Charlie Kirk, head of Turning Point USA, has been pretty edgy lately in his political commentary. Perhaps he’ll get his TPUSA brand ambassadorship revoked. Just kidding–but there have been people kicked out of TPUSA when they start sounding too risque, and now Kirk himself has drifted off the conservative establishment reservation on several subjects, including MLK, DEI, and the navigational abilities of black pilots.
But what’s really behind this smear campaign against Charlie Kirk? Apparently he’s made some enemies in the RNC and certain hangers-on in MAGA world. According to NBC News, what instigated these rumblings against Kirk was his strong voice in support of getting rid of the hapless RNC chairwoman Ronna McDaniel.
Several people, including McDaniel, “have privately warned Trump about Kirk’s conduct.” Part of this is jealously: TPUSA is competition for the RNC in terms of fundraising, and I’m not any more confident that TPUSA uses the money effectively. McDaniel blames TPUSA for the RNC’s “fundraising woes.” This conveniently omits her own lavish spending as head of the RNC.
Part of it, though, is in fact ideological.
The GOP has certain bromides which it will never abandon, one of which is this idea that Martin Luther King, Jr. is actually a conservative icon. Since Kirk has been discussing MLK’s foibles and even criticizing him, there is perhaps some cognitive dissonance. Conservatives love to pull one particular MLK quote:
“I look to a day when people will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”They think this shows that MLK was against affirmative action (he wasn’t) or that he would be at one with today’s conservatives (he wouldn’t).
As Kirk said on his show:
"MLK has become a lot more than a man, MLK has become a myth. MLK has become a quasi religious figure." Kirk went on to demythologize King on his show, which featured a black guest to reaffirm this view, as though to say, “Hey, I’m not racist, this guy agrees with me.” Kirk and his guest discussed MLK’s alleged womanizing, “raping,” and “Marxism.”
Probably MLK would be on board with the BLM agenda. Depending on your perspective, that doesn’t necessarily make him a malign force, yet it hardly makes him the guiding figure for conservatism. This more historically accurate picture of MLK is confusing to establishment conservatives because they like the idea that “Democrats are the real racists.” Incidentally, Kirk himself put forward this view just a few years ago:
Charlie Kirk is not exactly a thought leader, but he has at least evolved beyond the most basic Republican talking points. Does that make him too controversial for the GOP? We’ll have to find out.
Will Kirk’s criticism of DEI and MLK hurt the GOP with black voters? I don’t see how it’s possible. The support from black voters could almost literally not get any lower, despite the propaganda from Fox News, Breitbart, and other boomer conservative news sources that continually hype “increasing support” for Trump among black voters. That increasing support never seems to materialize into actual votes.
Let me tell you something: Trump got 8% of the black vote in 2020. Not 20%, not 50%– 8%. Charlie Kirk, then, is not about to sabotage the GOP efforts to persuade black voters because those efforts are already a failure.
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