Speaking Ill of the Dead — Charlie Kirk Edition

Edit: There was some sound editing issues on this episode which have now been fixed. Apologies!

Well, I’m back. After packing up my entire life, moving across the Atlantic, and preparing to dive headfirst into a Master’s in Gender Studies (yes, I am now an even more insufferable feminist — send your condolences to anyone stuck in seminar with me), Bitchy History is officially alive again.

And I’m kicking things off with a subject that pretty much demanded an episode: Charlie Kirk.

Now, if you’ve spent the last decade ignoring Kirk and his little Turning Point USA circus, congratulations. That’s like dodging COVID on a cruise ship. But the truth is, millions of young people didn’t dodge him. He built a platform out of telling women their lives should revolve around submission and childbearing, insisting college is just for finding a husband, and sneering at feminism like it was a contagious disease.

Kirk is gone now — in a deeply ironic, “live by the gun, die by the gun” sort of way. And while most of us would prefer to quietly move on, the right is already turning him into a martyr. His widow is pledging to carry the torch, politicians are suddenly speaking about him in hushed tones of reverence, and people are literally getting fired from their jobs for mocking his death online.

This isn’t about one man. It’s about how authoritarian movements sanitize their leaders after they’re gone. It’s about the way misogyny, racism, and Christian nationalism get wrapped in martyrdom so they can be pushed even harder.

So no, I’m not interested in being “respectful.” Respectability politics is what lets people like Kirk wreck lives and still get glowing obituaries. My job — our job — is to remember what they actually did, and to push back harder.

If you want to hear me break down the misogyny, the hypocrisies, and the historical lineage of Kirk’s movement — with my usual cocktail of sarcasm and receipts — the new episode is up.

Get full access to Bitchy History at www.bitchyhistory.com/subscribe