk

Less than five hours after Charlie Kirk was fatally shot, MSNBC fired its senior political analyst Matthew Dowd, in part for saying that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.” The broadcast giant issued a statement calling Dowd’s words “inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable.” Most people would call them “common sense.”

From the minute that videos of Kirk being shot began circulating online, consequences starting raining down—for anyone who responded to the killing with context, nuance, or dark humor. At least six people have lost their jobs. They include Dowd, a sports reporter, two educators, and writer Gretchen Felker-Martin, whose entire DC Comics series Red Hood was cancelled after she posted “Thoughts and prayers you Nazi bitch” and “Hope the bullet’s okay after touching Charlie Kirk.” Ironically, these firings have taken place at the same time as Kirk has been celebrated as a warrior for free speech.

His death is being treated with the pomp and circumstance of a politician. Since when have American flags been lowered to half-mast for a ragebait YouTuber? Why would a podcaster who never held office deserve a Capitol monument? And why are elected Democrats and institutions participating in and encouraging this?

Over my years of covering influencers like Kirk, it has always struck me that Democratic institutions fail to understand these people. In the beginning of internet history, institutions didn’t take them seriously at all. In the past decade, they’ve been forced to reckon with the power of online influence. But they still don’t get it. While conservatives like Kirk have long weaponized social media in their favor, many Democrats are just now realizing that YouTube is more influential than CNN.

But I don’t think the officials and journalists praising Kirk’s legacy have actually done the work to parse what that legacy is. Instead, they’re responding based on Kirk’s popularity and prominence on the right and legitimizing his positions and playbook in real time. I’ve seen this play out with other influencers countless times. They get millions of dollars in sponsorships from major companies that never vetted their content. They appear alongside mainstream celebrities who barely know who they are. Their behavior may be unconscionable, but the media gatekeepers aren’t watching Twitch for eight hours a day to see it. It’s a vibes-based kind of power, one that has paved the way for online violence like the kind Kirk trafficked in to become offline violence. Censoring that truth, like when Dowd was fired for saying it, only ensures that the violence will continue. And it already has.

If you just listened to broadcast news coverage of Kirk’s death and looked at Instagram stories about it from people you went to high school with, you’d think he was a wholesome young father who rose to fame in the modern conservative movement by engaging in good faith debate with college students. Of course, that whitewashing of Kirk’s legacy paints a largely inaccurate portrait.

Kirk may have pretended to be in favor of free speech, but he actually chilled speech by creating lists of educators practicing wrongthink for his followers to threaten and harass. Many of the educators who were targeted by Kirk were Black or trans, and many of the people who have faced the harshest consequences for making fun of his death—or simply explaining who he actually was—belong to the marginalized groups he sought to oppress.

Dr. Stacey Patton, an expert in race and childhood, was targeted on Kirk’s “Professor Watchlist.” She posted a statement yesterday on what that entailed and what Kirk’s legacy truly wrought—”He normalized violence. He curated it, monetized it, and sicced it on anyone who dared to puncture his movement’s lies.”

“For weeks my inbox and voicemail were deluged. Mostly white men spat venom through the phone: ‘bitch,’ ‘cnt,’ ‘n***r.’ They threatened all manner of violence,” Patton wrote. “And I am not unique. Kirk’s Watchlist has terrorized legions of professors across this country. Women, Black faculty, queer scholars, basically anyone who challenged white supremacy, gun culture, or Christian nationalism suddenly found themselves targets of coordinated abuse. Some received death threats. Some had their jobs threatened. Some left academia entirely.”

Conveniently left out of the mainstream narrative about Kirk are some of the things he actually said and supported: he viewed Black people as less qualified and trustworthy because of the color of their skin. He undermined equal rights. He said he would force his daughter to give birth to her rapist’s baby. He suggested that doctors who provide healthcare to trans people should be executed by the state. He said that gun violence like the kind that ended his life was a necessary sacrifice for the Second Amendment. Kirk’s literal last words were racist and transphobic rhetoric.

In the wake of Kirk’s death, more political violence has already commenced, and it’s hurting the kind of people Kirk targeted. At least seven HBCUs (historically Black colleges and universities) have received violent threats, and several have cancelled classes and locked down as a result. Far-right influencers and insurrectionists have spread calls for revenge and civil war. A list of people who supposedly celebrated the shooting (including some who definitely did not) have been receiving death and rape threats. And who is getting punished for all of this? Journalists, writers, and anyone who isn’t afraid to speak truth to power.

Bizarrely, people all over the political spectrum have rushed to hold up Kirk as a martyr for freedom and civility, two things he actually opposed in life. When a man invaded Nancy Pelosi’s home and beat her husband with a hammer until his skull fractured, Kirk called for the attacker to be bailed out of jail. If you take a scroll through Kirk’s YouTube channel, you’ll see that he used “debate” as a pretense to harass and bully his political targets. The idea that Kirk was practicing politics the “right way,” as Ezra Klein wrote for The New York Times, is the idea that anyone who isn’t a conservative white man should have to live in silence and fear of retribution. It’s the idea that censorship by threats of force is the way to conduct dialogue.

And that’s exactly what is happening, all while mainstream pundits claim the opposite. People who glorify Israel’s genocide of Palestinians, who celebrated the fatal shooting of climate protestors, and who voted for the deaths of children in federal custody are being told their worldview is peaceful and correct while anyone who identifies Kirk’s hateful, violent legacy is divisive and wrong. On X, numerous far-right accounts bemoaning the left’s response to Kirk’s death have received a “This you?” callout in the form of viral quote-posts with their own glorification of murder: some of them had previously called for pro-Palestinian activists to be “shot on sight,” for the murder of Kamala Harris, and for cheering on the suicide of a trans teen. The idea that these people are right and Dowd and Felker-Martin are wrong is a form of gaslighting—a pattern of manipulation that takes place during abuse, which includes lying and distorting the truth, blaming victims, and minimizing logical emotional responses.

Some conservative figures have continued the gaslighting with the idea that Bluesky, which is considered the primary X alternative for people on the left, is fomenting violent celebration of Kirk’s death. As someone who posts on Bluesky exclusively but monitors X closely, this is blatantly false. The culture on Bluesky is way more toned down than the culture on X. I have seen posts on X over the past two days with hundreds of thousands of likes celebrating and mocking Kirk’s death. There is not anything comparable on Bluesky. And yet, Bluesky has chosen to crack down on anyone who has anything less than positive to say about Kirk’s death, deleting posts with sentiments as inoffensive as “Charlie Kirk died at 31 I’m still alive and beautiful at 32.” Bluesky even temporarily suspended journalist Nathan Grayson for writing “rest in piss.”

This kind of censorship only extends in one direction, and it directly inflames conservative rhetoric and violence. When institutions carry out the goals of far-right harassment projects, it only incentivizes more right-wing harassment, both online and off. And the cycle continues. The right incites violence and the left gets blamed and punished for that violence.

It’s all a part of the broader DARVO or blame-shifting at the heart of both abuse and authoritarianism. Only the victims are punished, while the perpetrators continue to be emboldened. Kirk’s legacy wasn’t peaceful debate—it was smuggling far-right talking points into the mainstream with a veneer of legitimacy. In death, he’s accomplishing the same thing. And the most vulnerable targets of his bigotry are already paying the price.

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