There’s some pretty angry stuff on the internet following the death of the far right “influencer” Charlie Kirk, from Donald Trump’s assertion that he was killed by the “radical left” to those who are all but celebrating his death. There has also been a great deal of piety from all sides, with people setting to one side his divisive and obnoxious views to mourn the loss of another human being and the loss to his family who have no skin in the game. I have no skin in the game, either, and while my thoughts are with his family, particularly his widow and now fatherless children, his was an ugly life, spreading hatred and bigotry. Let’s look at his own words, which I have cut and pasted from today’s Guardian:
On race
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022
Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023
If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because affirmative action?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024
If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023
On debate
We record all of it so that we put [it] on the internet so people can see these ideas collide. When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.
– Kirk discussing his work in an undated clip that circulated on X after his killing.
Prove me wrong.
– Kirk’s challenge to students to publicly debate him during the tour of colleges he was on when he was assassinated.
On gender, feminism and reproductive rights
Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025
The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.
– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 April 2024
On gun violence
I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.
– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023
On immigration
America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 22 August 2025
The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 20 March 2024
The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 March 2024
On Islam
America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 30 April 2025
We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilization.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 24 June 2025
Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.
– Charlie Kirk social media post, 8 September 2025
On religion
There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 6 July 2022
There’s much more of this kind of thing on the internet and a brief journey courtesy of Mr Google will take you to it and trust me when I say it’s every bit as unpleasant as the quotes you see here. Only straight, white, male religious fanatics were welcome in Kirk’s world. And Kirk’s world is Donald Trump’s world, more specifically Trump’s America. His death changes nothing, other than likely making things even worse.
They, whoever ‘they’ are, say that what America does first, we then follow. I think we’re divided enough as it is and I hope the government can spend the next four years getting back on track and save us from such a fate. You want it darker, you will have the chance to vote for it in 2029, as America did. And if you think the way to mend the Britain broken by 14 years of Conservative misrule is to smash it up even more, we are going to find ourselves in the same dark place.