September 12, 2025 • 35 mins
Charlie Kirk built his career by debating students and spreading rhetoric that was too often dismissed as “spirited debate.”
Now, in the wake of his death, politicians and media outlets are rushing to rewrite his legacy. In this episode, Bridget digs into what Kirk really stood for, why his words mattered, and why violence doesn’t erase bigotry.
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridgett and this is
there Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
So if I sound a little bit out of it,
it's because it's been a very long week. I suspect
that it's probably true for you wherever you're listening. I
think we could all use a week where things just
feel a little bit normal. I'm not even asking for
good frankly, I'm just asking for normal. But that week
is not this week. So I wanted to talk a
(00:42):
little bit about what is going on with Charlie Kirk.
So I'll tell you the broad strokes of what's happening,
and then I want to get into my main point,
which is what the reaction has been like and what
I think it says about where we're at as a culture. So,
in case you have not heard, this week, thirty one
year old conservative right wing activist Charlie Kirk huge trump
(01:04):
ally was shot and killed during a campus debate at
Utah Ballet University in Utah. Law enforcement initially released some
pretty like unhelpful videos and images of a suspect, but
because notably everybody who might have known what they're doing
at the FBI was systematically pushed out of the FBI,
people like Matab Sayed, who was pushed out of the
(01:27):
Utah FBI in July because she was not a good fit,
along with a bunch of other FBI officials as part
of a purge. Because of all that, the FBI and
law enforcement in Utah, we're basically like, yeah, we have
no leads whatsoever, we have no helpful information. We're just
looking for a white guy in Utah, which, yeah, if
you've been to Utah, not's the most helpful. Just this morning,
(01:47):
as I was sitting down to record, I saw news
that they do have the suspect in custody. Our FBI
director Cash Pattel attended a press conference but did not speak. Frankly,
he just looked very much in over his head. There
is this video I saw of him kind of silently
skulking around the sidelines of the press conference, and I
almost thought, you know, even if you don't really know
(02:09):
what you're doing, or you're overwhelmed, you could always just
thank people further hard work, call out some names. That's
always a good thing to do at a press conference.
If you don't know what else to say. I'll put
the video of him in the show notes, But I
know that look. It is the look of somebody who
was in way over their head. Honestly, it is the
look of a podcaster who was just put in charge
of a very high profile murder investigation. Honestly, I would
(02:31):
probably have the same look. None of the officials took questions.
The whole thing just did not inspire confidence. Patel also
was posting updates on social media that then ended up
being wrong. At first they said that he had apprehended
a suspect, but then that was a mistake and that
man had been released, and then Patel said the investigation
was ongoing.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
So if you listen to the.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Episode that we did with our producer Joey Patt about
how trans folks are baselessly blamed for instances of violence,
that is absolutely what happened in this situation. I just
took a search on Twitter and it is filled with
verified Blue check accounts sharing images of people that they
want say are trans, and two have been named.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
As the suspect.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Just like clockwork, it sho go without saying that none
of that is true. Early reports from The Wall Street
Journal indicated that ammunition was found inscribed with quote transgender
and anti fascist ideology, and I was thinking, what the
hell does transgender and anti fascist ideology mean? The Trans
Journalist Association helpfully cautioned against media outlets repeating this without
(03:33):
actually knowing more, and just generally reminded that quote transgender
ideology is a term coined for and used in anti
trans political messaging to falsely equate identity with politics, which
is a way to frame trans identity as a political
choice rather than an innate identity, as it is often
unclear what actions or political positions the phrases actually refer to,
(03:55):
not unlike how the homosexual agenda is an amorphous term
that has no real death definition. Reporters, they said, should
be careful about using this term. It is exclusively used
to attack a minority group for political gain. So the
Wall Street Journal said that this ammunition had transgender and
anti fascist ideology written on it, but soon thereafter, The
New York Times reported that a senior law enforcement official
(04:16):
with direct knowledge of the investigation cautioned that those reports
had not been verified by ATF analysis and did not
match other summaries of the evidence, and might turn out
to have been misread or misinterpreted, and then just a
few hours later, the Wall Street Journal walked back that story,
stopping just short of a retraction. And what is so
annoying about that is that it was already posted everywhere,
(04:37):
headline after headline that trans ideology was found written on
the ammunition. But I have seen a lot less reporting
of the fact that Wall Street Journal has now clarify
that these are just preliminary reports and cautioned folks against
taking them at face value. And that makes sense because
we now know there was no trans ideology written on
that ammunition. People spent, however, long, humanizing trans folks for
(05:01):
no reason and lying about transfolks for no reason, and
did not even follow back up with the correct information.
So let's talk about how people are responding to this murder.
I obviously am not supportive of violence. Frankly, I think
this is a really dangerous development which could likely lead
to more violence and further increase the fear that so
(05:23):
many trans and clear and marginalized people are already living
with every goddamn day. So that is where I stand.
But I also need to make clear that there is
a world of difference between cheering violence against somebody and
completely lying about and whitewashing somebody's entire career, what they did,
what they said, and what they actually stood for.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And I feel like I am losing my goddamn mind
watching people do that this week.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
We do not have to make Charlie Kirk into a
hero or a martyr to wish his family well or
to express condolences to his wife and kids. We do
not have to divorce Charlie Kirk from what it was
he was doing and literally, quite literally the things that
he was saying when he was killed.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
We could actually tell the truth about those things.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I almost think that we have gotten to a point
where that if you just read Charlie Kirk's actual recent
words in public that he said, you would be told
that you were being disrespectful to the dead, because you'll
notice that nobody is actually pointing to many words or
quotes or videos of him saying things that they found
profound or whatever after his death. Freakin Kristin Chenowis from
(06:32):
Wicked posted quote, I'm so upset. I didn't always agree,
but I appreciated some perspectives, and I would absolutely love
to know which perspectives specifically, she appreciated from Charlie Kirk Online.
They are comparing Charlie Kirk to Martin Luther King.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Representative Anna Paulina Luna circulated a draft letter asking for
a statue of Kirk to be placed in the US Capitol.
Representative Andrew Clyde supported that, saying, quote, we have a
statue of MLK in the Capitol, don't we basically saying
that Kirk and MLK.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Should be similarly honored.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Mind you, this is how I know these people don't
even know what they're talking about, and they don't even
know what Kirk actually did or stood for, or said
or felt. Because Charlie Kirk did not even like Martin
Luther King. This time last year, what was Charlie Kirk doing.
He said that he was going to start dedicating his
podcast to discrediting Martin Luther King's legacy. So this just
lets me understand that these people have no idea about
(07:28):
the actual attitudes and positions of the person that they
are lionizing in death. The Trump administration ordered flags at
half massed around the country. At the Yankees game that
did a tribute to Kirk, there was a moment of
silence at the NFL game. This after all backhand winging
about not bringing politics into sports when people were kneeling
for the anthem. Remember that, So Charlie Kirk was a
(07:48):
private citizen, a podcaster who did not have any role
within the administration or in government, and yet his body
was transported on Air Force two with the Vice President.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
At taxpayer expense.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
And I think that there is something about the way
the Internet is reacting to this, the speed and the
scale of the reaction, the lionization, the spectacle, that has
truly broken my brain and revealed to me that we
genuinely are just living in a fractured reality because we
have people lionizing Charlie Kirk in this way that I
simply do not understand, Like, genuinely, if you knew about
(08:23):
Charlie Kirk, just at face value, stuff that he did,
stuff that he said, what his work actually looked like,
they don't think people are actually grappling with Charlie Kirk,
who he was, what he did, what he said, what
his work actually looked like, to the point where, listen,
I don't like Charlie Kirk, but it almost feels disrespectful
to the man's work and life and legacy to completely
(08:45):
ignore what the work fast aspect he was quite proud of.
Like I like, in a weird kind of roundabout way,
I feel like people who are telling the truth about
the work that he did are being more respectful of
him because they're actually telling the truth about the stuff
that he's spent his life doing.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And I think that's why you might see like.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Your normy aunt or something on Facebook being like, Oh,
what a nice young man.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's so sad that he was killed.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And I think the reason is is that he was young,
he had a wife and kids, and I think that
it's easy for people to say, oh, he just was
someone who cared about scripture and the Bible and Christianity,
like I've seen people talk about Charlie Kirk like he
was more or less a neutral figure who just traveled
around to colleges to teach young students about the power
(09:27):
and importance of civil debate and discourse, which is so
far removed from reality that I simply cannot let it stand.
I saw somebody say, oh, he would go into these
hotbeds of liberal campuses only armed with a Bible on
a microphone, And.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I think if that's genuinely all you know about this person.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I could maybe see why you would get into a
situation where you're lionizing them because you really don't know
what it was that person.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Actually did or actually stood for. Let's take a quick
break at our back.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
The first thing people really need to understand about Charlie
Kirk is that he wasn't just a podcaster who said
mean things into a microphone for lots and lots of money.
Although he did a lot of that, he wasn't just
some shock jock radio DJ. His work caused actual harm
to people. Just take a look at his work with
Turning Points USA. So, in November twenty sixteen, Charlie Kirk's
(10:38):
organization Turning Points USA launched what they call the Professor
watch List. The initiative aim to quote, expose, and document
college professors who discriminate against conservative students at advanced leftist
propaganda in the classroom. The watch List functioned as an
online database featuring names, pictures, and accusations against professors that
Kirk and his followers do not like hook still up.
(11:01):
These allegations often stem from student complaints, media reports, or
cherry picked selective quotes. Once listed professors face harassment campaigns,
including hate mail, doxing, and threats. Y'all, I know real
people in my life, academics, speakers, and writers who were threatened, silenced,
and harassed because of this list. Here's just a sampling.
(11:23):
George Siicarellio Mayer, a political science professor formally at Drexel University,
was added to the watch list after satirical tweets critical
of white supremacy, including a viral post that read all
I Want for Christmas is white genocide Now. He told
The Washington Post that the tweet was meant to be satirical,
poking fun at this idea of white genocide as quote
an imaginary concept used by the far right to scare people.
(11:46):
But that got him added to this list, and after
he was included on it, he reported an avalanche of
violent threats, leading to his eventual resignation in twenty seventeen
after a year of harassment by right wing white supremacist
media outlets and internet mobs. After threats and threats of
violence directed at me and my family, my situation has
become unsustainable, he wrote in a statement on Facebook. There's
(12:07):
also Tommy Curry, a black philosophy professor formerly at Texas
and M University who specialized in race theory. In an
episode of a radio show, Curry, who was supportive of
gun ownership, was talking about the Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained.
If you haven't seen that movie, it's a formally enslaved
person gets revenge on his enslaver. The Guardian reports that
he talked about how uneasy white people are with the
(12:28):
idea of black people talking about gun ownership and using
them to combat racist forces. But when a recording of
the talk we surfaced, people thought that he was telling
black people to kill white people. This idea, the Guardian reports,
swept through conservative media and into the fever swamps of
Reddit forms and racist message boards, and the threats followed.
So that particular instance did not start on the professor
(12:50):
watch list, but the watch list amplified it and Curry
faced sustained harassment and death threats. Robin Dangelo, best known
for her book White Fragility, was included on the watch
list for promoting quote anti white bias in her scholarship
and teachings on systemic racism, and I think that her
case really illustrates what the watch list is really about,
which is punishing and silencing scholarship that names and calls
(13:13):
out and critiques inequality. Same thing with Kianga Yamada Taylor
at Princeton University, a leading black feminist scholar who writes
about race and housing inequality. She was added to the
Professor watch list after criticizing Trump in a commencement speech
and basically had to pull out of her public appearances
afterward because of public threats. In the wake of Charlie
(13:34):
Kirk's death, Professor Stacy Patton, another black woman professor targeted
by Kirk for harassment, had this to say on Facebook.
It is a little long, but I do think people
should hear what she had to say, And just to
heads up that her post includes some slurs and you
will hear those in this segment, she says, I am
on Charlie Kirk's hit list. His so called Professor watchlist,
(13:54):
run under the umbrella of Turning Points USA, is nothing
more than a digital hit list for academics who dare
speak truth to power. I landed there in twenty twenty
four after writing commentary that inflamed the MAGA faithful, and
once my name went up, the harassment machine roared to life.
For weeks, My inbox and voicemail were deluged, mostly white
men spit venom at me through the phone. Bitch, cunt, nigger.
(14:17):
They threatened all manner of violence. They overwhelmed the university's
PR lines and the president's office with calls demanding that
I be fired. The flood was so relentless that the
head of campus security reached out to offer me an
escort because they feared one of these keyboard soldiers might
step out of his basement and do me harm. And
I am not unique. Kirk's watch list has terrorized lesions
(14:39):
of professors across this country, women, black faculty, queer scholars. Basically,
anyone who challenged white supremacy, gun culture, or Christian nationalism
suddenly found themselves the target of coordinated abuse. Some received threats,
some had their jobs threatened, Some left academia entirely. Kirk
sent the loud message to us, speak the truth and
(14:59):
we unleash the mob. That is the culture of violence
that Charlie Kirk built. He normalized violence, he curated it,
monetized it, and sticked it on anyone who dared puncture
his movements lies and now in the wake of his shooting.
There is all this national outpouring of mourning, moments of silence,
yellow prayer hands, and tribute to painting him as a
civil debater. But the truth is Kirk and his foot
(15:21):
soldiers spent years terrorizing educators, trying to silence us with
harassment and fear, and now the same violence he unleashed
on others has come full circle. But what I find
especially jarring is the dissonance in public mourning for a
smug white man whose life work was actively hostile to
certain groups. Kirk spent years demonizing LGBTQ people, mocking gun survivors,
(15:41):
viewing racism about black folks, and pushing policies that literally
shorten lives. It is so revolting to watch a bipartisan
wave of grief sweep over this hateful racist as if
he was a neutral community servant. So I wanted to
share what Professor Patton is saying here because I think
that we are seeing this culture that is demanding people
who were personally targeted by this person, and personally targeted
(16:04):
by the culture this person designed and built up. We
are we are seeing systems demand that those same people
who were targeted now mourn for this person, Now hold
space for this person. Now not speak up about what
they experienced about this person and what they experienced at
this person's hands. And Professor Patton is not alone. Four
(16:26):
or four reports that the American Association of University Professors
wrote in an open letter in twenty seventeen that the
Professor watch List lists names of professors with their institutional
affiliations photographs, thereby making it easy for would be stalkers
and cyberbullies to target them. Individual faculty members who have
been included on such lists singled out elsewhere, have been
(16:46):
subject to threats of violence, including sexual assault, through hundreds
of emails, calls, and social media postings. Such threatening messages
are likely to stifle the free expression of the targeted
faculty member. Further, the publicity that such cases attract can
cause to self censor so as to avoid being subject
to similar treatment. Campus free speech rights group fire found
that censorship and punishment of professors skyrocketed between twenty twenty
(17:10):
and twenty twenty three in part because of efforts of
the Professor watch List. So we need to really keep
it real that the Professor watch List is not just
a catalog of liberal professors. It is a tool designed
to intimidate and silence people who challenged entrenched power structures
by disproportionately targeting marginalized scholars, trans and queer scholars, black women,
(17:33):
and anybody who did work around inequality and critical voices.
It really underscores the stakes of this never ending harassment
campaign that people like Kirk disingenuously call the free speech debate.
It is not about protecting open inquiry but about suppressing
descent pretty clearly, and it's all about silencing critics of
(17:53):
the right.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
And Charlie Kirk got to do this work of.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Silencing people and bullying people into silence and making people
fear for their lives for what they said, while simultaneously
branding himself a warrior and protector of free speech on
college campuses while he himself was going to college campuses
to get paid big money for talking about how black
women like me lacked the brain processing power to be
(18:17):
taken seriously.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
But now they're coming out and they're saying it for us.
They're coming out and they're saying I'm only here because
of affirmative action. Yeah, we know you do not have
the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.
You had to go steal a white person slot to
go be taken somewhat seriously.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Charlie Kirk's whole thing was about setting a double standard
where he got to say whatever he wanted and his
opponents were forced into silence, Like I get to say
whatever I want and it's free speech, but if you
have anything to say about it, you will line up
on my watch list for it and get fired. And
it's the exact same culture that we're contending with right now,
where Charlie Kirk openly talked about how he hated empathy,
(19:00):
and yet anybody who was deemed not being empathetic enough
about Kirk's death winds up on a list.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Literally.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Wired has a great piece called right wing activists or
targeting people for allegedly celebrating Charlie Kirk's death, all about
how far right influencers and violent extremists are posting identifying
details about people that they view as celebrating or glorifying
Charlie Kirk's death. The campaign has been swift and widespread,
and has already led to at least one person losing
(19:28):
their job and others receiving death threats. There is already
a website, Charlie murderers dot com that Wired reports is
a quote central hub of this activity, which was registered
in the early evening on the day Kirk was shot,
and is revealing certain personal information such as social media
usernames and email addresses of individuals that the operators believe
were celebrating his horrific murder. One of the first names
(19:51):
on the list is journalist Rachel Gilmore. She posted that
she was terrified to think of how far right fans
of Kirk aching for more violence could very well turn
this into an even more radicalizing moment. Will they now
believe their fears have been proven right and feel they
have to retaliate, regardless of who actually was behind the
initial shooting. So after she was put on this list,
(20:12):
she told Wired that the website has made her genuinely
afraid for her safety. I feel awful for anyone whose
name was on it. It's clear that purpose of the
website is to do exactly what the posts that landed
me on their warn Kirk supporters might want to do retaliate,
and obviously she is not wrong. Rachel got death threats
and rape threats and dms from people promising to find
(20:33):
out where she lives, and importantly, Wired reports that just
like Rachel, a lot of the people who got on
that list did not glorify violence or really even celebrate
Kirk's death. Some of the posts are just apathetic tweets,
things like posting the news of Kirk's death and writing
and the world keep spitting. But that apathy, not even
(20:54):
outright celebrating or condoning or glorifying his death, was enough
for them to be included on this list. Libs of
TikTok's Chaia Rachik highlighted that the assistant dean at the
Office of Student Care and Conduct at Middletonnessee State University
wrote on her Facebook page that she had zero sympathy
for Charlie Kirk, and she was fired within hours. The
(21:15):
university put up a statement saying an MTSU employee today
offered inappropriate and callous comments on social media concerning the
horrific and tragic murder of Charlie Kirk. The comments by
this employee, who worked in a position of trust directly
with students, were inconsistent with our values and have undermined
the university's credibility and reputation with our students, faculty, staff,
and community at large. This employee has been fired effective immediately.
(21:37):
Variety even reported that Comcast, the parent company of NBC, MSNBC, Bravo, etc.
Sent out an all staff memo warning staffers not to
say the wrong thing about Charlie Kirk. So this was
after MSNBC swiftly fired Matthew Dowd, who had been working
as an MSNBC contributor, after he said on air that
Kirk was a divisive figure who pushed hate speed. The
(22:00):
Comcast memo said that that coverage was at odds with
fostering civil dialogue and being willing to listen to the
points of view of those who have differing opinions. We
should be able to disagree robustly and passionately, but ultimately
with respect. We need to do better. So you really
see how mainstream media is doing the work of whitewashing
Kirk's actual words and attitudes and also setting the agenda
(22:21):
that stepping out of the norm of how people are
deciding to talk about that in his death will not
be tolerated. It doesn't stop there, because Louisiana Representative Clay
Higgins says that he's going to seek to have social
media companies place lifetime bands on users that he deems
as having glorified or celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk.
He says, I'm going to use congressional authority and every
(22:44):
influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for
life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination
of Charlie Kirk. Mind you, this is the same representative
Clay Higgins who threatened to put Twitter executives in prison
because of what he's claimed was unfair censorship of content
about Hunter Biden's laptop.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
So we again see the.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Double standard where censorship of me is bad, but censorship
of my opponents is virtuous and patriotic. There is no
principle here other than oppression, so Higgins continued. If they
ran their mouths with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous
murder of that beautiful young man who dedicated his whole
life to delivering respectful conservative truth into the hearts of
(23:24):
liberal enclave universities armed only with a Bible and a
microphone and a constitution, those profiles must come down. He said.
He plans to lobby big tech to have zero tolerance
for violent political hate content. I'm also going after their
business licenses and permitting their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively.
They should be kicked out of every school, and their
driver's license should be revoked. He added, I'm basically going
(23:46):
to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who
celebrated Charlie Kirk's assassination.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I'm starting that today. That is all.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
More, after a quick break, Let's get right back into it.
The Trump administration warned that they could even look at
(24:16):
revoking existing visas or denying them to applicants if they
were deemed to have been making light of Charlie Kirk's death.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landue posted on x saying
that he's directed consular officials to undertake appropriate action, saying,
I've been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing,
or making light of the event, and have directed our
(24:38):
consular officials to undertake appropriate action. Please feel free to
bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that
the State Department can protect the American people, like protect
the American people from what Expressing apathy about a podcaster
you all liked. Now, keep in mind that as of
recording this on September twelfth, we do not yet know
much about the suspects.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Motive. Stuff is starting to trickle in.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
That is not stopped right wing figures from essentially using
Kirk's death to call for war and retribution.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
I guess against.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Leftists or liberals or Democrats, or queer folks or trans
folks or people of color or anybody they've decided is
against them because they are not white straight men. Pushing
that party line, the Congressional Black Caucus is calling for
an investigation after a spate of bomb threats at historically
black colleges and universities, Which just makes me wonder since
the suspect is white, and Charlie Kirk is white, and
(25:29):
it happened in a mostly white state, Like why are
we in it? But you know what, I don't even
really have to ask, because I know why.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
This is a war.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
This is a war, said Alex Jones. Steve Bannon said,
we have to have Steely resolved. Charlie Kirk is a
casualty of war. We are at war in this country.
We are, and of course our old pal Elon Musk
had this to say, if they won't leave us in peace,
then our choice is to fight or die. You probably
saw Trump's weird probably AI video where he said for years,
(25:57):
those on the radical left have compared wonder full of
Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass
murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible
for the terrorism that we're seeing in the country today.
What's also so wild to me about this is the
fact that the left, save for some like random people
on social media, have all condemned what happened to Charlie Kirk.
(26:19):
They are not celebrating it. But that's the thing. It
genuinely does not matter really what is said or what
even really happened. Actually, what matters is this big narrative
that is clearly being weaponized. His death is being turned
into a tool, a way to justify harassment and threats
and censorship of anybody who disagrees the content of our words,
what we actually say, the nuance of our positions, None
(26:42):
of that seems to matter anymore. What matters is that
we are targets were simply existing in a world where
we don't really want to make him a murder or
erase the reality of the things that he said and did.
It's also just a complete rewriting of history.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Currently we do.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Not know much about the motive, but let's just say
it was political violence. How can you live in a
country like the United States and acts like political violence
just started this week with the murder of Charlie Kirk.
It's like a far right extremist never broke into Nancy
Pelosi's home and bashed her elderly husband's head in with
a hammer, and you know what people on the right
did after that happened. Donald Trump Junior responded with a
(27:20):
tweet mocking the attack, saying the Internet remains undefeated, basically
implying the whole thing was a joke rather than a
serious assault on an elderly old man. Elon Musk shared
a link to a false report claiming that Paul Pelosi
was involved in a romantic or sexual dispute with a
male sex worker, a claim that has been thoroughly debunked.
And Clay Higgins, the representative from Louisiana who said that
(27:43):
we should have no tolerance for political violence, amplified the
same thing. And you know what Charlie Kirk did after
that happened. He encouraged his audience to post a bail
for Nancy Pelosi's husband's attacker, who he called a patriot.
Or what about Melissa Hortman, the Democratic lawmaker who was
a fascinated alongside our husband and Doug just a few
months ago? Why didn't Trump order national flags that half
(28:06):
masked for her? Why no tribute at Yankees games? In
a post after Kirk's death, Gavin Newsom said the best
way to honor Charlie's memory is to continue his work.
Engage with each other across ideology through spirited discourse. In
a democracy, ideas are tested through words and good face debate,
never through violence. Honest disagreement makes us stronger. Violence only
(28:26):
drives us apart and corrodes the values at the heart
of this nation. But that is my thing. Let's not
pretend like Kirk's whole thing was honest disagreement. It is
just so insulting to call his brand of debate honest disagreement.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
He didn't think women should work or vote.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
When asked about whether or not black women could be
pilots or doctors, he said, and I quote I don't
want Laquisha James flying the plane or a black lesbian
operating on me at the hospital. How was that an
honest disagreement? Do we really need to treat this as
spirited discourse and not what it is? It is a
refusal to see entire groups of people as fully human
(29:04):
or capable. Calling that debate doesn't just sanitize his rhetoric.
It erases the real harm that it causes and the
dangerous world view that it promotes. And worse, it sets
the people up that he targeted with this kind of
rhetoric to just have to swallow it and call it
ice cream. I saw this post from a lawyer named
Cheryl Weichel last night, and I think it really makes
the point well. Open debate is for economic policy and
(29:26):
whether we should charge for public transportation. Open debate is
not whether some human beings are lesser than others like
in Gavin Newsom's mind. How would I even debate that?
How would I even have a spirited discourse about whether
or not I am a less than human being than
somebody like Charlie Kirk because I'm a black woman.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
And furthermore, I just have to push back.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
On the idea that newsom raises here that I've seen
repeated like it's repeated in the Ezra Cline piece called
Charlie Kirkton Politics the Right Way that basically posits that
kirk was good and virtuous because he was willing to
engage in debate, not set aside for a moment that
always wanting to debate others isn't an inherently moral or
virtuous stance.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
And like the most.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Annoying people you know probably are like, oh, I love
to debate. But also, Charlie kirk was a grown man
whose bread and butter was going to college campuses and
debating students teenagers.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
That's what he was doing in Utah.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
His whole thing was not standing toe to toe with
experts or peers or people with the same access and
resources he had. He built his brand on picking fights
with kids who are still figuring out who they were,
and parading those interactions online as if he had scored
some great intellectual victory to personally enrich himself. Why do
we then have to pretend that that is moral and noble?
(30:42):
And that's why I think this moment is such a
dizzying one for me. I know, I've been all over
the place in this conversation because genuinely, I'm something is
broken inside of me. I think we're seeing all these
people and institutions lionizing Kirk. And I'm not even saying
that they shouldn't more, and if that's what they feel
they have to do, but lionizing him and whitewashing his
hateful rhetoric and reckless tactics that hurt people really makes
(31:05):
clear how much these mainstream institutions were not really put
off by the kind of life that he actually lived
and the kinds of things that he actually said and
stood for. And it's a reminder that these systems around
us will always celebrate power and spectacle and influence over accountability,
and that they will reward people who harm others if
they do it loudly enough or strategically enough, where they
do it while they're like young and have kids and
(31:27):
a family. But for the rest of us, the ones
who I don't know want to call out harm or inequality,
it feels like the rules are entirely different. You know,
these are the same people that have spent the last
decade saying fuck your feelings as a rally and cry
and I saw a great tweet that put it very well,
but said no, no, no, no, no, you misunderstood.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I said, fuck your feelings.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
My feelings are very important and must be handled gently
like a tiny baby hummingbird. And that is exactly what's
going on here. I think it's fuck our feelings, but
their feelings.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Have to be treated with respect or else.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
How Our deaths are political, their's are national tragedies. It's
their free speech rice to say whatever they want about us,
but if we verbalize a problem with it, we end
up on a list. Our heroes will be removed from
history books on government websites, but we will be forced
to mourn their heroes or else. As I'm recording this,
the police have just announced that they have an alleged
(32:22):
shooter in custody. So far, all I know right now
is that he's a young man who lives in Utah,
not far from campus, and he was turned in by
his father after he confessed, So the FBI, it sounds like,
did not really play a huge role here. I'm sure
that we will learn more, but as of right now,
we don't know a ton. We don't know why you
pulled the trigger, or even if it was really him.
And I just have to say that this is one
(32:43):
of those times that I genuinely fear that our country
is heading down an increasingly violent path, and this feels
like another big step in that violent direction. The way
that people so quickly galvanized around lionizing Charlie Kirk, lying
about Charlie Kirk, using his death as a way to
bash trans people and further target and surveill and harass them,
(33:04):
use their death to call for war, all of that.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
It just really I'm quite unnerved in this moment.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
And now that we know that the killer is a
white guy from a Republican family, we're watching so many
people who were talking tough about wanting to start a
war with the left and trans people in this and that,
and Democrats basically walk that back without any kind of
public accountability of why they rushed to say stuff like
that when we didn't know anything about what happened. Yet,
(33:34):
for all the handwringing about trans people, the suspect is
a white guy from a Republican family. So we're already
seeing how those same voices who were calling for blood
when they suspected the suspect could have been a trans
person have now totally changed their tune. Here's what Nancy
May said before we knew any information about the killer whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And I'm kind of a problem with politic political violence
across the spectrum. Yeah, we're talking about Charlie Kirk right now.
That's the subject of this that we're talking about right now.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Democrats own this one.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And now that it turns out the killer is a
white guy from a Republican family, she says, we all
know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such
an evil and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
We will do the same.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And I say all of this to say that we
can condemn violence. We can condemn what happened to Charlie
Kirk without rewriting the record of who Kirk was or
what he actually stood for. Because violence does not wash
hate clean, It does not make bigotry noble, it does
not turn cruelty into courage. We have a public record
(34:36):
of the things that Kirk stood for, the things that
he said, the things that he did. We don't have
to forget all of that because it makes it easier
for the powers that be. I want to close with
the words of poet Lucille Clifton. They ask me to
remember that. They want me to remember their memories, and
I keep on remembering mine. We do have a news
roundup for you all, featuring a very cool guest, co
(34:57):
host Ashley Ray of the podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I say it's a fun one.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I promise you will hear that next week, so please
stick around.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi? You can reach us at
Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tenggody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Todd.
It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. Edited by
(35:34):
Joey pat I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want
to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
There Are No Girls on the Internet, as a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridgett and this is
there Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Hello.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
So if I sound a little bit out of it,
it's because it's been a very long week. I suspect
that it's probably true for you wherever you're listening. I
think we could all use a week where things just
feel a little bit normal. I'm not even asking for
good frankly, I'm just asking for normal. But that week
is not this week. So I wanted to talk a
(00:42):
little bit about what is going on with Charlie Kirk.
So I'll tell you the broad strokes of what's happening,
and then I want to get into my main point,
which is what the reaction has been like and what
I think it says about where we're at as a culture. So,
in case you have not heard, this week, thirty one
year old conservative right wing activist Charlie Kirk huge trump
(01:04):
ally was shot and killed during a campus debate at
Utah Ballet University in Utah. Law enforcement initially released some
pretty like unhelpful videos and images of a suspect, but
because notably everybody who might have known what they're doing
at the FBI was systematically pushed out of the FBI,
people like Matab Sayed, who was pushed out of the
(01:27):
Utah FBI in July because she was not a good fit,
along with a bunch of other FBI officials as part
of a purge. Because of all that, the FBI and
law enforcement in Utah, we're basically like, yeah, we have
no leads whatsoever, we have no helpful information. We're just
looking for a white guy in Utah, which, yeah, if
you've been to Utah, not's the most helpful. Just this morning,
(01:47):
as I was sitting down to record, I saw news
that they do have the suspect in custody. Our FBI
director Cash Pattel attended a press conference but did not speak. Frankly,
he just looked very much in over his head. There
is this video I saw of him kind of silently
skulking around the sidelines of the press conference, and I
almost thought, you know, even if you don't really know
(02:09):
what you're doing, or you're overwhelmed, you could always just
thank people further hard work, call out some names. That's
always a good thing to do at a press conference.
If you don't know what else to say. I'll put
the video of him in the show notes, But I
know that look. It is the look of somebody who
was in way over their head. Honestly, it is the
look of a podcaster who was just put in charge
of a very high profile murder investigation. Honestly, I would
(02:31):
probably have the same look. None of the officials took questions.
The whole thing just did not inspire confidence. Patel also
was posting updates on social media that then ended up
being wrong. At first they said that he had apprehended
a suspect, but then that was a mistake and that
man had been released, and then Patel said the investigation
was ongoing.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
So if you listen to the.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Episode that we did with our producer Joey Patt about
how trans folks are baselessly blamed for instances of violence,
that is absolutely what happened in this situation. I just
took a search on Twitter and it is filled with
verified Blue check accounts sharing images of people that they
want say are trans, and two have been named.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
As the suspect.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Just like clockwork, it sho go without saying that none
of that is true. Early reports from The Wall Street
Journal indicated that ammunition was found inscribed with quote transgender
and anti fascist ideology, and I was thinking, what the
hell does transgender and anti fascist ideology mean? The Trans
Journalist Association helpfully cautioned against media outlets repeating this without
(03:33):
actually knowing more, and just generally reminded that quote transgender
ideology is a term coined for and used in anti
trans political messaging to falsely equate identity with politics, which
is a way to frame trans identity as a political
choice rather than an innate identity, as it is often
unclear what actions or political positions the phrases actually refer to,
(03:55):
not unlike how the homosexual agenda is an amorphous term
that has no real death definition. Reporters, they said, should
be careful about using this term. It is exclusively used
to attack a minority group for political gain. So the
Wall Street Journal said that this ammunition had transgender and
anti fascist ideology written on it, but soon thereafter, The
New York Times reported that a senior law enforcement official
(04:16):
with direct knowledge of the investigation cautioned that those reports
had not been verified by ATF analysis and did not
match other summaries of the evidence, and might turn out
to have been misread or misinterpreted, and then just a
few hours later, the Wall Street Journal walked back that story,
stopping just short of a retraction. And what is so
annoying about that is that it was already posted everywhere,
(04:37):
headline after headline that trans ideology was found written on
the ammunition. But I have seen a lot less reporting
of the fact that Wall Street Journal has now clarify
that these are just preliminary reports and cautioned folks against
taking them at face value. And that makes sense because
we now know there was no trans ideology written on
that ammunition. People spent, however, long, humanizing trans folks for
(05:01):
no reason and lying about transfolks for no reason, and
did not even follow back up with the correct information.
So let's talk about how people are responding to this murder.
I obviously am not supportive of violence. Frankly, I think
this is a really dangerous development which could likely lead
to more violence and further increase the fear that so
(05:23):
many trans and clear and marginalized people are already living
with every goddamn day. So that is where I stand.
But I also need to make clear that there is
a world of difference between cheering violence against somebody and
completely lying about and whitewashing somebody's entire career, what they did,
what they said, and what they actually stood for.
Speaker 2 (05:43):
And I feel like I am losing my goddamn mind
watching people do that this week.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
We do not have to make Charlie Kirk into a
hero or a martyr to wish his family well or
to express condolences to his wife and kids. We do
not have to divorce Charlie Kirk from what it was
he was doing and literally, quite literally the things that
he was saying when he was killed.
Speaker 2 (06:05):
We could actually tell the truth about those things.
Speaker 1 (06:08):
I almost think that we have gotten to a point
where that if you just read Charlie Kirk's actual recent
words in public that he said, you would be told
that you were being disrespectful to the dead, because you'll
notice that nobody is actually pointing to many words or
quotes or videos of him saying things that they found
profound or whatever after his death. Freakin Kristin Chenowis from
(06:32):
Wicked posted quote, I'm so upset. I didn't always agree,
but I appreciated some perspectives, and I would absolutely love
to know which perspectives specifically, she appreciated from Charlie Kirk Online.
They are comparing Charlie Kirk to Martin Luther King.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
I'm not kidding.
Speaker 1 (06:49):
Representative Anna Paulina Luna circulated a draft letter asking for
a statue of Kirk to be placed in the US Capitol.
Representative Andrew Clyde supported that, saying, quote, we have a
statue of MLK in the Capitol, don't we basically saying
that Kirk and MLK.
Speaker 2 (07:04):
Should be similarly honored.
Speaker 1 (07:06):
Mind you, this is how I know these people don't
even know what they're talking about, and they don't even
know what Kirk actually did or stood for, or said
or felt. Because Charlie Kirk did not even like Martin
Luther King. This time last year, what was Charlie Kirk doing.
He said that he was going to start dedicating his
podcast to discrediting Martin Luther King's legacy. So this just
lets me understand that these people have no idea about
(07:28):
the actual attitudes and positions of the person that they
are lionizing in death. The Trump administration ordered flags at
half massed around the country. At the Yankees game that
did a tribute to Kirk, there was a moment of
silence at the NFL game. This after all backhand winging
about not bringing politics into sports when people were kneeling
for the anthem. Remember that, So Charlie Kirk was a
(07:48):
private citizen, a podcaster who did not have any role
within the administration or in government, and yet his body
was transported on Air Force two with the Vice President.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
At taxpayer expense.
Speaker 1 (07:59):
And I think that there is something about the way
the Internet is reacting to this, the speed and the
scale of the reaction, the lionization, the spectacle, that has
truly broken my brain and revealed to me that we
genuinely are just living in a fractured reality because we
have people lionizing Charlie Kirk in this way that I
simply do not understand, Like, genuinely, if you knew about
(08:23):
Charlie Kirk, just at face value, stuff that he did,
stuff that he said, what his work actually looked like,
they don't think people are actually grappling with Charlie Kirk,
who he was, what he did, what he said, what
his work actually looked like, to the point where, listen,
I don't like Charlie Kirk, but it almost feels disrespectful
to the man's work and life and legacy to completely
(08:45):
ignore what the work fast aspect he was quite proud of.
Like I like, in a weird kind of roundabout way,
I feel like people who are telling the truth about
the work that he did are being more respectful of
him because they're actually telling the truth about the stuff
that he's spent his life doing.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
And I think that's why you might see like.
Speaker 1 (09:00):
Your normy aunt or something on Facebook being like, Oh,
what a nice young man.
Speaker 2 (09:04):
It's so sad that he was killed.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And I think the reason is is that he was young,
he had a wife and kids, and I think that
it's easy for people to say, oh, he just was
someone who cared about scripture and the Bible and Christianity,
like I've seen people talk about Charlie Kirk like he
was more or less a neutral figure who just traveled
around to colleges to teach young students about the power
(09:27):
and importance of civil debate and discourse, which is so
far removed from reality that I simply cannot let it stand.
I saw somebody say, oh, he would go into these
hotbeds of liberal campuses only armed with a Bible on
a microphone, And.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
I think if that's genuinely all you know about this person.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
I could maybe see why you would get into a
situation where you're lionizing them because you really don't know
what it was that person.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Actually did or actually stood for. Let's take a quick
break at our back.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
The first thing people really need to understand about Charlie
Kirk is that he wasn't just a podcaster who said
mean things into a microphone for lots and lots of money.
Although he did a lot of that, he wasn't just
some shock jock radio DJ. His work caused actual harm
to people. Just take a look at his work with
Turning Points USA. So, in November twenty sixteen, Charlie Kirk's
(10:38):
organization Turning Points USA launched what they call the Professor
watch List. The initiative aim to quote, expose, and document
college professors who discriminate against conservative students at advanced leftist
propaganda in the classroom. The watch List functioned as an
online database featuring names, pictures, and accusations against professors that
Kirk and his followers do not like hook still up.
(11:01):
These allegations often stem from student complaints, media reports, or
cherry picked selective quotes. Once listed professors face harassment campaigns,
including hate mail, doxing, and threats. Y'all, I know real
people in my life, academics, speakers, and writers who were threatened, silenced,
and harassed because of this list. Here's just a sampling.
(11:23):
George Siicarellio Mayer, a political science professor formally at Drexel University,
was added to the watch list after satirical tweets critical
of white supremacy, including a viral post that read all
I Want for Christmas is white genocide Now. He told
The Washington Post that the tweet was meant to be satirical,
poking fun at this idea of white genocide as quote
an imaginary concept used by the far right to scare people.
(11:46):
But that got him added to this list, and after
he was included on it, he reported an avalanche of
violent threats, leading to his eventual resignation in twenty seventeen
after a year of harassment by right wing white supremacist
media outlets and internet mobs. After threats and threats of
violence directed at me and my family, my situation has
become unsustainable, he wrote in a statement on Facebook. There's
(12:07):
also Tommy Curry, a black philosophy professor formerly at Texas
and M University who specialized in race theory. In an
episode of a radio show, Curry, who was supportive of
gun ownership, was talking about the Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained.
If you haven't seen that movie, it's a formally enslaved
person gets revenge on his enslaver. The Guardian reports that
he talked about how uneasy white people are with the
(12:28):
idea of black people talking about gun ownership and using
them to combat racist forces. But when a recording of
the talk we surfaced, people thought that he was telling
black people to kill white people. This idea, the Guardian reports,
swept through conservative media and into the fever swamps of
Reddit forms and racist message boards, and the threats followed.
So that particular instance did not start on the professor
(12:50):
watch list, but the watch list amplified it and Curry
faced sustained harassment and death threats. Robin Dangelo, best known
for her book White Fragility, was included on the watch
list for promoting quote anti white bias in her scholarship
and teachings on systemic racism, and I think that her
case really illustrates what the watch list is really about,
which is punishing and silencing scholarship that names and calls
(13:13):
out and critiques inequality. Same thing with Kianga Yamada Taylor
at Princeton University, a leading black feminist scholar who writes
about race and housing inequality. She was added to the
Professor watch list after criticizing Trump in a commencement speech
and basically had to pull out of her public appearances
afterward because of public threats. In the wake of Charlie
(13:34):
Kirk's death, Professor Stacy Patton, another black woman professor targeted
by Kirk for harassment, had this to say on Facebook.
It is a little long, but I do think people
should hear what she had to say, And just to
heads up that her post includes some slurs and you
will hear those in this segment, she says, I am
on Charlie Kirk's hit list. His so called Professor watchlist,
(13:54):
run under the umbrella of Turning Points USA, is nothing
more than a digital hit list for academics who dare
speak truth to power. I landed there in twenty twenty
four after writing commentary that inflamed the MAGA faithful, and
once my name went up, the harassment machine roared to life.
For weeks, My inbox and voicemail were deluged, mostly white
men spit venom at me through the phone. Bitch, cunt, nigger.
(14:17):
They threatened all manner of violence. They overwhelmed the university's
PR lines and the president's office with calls demanding that
I be fired. The flood was so relentless that the
head of campus security reached out to offer me an
escort because they feared one of these keyboard soldiers might
step out of his basement and do me harm. And
I am not unique. Kirk's watch list has terrorized lesions
(14:39):
of professors across this country, women, black faculty, queer scholars. Basically,
anyone who challenged white supremacy, gun culture, or Christian nationalism
suddenly found themselves the target of coordinated abuse. Some received threats,
some had their jobs threatened, Some left academia entirely. Kirk
sent the loud message to us, speak the truth and
(14:59):
we unleash the mob. That is the culture of violence
that Charlie Kirk built. He normalized violence, he curated it,
monetized it, and sticked it on anyone who dared puncture
his movements lies and now in the wake of his shooting.
There is all this national outpouring of mourning, moments of silence,
yellow prayer hands, and tribute to painting him as a
civil debater. But the truth is Kirk and his foot
(15:21):
soldiers spent years terrorizing educators, trying to silence us with
harassment and fear, and now the same violence he unleashed
on others has come full circle. But what I find
especially jarring is the dissonance in public mourning for a
smug white man whose life work was actively hostile to
certain groups. Kirk spent years demonizing LGBTQ people, mocking gun survivors,
(15:41):
viewing racism about black folks, and pushing policies that literally
shorten lives. It is so revolting to watch a bipartisan
wave of grief sweep over this hateful racist as if
he was a neutral community servant. So I wanted to
share what Professor Patton is saying here because I think
that we are seeing this culture that is demanding people
who were personally targeted by this person, and personally targeted
(16:04):
by the culture this person designed and built up. We
are we are seeing systems demand that those same people
who were targeted now mourn for this person, Now hold
space for this person. Now not speak up about what
they experienced about this person and what they experienced at
this person's hands. And Professor Patton is not alone. Four
(16:26):
or four reports that the American Association of University Professors
wrote in an open letter in twenty seventeen that the
Professor watch List lists names of professors with their institutional
affiliations photographs, thereby making it easy for would be stalkers
and cyberbullies to target them. Individual faculty members who have
been included on such lists singled out elsewhere, have been
(16:46):
subject to threats of violence, including sexual assault, through hundreds
of emails, calls, and social media postings. Such threatening messages
are likely to stifle the free expression of the targeted
faculty member. Further, the publicity that such cases attract can
cause to self censor so as to avoid being subject
to similar treatment. Campus free speech rights group fire found
that censorship and punishment of professors skyrocketed between twenty twenty
(17:10):
and twenty twenty three in part because of efforts of
the Professor watch List. So we need to really keep
it real that the Professor watch List is not just
a catalog of liberal professors. It is a tool designed
to intimidate and silence people who challenged entrenched power structures
by disproportionately targeting marginalized scholars, trans and queer scholars, black women,
(17:33):
and anybody who did work around inequality and critical voices.
It really underscores the stakes of this never ending harassment
campaign that people like Kirk disingenuously call the free speech debate.
It is not about protecting open inquiry but about suppressing
descent pretty clearly, and it's all about silencing critics of
(17:53):
the right.
Speaker 2 (17:54):
And Charlie Kirk got to do this work of.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
Silencing people and bullying people into silence and making people
fear for their lives for what they said, while simultaneously
branding himself a warrior and protector of free speech on
college campuses while he himself was going to college campuses
to get paid big money for talking about how black
women like me lacked the brain processing power to be
(18:17):
taken seriously.
Speaker 4 (18:18):
But now they're coming out and they're saying it for us.
They're coming out and they're saying I'm only here because
of affirmative action. Yeah, we know you do not have
the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.
You had to go steal a white person slot to
go be taken somewhat seriously.
Speaker 1 (18:37):
Charlie Kirk's whole thing was about setting a double standard
where he got to say whatever he wanted and his
opponents were forced into silence, Like I get to say
whatever I want and it's free speech, but if you
have anything to say about it, you will line up
on my watch list for it and get fired. And
it's the exact same culture that we're contending with right now,
where Charlie Kirk openly talked about how he hated empathy,
(19:00):
and yet anybody who was deemed not being empathetic enough
about Kirk's death winds up on a list.
Speaker 2 (19:06):
Literally.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Wired has a great piece called right wing activists or
targeting people for allegedly celebrating Charlie Kirk's death, all about
how far right influencers and violent extremists are posting identifying
details about people that they view as celebrating or glorifying
Charlie Kirk's death. The campaign has been swift and widespread,
and has already led to at least one person losing
(19:28):
their job and others receiving death threats. There is already
a website, Charlie murderers dot com that Wired reports is
a quote central hub of this activity, which was registered
in the early evening on the day Kirk was shot,
and is revealing certain personal information such as social media
usernames and email addresses of individuals that the operators believe
were celebrating his horrific murder. One of the first names
(19:51):
on the list is journalist Rachel Gilmore. She posted that
she was terrified to think of how far right fans
of Kirk aching for more violence could very well turn
this into an even more radicalizing moment. Will they now
believe their fears have been proven right and feel they
have to retaliate, regardless of who actually was behind the
initial shooting. So after she was put on this list,
(20:12):
she told Wired that the website has made her genuinely
afraid for her safety. I feel awful for anyone whose
name was on it. It's clear that purpose of the
website is to do exactly what the posts that landed
me on their warn Kirk supporters might want to do retaliate,
and obviously she is not wrong. Rachel got death threats
and rape threats and dms from people promising to find
(20:33):
out where she lives, and importantly, Wired reports that just
like Rachel, a lot of the people who got on
that list did not glorify violence or really even celebrate
Kirk's death. Some of the posts are just apathetic tweets,
things like posting the news of Kirk's death and writing
and the world keep spitting. But that apathy, not even
(20:54):
outright celebrating or condoning or glorifying his death, was enough
for them to be included on this list. Libs of
TikTok's Chaia Rachik highlighted that the assistant dean at the
Office of Student Care and Conduct at Middletonnessee State University
wrote on her Facebook page that she had zero sympathy
for Charlie Kirk, and she was fired within hours. The
(21:15):
university put up a statement saying an MTSU employee today
offered inappropriate and callous comments on social media concerning the
horrific and tragic murder of Charlie Kirk. The comments by
this employee, who worked in a position of trust directly
with students, were inconsistent with our values and have undermined
the university's credibility and reputation with our students, faculty, staff,
and community at large. This employee has been fired effective immediately.
(21:37):
Variety even reported that Comcast, the parent company of NBC, MSNBC, Bravo, etc.
Sent out an all staff memo warning staffers not to
say the wrong thing about Charlie Kirk. So this was
after MSNBC swiftly fired Matthew Dowd, who had been working
as an MSNBC contributor, after he said on air that
Kirk was a divisive figure who pushed hate speed. The
(22:00):
Comcast memo said that that coverage was at odds with
fostering civil dialogue and being willing to listen to the
points of view of those who have differing opinions. We
should be able to disagree robustly and passionately, but ultimately
with respect. We need to do better. So you really
see how mainstream media is doing the work of whitewashing
Kirk's actual words and attitudes and also setting the agenda
(22:21):
that stepping out of the norm of how people are
deciding to talk about that in his death will not
be tolerated. It doesn't stop there, because Louisiana Representative Clay
Higgins says that he's going to seek to have social
media companies place lifetime bands on users that he deems
as having glorified or celebrated the murder of Charlie Kirk.
He says, I'm going to use congressional authority and every
(22:44):
influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for
life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination
of Charlie Kirk. Mind you, this is the same representative
Clay Higgins who threatened to put Twitter executives in prison
because of what he's claimed was unfair censorship of content
about Hunter Biden's laptop.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
So we again see the.
Speaker 1 (23:03):
Double standard where censorship of me is bad, but censorship
of my opponents is virtuous and patriotic. There is no
principle here other than oppression, so Higgins continued. If they
ran their mouths with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous
murder of that beautiful young man who dedicated his whole
life to delivering respectful conservative truth into the hearts of
(23:24):
liberal enclave universities armed only with a Bible and a
microphone and a constitution, those profiles must come down. He said.
He plans to lobby big tech to have zero tolerance
for violent political hate content. I'm also going after their
business licenses and permitting their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively.
They should be kicked out of every school, and their
driver's license should be revoked. He added, I'm basically going
(23:46):
to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who
celebrated Charlie Kirk's assassination.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
I'm starting that today. That is all.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
More, after a quick break, Let's get right back into it.
The Trump administration warned that they could even look at
(24:16):
revoking existing visas or denying them to applicants if they
were deemed to have been making light of Charlie Kirk's death.
Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landue posted on x saying
that he's directed consular officials to undertake appropriate action, saying,
I've been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing,
or making light of the event, and have directed our
(24:38):
consular officials to undertake appropriate action. Please feel free to
bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that
the State Department can protect the American people, like protect
the American people from what Expressing apathy about a podcaster
you all liked. Now, keep in mind that as of
recording this on September twelfth, we do not yet know
much about the suspects.
Speaker 2 (24:57):
Motive. Stuff is starting to trickle in.
Speaker 1 (25:00):
That is not stopped right wing figures from essentially using
Kirk's death to call for war and retribution.
Speaker 2 (25:06):
I guess against.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Leftists or liberals or Democrats, or queer folks or trans
folks or people of color or anybody they've decided is
against them because they are not white straight men. Pushing
that party line, the Congressional Black Caucus is calling for
an investigation after a spate of bomb threats at historically
black colleges and universities, Which just makes me wonder since
the suspect is white, and Charlie Kirk is white, and
(25:29):
it happened in a mostly white state, Like why are
we in it? But you know what, I don't even
really have to ask, because I know why.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
This is a war.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
This is a war, said Alex Jones. Steve Bannon said,
we have to have Steely resolved. Charlie Kirk is a
casualty of war. We are at war in this country.
We are, and of course our old pal Elon Musk
had this to say, if they won't leave us in peace,
then our choice is to fight or die. You probably
saw Trump's weird probably AI video where he said for years,
(25:57):
those on the radical left have compared wonder full of
Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass
murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible
for the terrorism that we're seeing in the country today.
What's also so wild to me about this is the
fact that the left, save for some like random people
on social media, have all condemned what happened to Charlie Kirk.
(26:19):
They are not celebrating it. But that's the thing. It
genuinely does not matter really what is said or what
even really happened. Actually, what matters is this big narrative
that is clearly being weaponized. His death is being turned
into a tool, a way to justify harassment and threats
and censorship of anybody who disagrees the content of our words,
what we actually say, the nuance of our positions, None
(26:42):
of that seems to matter anymore. What matters is that
we are targets were simply existing in a world where
we don't really want to make him a murder or
erase the reality of the things that he said and did.
It's also just a complete rewriting of history.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Currently we do.
Speaker 1 (26:57):
Not know much about the motive, but let's just say
it was political violence. How can you live in a
country like the United States and acts like political violence
just started this week with the murder of Charlie Kirk.
It's like a far right extremist never broke into Nancy
Pelosi's home and bashed her elderly husband's head in with
a hammer, and you know what people on the right
did after that happened. Donald Trump Junior responded with a
(27:20):
tweet mocking the attack, saying the Internet remains undefeated, basically
implying the whole thing was a joke rather than a
serious assault on an elderly old man. Elon Musk shared
a link to a false report claiming that Paul Pelosi
was involved in a romantic or sexual dispute with a
male sex worker, a claim that has been thoroughly debunked.
And Clay Higgins, the representative from Louisiana who said that
(27:43):
we should have no tolerance for political violence, amplified the
same thing. And you know what Charlie Kirk did after
that happened. He encouraged his audience to post a bail
for Nancy Pelosi's husband's attacker, who he called a patriot.
Or what about Melissa Hortman, the Democratic lawmaker who was
a fascinated alongside our husband and Doug just a few
months ago? Why didn't Trump order national flags that half
(28:06):
masked for her? Why no tribute at Yankees games? In
a post after Kirk's death, Gavin Newsom said the best
way to honor Charlie's memory is to continue his work.
Engage with each other across ideology through spirited discourse. In
a democracy, ideas are tested through words and good face debate,
never through violence. Honest disagreement makes us stronger. Violence only
(28:26):
drives us apart and corrodes the values at the heart
of this nation. But that is my thing. Let's not
pretend like Kirk's whole thing was honest disagreement. It is
just so insulting to call his brand of debate honest disagreement.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
He didn't think women should work or vote.
Speaker 1 (28:44):
When asked about whether or not black women could be
pilots or doctors, he said, and I quote I don't
want Laquisha James flying the plane or a black lesbian
operating on me at the hospital. How was that an
honest disagreement? Do we really need to treat this as
spirited discourse and not what it is? It is a
refusal to see entire groups of people as fully human
(29:04):
or capable. Calling that debate doesn't just sanitize his rhetoric.
It erases the real harm that it causes and the
dangerous world view that it promotes. And worse, it sets
the people up that he targeted with this kind of
rhetoric to just have to swallow it and call it
ice cream. I saw this post from a lawyer named
Cheryl Weichel last night, and I think it really makes
the point well. Open debate is for economic policy and
(29:26):
whether we should charge for public transportation. Open debate is
not whether some human beings are lesser than others like
in Gavin Newsom's mind. How would I even debate that?
How would I even have a spirited discourse about whether
or not I am a less than human being than
somebody like Charlie Kirk because I'm a black woman.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
And furthermore, I just have to push back.
Speaker 1 (29:44):
On the idea that newsom raises here that I've seen
repeated like it's repeated in the Ezra Cline piece called
Charlie Kirkton Politics the Right Way that basically posits that
kirk was good and virtuous because he was willing to
engage in debate, not set aside for a moment that
always wanting to debate others isn't an inherently moral or
virtuous stance.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
And like the most.
Speaker 1 (30:05):
Annoying people you know probably are like, oh, I love
to debate. But also, Charlie kirk was a grown man
whose bread and butter was going to college campuses and
debating students teenagers.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
That's what he was doing in Utah.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
His whole thing was not standing toe to toe with
experts or peers or people with the same access and
resources he had. He built his brand on picking fights
with kids who are still figuring out who they were,
and parading those interactions online as if he had scored
some great intellectual victory to personally enrich himself. Why do
we then have to pretend that that is moral and noble?
(30:42):
And that's why I think this moment is such a
dizzying one for me. I know, I've been all over
the place in this conversation because genuinely, I'm something is
broken inside of me. I think we're seeing all these
people and institutions lionizing Kirk. And I'm not even saying
that they shouldn't more, and if that's what they feel
they have to do, but lionizing him and whitewashing his
hateful rhetoric and reckless tactics that hurt people really makes
(31:05):
clear how much these mainstream institutions were not really put
off by the kind of life that he actually lived
and the kinds of things that he actually said and
stood for. And it's a reminder that these systems around
us will always celebrate power and spectacle and influence over accountability,
and that they will reward people who harm others if
they do it loudly enough or strategically enough, where they
do it while they're like young and have kids and
(31:27):
a family. But for the rest of us, the ones
who I don't know want to call out harm or inequality,
it feels like the rules are entirely different. You know,
these are the same people that have spent the last
decade saying fuck your feelings as a rally and cry
and I saw a great tweet that put it very well,
but said no, no, no, no, no, you misunderstood.
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I said, fuck your feelings.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
My feelings are very important and must be handled gently
like a tiny baby hummingbird. And that is exactly what's
going on here. I think it's fuck our feelings, but
their feelings.
Speaker 2 (31:57):
Have to be treated with respect or else.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
How Our deaths are political, their's are national tragedies. It's
their free speech rice to say whatever they want about us,
but if we verbalize a problem with it, we end
up on a list. Our heroes will be removed from
history books on government websites, but we will be forced
to mourn their heroes or else. As I'm recording this,
the police have just announced that they have an alleged
(32:22):
shooter in custody. So far, all I know right now
is that he's a young man who lives in Utah,
not far from campus, and he was turned in by
his father after he confessed, So the FBI, it sounds like,
did not really play a huge role here. I'm sure
that we will learn more, but as of right now,
we don't know a ton. We don't know why you
pulled the trigger, or even if it was really him.
And I just have to say that this is one
(32:43):
of those times that I genuinely fear that our country
is heading down an increasingly violent path, and this feels
like another big step in that violent direction. The way
that people so quickly galvanized around lionizing Charlie Kirk, lying
about Charlie Kirk, using his death as a way to
bash trans people and further target and surveill and harass them,
(33:04):
use their death to call for war, all of that.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
It just really I'm quite unnerved in this moment.
Speaker 1 (33:11):
And now that we know that the killer is a
white guy from a Republican family, we're watching so many
people who were talking tough about wanting to start a
war with the left and trans people in this and that,
and Democrats basically walk that back without any kind of
public accountability of why they rushed to say stuff like
that when we didn't know anything about what happened. Yet,
(33:34):
for all the handwringing about trans people, the suspect is
a white guy from a Republican family. So we're already
seeing how those same voices who were calling for blood
when they suspected the suspect could have been a trans
person have now totally changed their tune. Here's what Nancy
May said before we knew any information about the killer whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (33:52):
And I'm kind of a problem with politic political violence
across the spectrum. Yeah, we're talking about Charlie Kirk right now.
That's the subject of this that we're talking about right now.
Speaker 4 (34:00):
Democrats own this one.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
And now that it turns out the killer is a
white guy from a Republican family, she says, we all
know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such
an evil and lost individual like Tyler Robinson to find
Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
We will do the same.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And I say all of this to say that we
can condemn violence. We can condemn what happened to Charlie
Kirk without rewriting the record of who Kirk was or
what he actually stood for. Because violence does not wash
hate clean, It does not make bigotry noble, it does
not turn cruelty into courage. We have a public record
(34:36):
of the things that Kirk stood for, the things that
he said, the things that he did. We don't have
to forget all of that because it makes it easier
for the powers that be. I want to close with
the words of poet Lucille Clifton. They ask me to
remember that. They want me to remember their memories, and
I keep on remembering mine. We do have a news
roundup for you all, featuring a very cool guest, co
(34:57):
host Ashley Ray of the podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:00):
I say it's a fun one.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
I promise you will hear that next week, so please
stick around.
Speaker 2 (35:05):
Thanks so much for listening.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
just want to say hi? You can reach us at
Hello at tangodi dot com. You can also find transcripts
for today's episode at tenggody dot com. There Are No
Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Todd.
It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. Edited by
(35:34):
Joey pat I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want
to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple Podcasts.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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