Charlie Kirk: Anything But A Martyr

On September 10, 2025, right-wing activist Charlie Kirk lost the gun debate.

One should never celebrate the death of another individual and I am not. However, I do believe it is very important that we be aware of what Charlie Kirk had been promoting and how that contributed to the current divisive, violent atmosphere in American politics.

This is a virus that is now spreading outside of the United States.

For example, in the United Kingdom on September 13^th, over 110,000 turned out in London to a far-right street rally that featured racist conspiracy theories and hate speech.

Also on September 13^th, CBC Radio’s Day 6 program added to disquiet by featuring a very informative discussion on rising white nationalism and the far-right here in Canada.

More hopefully, I must say I have been very impressed by Utah’s governor Spencer Cox, who has been trying to de-escalate the situation, urging both sides to end the cycle of violent division, saying clearly that, “At some point, we have to find an off-ramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse.”

Unfortunately, too many politicians, podcasters, and people are not following Governor Cox’s lead. President Trump rightly called Kirk’s murder “a dark moment for America” but then went out of his way to make things worse, blaming the so-called radical left for causing the murder. When asked on Fox News how Americans can come back together to fix the country, Trump responded, “I couldn’t care less.”

Charlie Kirk was an ally and very strong supporter of Donald Trump and all of his racist and fascist ideas. Kirk, an avowed Christian nationalist, endorsed and promoted a number of extremist ideas, including:

• The Great Replacement theory — the theory that left-leaning ‘elites’ are conspiring to replace white citizens with non-white immigrants, with the intention to, as described in Britannica, “enable new nonwhite majorities in those countries to take control of national political and economic institutions, to dilute or destroy their host countries’ distinctive cultures and societies, and eventually to eliminate the host countries’ white populations.”
• Opposition to abortion — the belief that abortion is murder and should be illegal, including in cases of rape. He has compared abortion to the holocaust.
• Racist ideologies – he has questioned the qualifications of Black airline pilots; has insisted that Black people in the U.S. were better under ‘Jim Crow’ laws; and has said that Black women don’t have the brain power to be taken seriously.
• Families, not careers for women – he promoted the notion that women should prioritize marriage and having children over having careers. He even said that women should only go to college to find a husband.
• No gun control – in a sad, final irony, Kirk pronounced in 2023 that it was worth having some gun deaths to protect the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which gives Americans the right to bear arms.

Let’s not turn Charlie Kirk into a martyr. He was anything but.

Daily atmospheric CO₂ [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]

Latest daily total (September 14, 2025): 424.27ppm

One year ago (September 15, 2024): 422.13ppm