https://www.democracynow.org/2025/9/11/charlie_kirk_political_violence_jeff_sharlet
JEFF SHARLET: Yes, he was a young guy. He decided to drop out of college. I think a lot of people make a lot of that, and he couldn’t even go to college. What the guy could do was organize and charm rich, old white men and raise money. And he did it. And he grew and grew it, and then took a turn toward Christian nationalism. It had originally been largely secular. It had originally been somewhat indifferent to or agnostic on LGBTQ+ rights. But he would see the moment. He was very good at — like his, you know, his hero, Trump — at sort of tacking ever rightward, wherever the current would take him. He built it to this behemoth that has chapters on hundreds and hundreds of college campuses.
I think it’s worth noting, because you’re seeing some people saying, “Well, you know, I disagree with what he said, but he was a champion of free speech. He died debating.” Look, the fact that he was murdered doesn’t change the fact that he also — he was an opponent of free speech. There’s no other way to cut it, for a man who created something called Professor Watchlist, School Board Watchlist, to name and frighten people from teaching, who advocated restrictions on what school teachers could teach, who called for — and there’s a clip you can see online — who called for the televised public executions, and he had a pretty broad category in mind. But what was really chilling was he wanted this to be required viewing for children. And you can look at this clip, and you can see his colleagues. They’re sort of trolling, but Kirk, again and again, pulls it back to seriousness, and he says, “No, no, no, this isn’t a joke. This has to be a holy experience, a teaching experience for children, watching enemies be killed.” That is not a champion of free speech.
Much more at the link
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