Charlie Kirk: Overrated/Overhyped?

[erpowers]

In the last few weeks, I have seen and heard many claim that Charlie Kirk was a greatly influential Conservative among young voters. From the very beginning I have thought this sentiment was wrong. I think the media overrated/overhyped Charlie Kirk and his impact on the 2024 Presidential election. First, Vice President Kamala Harris received 54% of the youth vote. Yes, that was a 6% slip, but I do not think that had much to do with Charlie Kirk. I think the decline in the percentage of young voters for VP Harris was more the result of the Israel-Gaza issue and young people refusing to vote than anything Charlie Kirk did during or before the election.

So, what do DUers think? Am I right in thinking that Charlie Kirk was overrated/overhyped? I just do not think Charlie Kirk was one of the main reasons for the results of the 2024 election.

[Jilly_in_VA]

1. I think so

If he hadn't been shot, I'd still think so.

[Codifer]

2. i think,

Charlie is more valuable to the maga dummies dead than he ever could be live.

Hell, mebbe if Jesus would have lived to be 70 years old ..........

Nah...... Jesus left a legacy of truth and dignity.

Charlie would have had a money changing booth in the temple.

[3catwoman3]

33. "Charlie would have had a money changing booth in the temple."

And Jesus would have driven him out.

[EnergizedLib]

3. So, how about those Bears?

That’s all that matters today, not an overkill funeral of a hatemonger.

[chouchou]

4. MAGA nut-jobs were bonkers when Rush died..but then, Hallelujah! ..Charlie Kirk was on the job!.

Now that Charlie is gone, they want to bloat that piece-of-trash to Oscar statis.

[Turbineguy]

5. He seemed to be a skilled debater who could make his opposites look foolish.

To the weak minded who could not differentiate between skilled debate and terrible ideas, he might look like a winner.

[TexasBushwhacker]

7. He was very good "debating" college students

when he was 5 to 10 years older and had been sponsored by a wealthy white man. I'm sure he could afford the best coaches.

[Iris]

16. this

[TexasBushwhacker]

23. He really would have been nothing

without that sponsorship/mentorship. Sad little Nick Fuentes never got that and had to distinguish himself by being more right wing than CK. The Turning Point podcast had over 4 Million followers (on YouTube) Nick Fuentes' "America First" has 1K on YouTube.

[Walleye]

35. One-trick pony

[msongs]

6. who is the most mentioned person today on dems/leftist internet sites? overhyped lol nt

[erpowers]

13. Mentions Do Not Mean Someone is Not Overrated/Overhyped

Just because someone is mentioned a large amount on a site does not mean they are not overrated/overhyped. His being mentioned on this site is due to the fact that he was recently all over the news. That does not mean he had a real impact in politics.

[NewHendoLib]

8. fucking depraved asshole

[struggle4progress]

9. McCoy tells Kirk he's dead

[Beartracks]

10. He's even the most-trending on imdb. wtf?

[JI7]

11. He mostly appealed to those that are already right wing leaning

but he could have helped in getting more of them out to vote instead of not voting.

But what he did was part of the political grift with social media that tends to help Republicans becsuse it favors simplistic bs that appeals to emotion through bigotry.

There are many like him and they get so many views .

[UTUSN]

12. Totally agree, all MAGAt/Fundie pandering. Here's what I re-posted:

About the canonization going on::

This/here has nothing to do with celebrating the murder. In the same way, the fellow murdered, as proved by his extensive public comments, had next to nothing to put him in a category of santification. Disclaimer: All I knew of him before the murder was to have heard his name a few times in the context of his being, vaguely, something of a MAGAt but not even seeing a picture of him and not even curious enough about him to look up anything about him. And, to date, all I have seen is his being featured on MAHER's Club Random, which was enough for me to jump to my conclusions, which are that:

* he wasn't "relatable" (as was balleyhooed after the murder);
* his also balleyhooded "debating" rivals was more like brow-beating the opponent for their surrender/submission;
* his curtailed formal education, not a flaw in itself, showed out as rigidity and lack of curiousity besides gaps of ignorance;
* his "religious" beliefs are just Fundamentalist scripture-based platitudes, not spiritual or scholarly-informed;
* his blind devotion is to run-of-the-mill MAGAtry, no values of public good or service;
* the MAGAt canonization violates, in the governental Civil sense, Separation of church/state, and in the religion sense, blasphemy.

*** So he was basically Fundie-MAGAt, nothing to see there. But on the universal level, he shares the very special status of sharing the fate of the hundreds of persons murdered in the U.S. from refusal to institute reasonable gun control, and on the universal level is a human with whatever specialness that carries (while another view can be that no species is more special than another one).

[oasis]

19. 100% what you describe!

[The Grand Illuminist]

14. He is just flavor of the month.

He will be forgotten in time. Guaranteed.

[Xolodno]

15. Yeah.

His assassination just gave him more publicity. Friend of mine and I were talking, did he actually believe his own bullshit? Or was he just a shock jock? We'll never know. Give it a few more weeks and it will be "who?" Someone else will fill the role, but might be a little less inflamatory. To be honest, surprised something like this didn't happen sooner.

[617Blue]

17. His face looked like a desiccated pumpkin.

[Dulcinea]

18. Right-wing shitstirrers are a dime a dozen.

There'll be another blathering putz to take his place soon enough. And, to me he looked like Butthead of "Beavis & Butthead."

[yardwork]

20. His main message was that women are inferior.

I think he had a lot of influence. He was well-funded and coached, and I think he believed what he said. His message was that women, people of color, and gay and trans people are ruining our country.

His message was that straight Christian white men - who are naturally stronger, smarter, and more competent - were being destroyed by liberals' promoting weaker races, effeminate men, and women.

It's essentially the same century-old message and it resonated with a lot of people during these difficult times.

Kirk reinforced the false American myth of strong white Christian men building this God- given country with the help of their wives, horses and dogs. It's a powerful myth that a lot of Americans want to believe.

[Cosmocat]

21. He absolutely was incredibly influential

A LONG time ago, Ronald Reagen changed the game by pulling the blue collar workers into the the right wing fold by subtly using the dog whistles with his gee golly, aw shucks demeanor. That gave the them the pretense to choose racism, bigotry and hatred over their own best interests. Obviously his big pull came as POTUS, but even before being governor he was a noted right wing commentator - people have shared his record about the evils of socialized medicine long before he became an actual elected official.

Keep in mind that Kirk came into prominence just as the internet grew to prominence, and people, particularly young people were moving in mass away from traditional TV / media into their desired silos online.

SO ... it was harder to see. But, he absolutely was the "star" conservative for the younger generation, leaping over the likes of Shapiro and Fuentes.

Now, someone else commented that by and large his following were children of established republicans. That is true, but he created the community and sense of togetherness for them all - faux christianity as the cover for seeming racism, or simply put white supremecy- and as the other commentator noted, infused it with politics and activated them to actually vote.

And, again, while some on our side struggle to see it, this all has nearly as much appeal to white women as it does white men. Yes, he preached subservience of women to men, but they never feel as though all that shit holds for them. Its like the mob, everyone is full in while knowing their place in things.

I cautioned repeatedly here prior to the election that DT had more support than people thought, because it was very clear if you just looked around you. Here in our modest middle income development, nearly every young family that has moved in over the last half decade are Charlie Kirk types. We came here earlier in the 2000s and while the area is right leaning, we saw a fairly broad mix of people coming in prior to that period.

They aren't MAGA idiots wearing red hats and being all infantile. They are low key, kind of keep to themselves and those who are like minded. But, you can feel it with them. And, I know any others in our area.

Now, of course all their over the top BS about martyring and making him into an America hero is just what they do, now more than ever, and he was a malignant force all along. And, end of the day, it really doesn't make difference because they are going to keep moving along regardless. But, if you can't see these things they sneak up on you, you are surprised or don't know exactly what you are dealing with.

[Iggo]

22. I think he's dead.

[GoCubsGo]

24. I can't help but be reminded of "Ferris Buehler's Day Off."

The part where Ferris calls in with a fake illness, and it turns into a school-wide "Save Ferris" campaign. I can hear Edie McClurg cluelessly saying, "He's a righteous dude," right now. This whole Kirk thing strikes me as a version of that: A movement based on the amplification of a rumor/narrative that has no basis in reality. Of course, that's how the Right has been spreading their shit all along.

[Emile]

25. Little conservative Mormon gun nut, murders

some little right-wing conservative, and half the country for no reason goes bonkers.

Yes, way over the top BS!

[walkingman]

26. The acceptance by so many young people for this hate monger worries me.

[no_hypocrisy]

27. Both. Dan Barker (Freedom from Religion)

would have roundly won any debate with Kirk.

[underpants]

31. He always had home field and heavily edited it.

He had his followers cheering him on. Young debaters might be string against him but there was clear intimidation and nature anxiety. Charlie did it all the time so he was overrated and knew throwing raw meat to the crowd helped him. He then would edit appearances down to only show him “winning”.

He went on the road twice and got his lunch handed to him. One was at Oxford Cambridge and the other with Mehdi Hasan. No part of the one with Hasan ever made it to any of his platforms. None of it.

[underpants]

28. My God, you should see Fox News Facebook feed

At one point last weekend I counted 12 straight posts about Kirk. 18 out of the last 20.

It’s all Kirk and the actual media is scared to death of not following along.

[Phoenix61]

36. Post doesn't equal people. I'm on FB a lot and there

are way more Kirk posts most from what are obviously bots re exact same post from accounts that have few very few post and those are all pictures, and not a single reply to anyone.

[underpants]

39. These were from Fox News officially

Somehow I was offered a top fan badge. I accepted and now it’s THE first item when I check out what people I went to high school are posting

[CincyDem]

29. I'm going to ask a slightly different question. Cui Bono? Who benefits ?

I think he was overhyped and overrated across the broad electorate BUT...among a meaningful and growing segment of the population, as we've seen from this deification, he was "da man".

IMHO, and I don't mean this to be complimentary at all, I think he was on track to be Trump's heir apparent. All the traditional structural stuff would say Vance but his problem is that actually isn't dumb enough to be accepted as Trump's heir.

Trump can rally the hate and the only other voice who seemed to have that microphone was Kirk. He would have turned 35 in October 2028.

Call me crazy but given 2-3 years to keep pitching his hatred and consolidating a power base...I think he was the dark horse for the republican nomination.

So...who benefits from these past couple weeks ? I don't know but if feels like candidates are just front men for one billionaire or another. So...who's the billionaire with the most to win and most to lose if Kirk were to become a contender.

I don't know - weird thoughts but I haven't been able to shake them over the past couple weeks.

[Dave Bowman]

30. He's a useful dead idiot.

[OLDMDDEM]

32. Yes it was and still is.

[struggle4progress]

34. He was another George Lincoln Rockwell

[Klarkashton]

37. Kirk was a contrarian dimwit. He stood in opposition to common sense.

For that he was a champion of defective thought.

[YorkRd]

38. It was very satisfying to see 20 year old Feminist Progressive Tilly Middlebrooks totally destroy Kirk in debate

This Cambridge debate was epic. Tilly Middlehurst is a true working class hero!

?si=6gn05B2iDFTdgZFZ

[Emile]

42. Wow, she kicked ass!

[GreenWave]

40. It could have been a GOP insect and they would have glorified it.

He appears to be a regurgitator incapable of enlightening opinion.

[AStern]

41. The coverage of his death and reaction were unjustified

He may have been a thing in right wing media circles but most people didn't know who he was to begin with.