The Benjamin Report

The day after Charlie Kirk’s assassination, The New York Times published an opinion piece from political researcher, theorist, observer, and all-around smart guy Ezra Klein. I didn’t like it, and sent a letter to the editor about my slight with it. I never heard back, understandable, after all who am I? But the next day, The New York Times published six different reflections from young conservatives about Mr. Kirk, each one a cocktail of vitriol and falsehoods. I don’t think my letter will be published by the Times, which is okay. Nonetheless, I am publishing it here.

I admire Ezra Klein and his thoughts on the matter are quite noble, but he mistakes something crucial about Charlie Kirk and his “right way” of practicing politics. Charlie Kirk was not a persuasive. He didn’t persuade others to think differently, or at least to see from different angles. Charlie Kirk had one mission in Turning Point USA and his praxis: to make far-right ideologies concrete in the minds of young people who wanted to believe in bigotry but couldn’t find the infrastructure to promise them they weren’t in the wrong.

He denied truth willfully. He confused the absolutes of science into mere politics. He led a whole generation of America into a torrent of violence and hatred. I agree that there is something to fear about how our country has been spinning so easily into violence. But its causes and cautions aren’t due to friction between political beliefs, because Charlie Kirk didn’t expound “beliefs”, he expounded lies and encouraged violence.

There is a strong difference between his circumstances and the politicians Mr. Klein references. The politicians were elected officials who didn’t engage in the aggressive and hateful rhetoric that Kirk was always so glib to employ.

He shouldn’t have died, not in the way he did. But nobody should die that way. And yet they do everyday without ceremony. To eulogize Charlie like this reads to the people hurt and killed by the violence he consistently excused as if their lives and their pain truly mean nothing. No, worse than nothing, their subjugation is important to an effective democracy. I’m sure Mr. Klein wouldn’t mean such a thing, but nonetheless, that’s what his words here mean.