Who Was Right Wing Influencer Charlie Kirk
Kirk famously said: “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.”
Right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk was shot today in the neck at an event at Utah Valley University, he did not survive.
I DO NOT recommend watching any of the videos circulating the internet right now. The close-up video which I watched is not something that will leave my mind for a long time.
Kirk was born in 1993 in a suburb outside of Chicago. He got into conservative politics at an early age volunteering for the US Senate Campaign of Republican Mark Kirk. In his senior year he wrote an essay for Breitbart News on the supposed liberal bent of high school economic textbooks, not surprisingly it attacked Paul Krugman.
At the same time, he formed SOS Liberty on Facebook. The group was supposed to counter the liberal groups on school campuses, according to Political Research Associates:
SOS Liberty—a name intended to invoke the international distress call for help—focused on the national debt and garnered not only a sizable Facebook group but support from Republican leaders like then-Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, who introduced Kirk to Tea Party organizations the same month he launched his group.
This group would eventually become inspiration Turning Point USA. TPUSA was supported by the political figures and money behind the Tea Party movement including marketer Bill Montgomery and multi-millionaire Foster Friess. Friess was the money behind David Horowitz’s extremely Islamophobic Terrorism Awareness Project and gave a speech claiming that liberals were to blame for the Columbine shooting. The speech was titled “Tolerance Is Not Always Good.” Kirk took that to heart.
Kirk briefly went to college, dropping out to start TPUSA. Unlike many other college dropouts he had attainable aspirations… ones funded by dark money sugar daddies. TPUSA in the early days only focused on “conservative economic themes such as the free market and limited government.”
It wasn’t until Trump appeared on the political scene that Kirk found his real drive - persecution of people he disagreed with.
In 2016 TPUSA made a name for itself by organizing the “Professor Watchlist.” It was a slick website that took the idea of the old “rate my professor” site and added a splash of McCarthyism. It targeted professors who shared any opinions online or in the classroom that TPUSA didn’t agree with, like the idea that a woman should have the right to choose. This lead to what has now become the standard right wing hate machine attack… death threats, online and in person harassment and of course potential loss of employment. This wasn’t the origination of the Libs of Tiktok model of politics but it was a refining of the method.
Being an early adopter to the dox and attack conservatism of MAGA paid off well for him. Between July 2016 and June 2017 the org raised $8.2 million. The dark money world of the Koch-connected Donors Trust noticed them, so they were set for life.
Kirk claimed early on to be apprehensive about Trump, supporting Rubio and Cruz at different times but once it became apparent that Trump was going to be the candidate he quickly joined the campaign. Don Jr. claims that Kirk was “like a brother to me.”
After the 2016 election TPUSA started doing some hiring. Hitler apologist Candace Owens joined the organization in 2017 after a Jane Meyer investigation uncovered text messages from TPUSA’s National Field director Crystal Clanton, that read, “i hate black people. Like f— them all… I hate blacks. End of story.” Clayton left the organization, she is now clerking at the Supreme Court, not surprisingly under Justice Thomas.
Kirk would go on to hire such right wing luminaries as disinformation loon Benny Johnson and white nationalist Jack Posobeic.
Flash forward to the second Trump campaign. All doubts from Kirk are gone, he is all in. COVID is in full swing and Kirk and TPUSA are spreading disinformation, running with the racist “China Virus” mantra, merging that into immigration conspiracies.
Once the vaccine became a thing, he switched up to disinfo about that. TPUSA sent out mass texts claiming that “Biden is “sending goons DOOR-TO-DOOR to make you take a covid-19 vaccine.” Biden of course never did that and it was Trump that championed the push for the vaccine to be created. Kirk was also briefly banned from Twitter for spreading lies about “that the drug hydroxychloroquine had proved “100% effective” in treating the virus.” Kirk’s co-founder and mentor Bill Montgomery would die of COVID complications.
As the 2020 election rolled around Kirk like most conservatives got involved in the Stop the Steal movement - pushing election conspiracies in Arizona. Kirk committed to sending 80 busses to DC for the Jan 6th rally. According to The Washington Post “Groups under the direction of pro-Trump activist Charlie Kirk received $1.25 million” from Publix heiress Julie Fancelli. She initially sent $1 million before the rally but urgently directed her assistant to send another quarter of a million dollars for busses. TPUSA ended up sending seven busses. That’s $35k a bus.
I’m going to split the 2021-2025 into another article likely on Sunday as this is getting a bit long. Please subscribe and share.
