Everybody wants to talk about Charlie Kirk.
Nobody wants to talk about Charlie Kirk.
Both things are true.
It’s front page news, but most of the people I know feel like it’s another eye in the hurricane that we all live in. If we hunker down, pull the covers over our heads and clutch the Constitution maybe it will all go away?
What disturbs me, as someone who writes a lot about toxic masculinity and the degradation of women’s rights, is what I found when I went looking for “Charlie Kirk’s views on women” and turned up quotes like these:
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.
Then I read this account by a young woman who wrote this article for the Freedom From Religion Foundation1that begins,
Walking into a Charlie Kirk–endorsed “Leadership Summit” geared toward young women, I already knew it would leave me upset. However, after a seemingly never-ending weekend, I realized it was not the constant degradation of women or the villainization of feminism that disturbed me the most, as I had expected. What bothered me more was the sheer number of young girls and women who surrounded me throughout the summit, cheering and rejoicing as Kirk and like-minded female acolytes delivered sermon-like remarks onstage that all zeroed in on one main idea: True femininity resides in servitude and motherhood.
Kirk’s messaging went well beyond glorifying marriage and motherhood — it resoundingly discouraged women from entering the workforce or pursuing education. At one point, Kirk professed that, “Husbands should do everything he can to not force his wife into the workforce.” But when he received an earnest question from a woman asking what federal policies he would back to make it possible for single-income households to survive financially, Kirk, predictably, did not have an answer.
His solutions are not policy-based, but are instead rooted in indoctrination and unwavering obedience. In one of the two Q&A sessions Kirk led, as teenage girls lined up to ask for his wisdom on navigating school or balancing a career life with motherhood, Kirk stressed that women should not attend college and that high-school girls should prioritize marriage and children above all else. Kirk trumpeted that grades do not matter and that a true patriot should not care about them, suggesting that Christians get bad grades because they do not succumb to the “woke” teachings of the U.S. education system and the Left.
I also read this New York Times Opinion piece by Nathan Taylor Pemberton, Charlie Kirk’s Killing and Our Poisonous Internet, which begins with a scene you may have watched, and also wondered about.
Moments into a Friday morning news conference announcing the apprehension of a suspect in Charlie Kirk’s killing, the governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, began to read aloud the phrases reportedly engraved on the assassin’s bullet casings:
“Notices bulges OWO what’s this?”
“Hey fascist! Catch!”
“Oh bella ciao bella ciao bella ciao ciao ciao.”
“If you read this you are gay lmao.”
These cryptic words were read tentatively by Mr. Cox, who seemed to have little idea of their meaning and provided no further context. The governor also relayed how the suspect, Tyler Robinson, 22, communicated his actions to friends on the Discord group chat platform. One relative, Mr. Cox said, described Mr. Robinson as “full of hate.”
The only thing that can be said conclusively about Mr. Robinson, at this moment, is that he was a chronically online, white American male.
While I understood the “Bella ciao” reference 2, other cryptic words whose meaning were from from clear to Gov. Cox, (or viewers like me), were explained by NBC News:
That particular unfired casing was also inscribed with additional symbols — an up arrow, a right arrow and three down arrows. The order of directional arrow symbols is a code used in the hit video game Helldivers 2 to summon a bomb on the player’s position.
The video game challenges players to work together as an elite team of soldiers to save Earth by pushing back invading hordes of space bugs, cyborgs and robots. Last year, it reinvigorated a long-running debate about fascism and satire.
Very tentatively, I clicked on the above link. Proceed with caution.
As someone who’s traded in political satire, hearing that a wildly popular and apparently influential video game has had to affix a warning label to itself because too many of its fans see it as an advertisement for a future militaristic regime is cause for concern.
“Friendly reminder: Don’t be a fascist,” the text over the video of Helldiver soldiers reads. “This game is a satire. You should not be genuinely reciprocating approval of conquest, genocide and violence. … Don’t be cringe. Choose to think.”
Yes, things are that bad.
Yes, the group Ron Reagan does commercials for.
See—please, see!—”Money Heist” on Netflix.