I am going to write a sentence that will be met with a
resounding duh.
Charlie Kirk is an American. Well duh
Peel back a couple of layers of the onion and Charlie Kirk
is an opportunist. An opportunist in the truest of American opportunists. He
admits it in his first book:
“Because there were people out
there before the organization was formed, you could say I didn’t start Turning
Point; I found it and made it available to others.”
Yes this doesn’t exactly say he was an opportunist, yet he
is saying I knew there was something to be had and I was going towards it.
And just a few pages later he admits to how lucky he was in
getting Turning Point started. He does admit that luck is part of the game. And
this, his first book, was written four years into the growth of Turning Point.
Mr. Kirk also opportunistically has quite a bit going for
him. He comes from a family in good financial shape, maybe not rich, but
strong. He is good looking to many. He is smart. He picked a side. And that
folks is very important in America. And once he picked a side he went full
throttle. Even in his first book he tries to resolve the side issue when he
writes about ending the game between team right and team left.
He cannot end the game. He is thriving on the existence of
the game. He jumped in and openly defined his side is the correct side and the left
is the enemy, the wrong side.
As regular readers know I pretty much think of many
leftists, especially in the Democrat leadership, as clueless elitists. Mr. Kirk
doesn’t use this verbiage, yet he recognizes it and attacks them on a point by
point basis. And for many Americans who were tired of being told what was right
and wrong such as political correctness, yet also a host of other nuanced
attributes of people on the left looking down at certain Americans Mr. Kirk’s
recognition resonated greatly with them.
The same Hillary Clintonites that would use verbiage like
flyover states and call MAGA deplorables heard what Charlie Kirk was saying. I
am on your side and our side is the right side. These people want to destroy
you, take away everything you can have because they don’t believe in you.
And for young people who didn’t feel respected by the
current elitist culture, this felt like a wake up call.
Americans like being on a side. We, through our history, want
to be the good guy. It is engrained in us through all sorts of media until 2010
when there were only people telling us we weren’t good anymore if we didn’t
behave a certain way, talk a certain way, express ourselves in a certain way.
Many Americans were more ignorant than the left realized and Charlie Kirk
tapped into that like college kids used to tap a keg. Their ignorance wasn’t their fault. It was
the elitist liberals who bred ignorance to develop a control over the attitudes
of the country. Charlie Kirk recognized this and exploited it in a different
way.
He came across too many as a hard working American that
understood what America was all about. If you didn’t have the opportunity to live
the American dream there was something wrong. And he was going to bring back
the American dream.
And yes he was hard working. To create the organization and
do the things he did, he definitely had to work hard, no doubt. He had luck. The
timing was good for someone like him. Think of all those who have come after
him. Mimicry is a great form of flattery.
He formed a massive grass roots and social media movement
simultaneously. He merged the old way of American culture with the emergence of
the new.
Americans who disagreed with his words, never accounted for
his actions. You do not get to where he did by just one path. He embraced everything
that came his way and found the right people to help him.
And he relentlessly attacked the other side. If they did
something right, he found ways to twist it where it didn’t sound like it was
for you, that those programs would fail you because they weren’t meant for you.
He was good.
He encouraged people that it was okay to have controversial
views, even if those views were antithetical to the values of equality, equal
opportunity, all men are created equal. Sure he said his vision were those things,
but if you weren’t on his side this wasn’t for you. You were the one hindering
the view points of his tilted values. The left was against you. The fact the
left is clueless only validated his view points.
Charlie Kirk was successful and that is about as American as
you can get. What Charlie Kirk said was not always the American values he said
he was preaching. He picked a side and married it. And by doing such he hurt
America. He made others pick a side. “Proof
me wrong” yet it was said in a small box he created because in reality there
are thousands of different nuances to what is going on with an individual’s
life, a culture, a country, this world.
You can pick a side, but that does not mean everything your
side does is correct and the larger the game the less successful using only one
side’s tactics will be for the game and even your side.
Charlie Kirk says he offers solutions and some sound as
American as apple pie. He believes in small government, the free market, he
shared his faith, yet in practice he chose to say it had to be his view point,
that taking on questionable values was okay if you practiced his side. He
became the face of a large movement. He rose in the ranks of the modern
conservative culture. He espoused what the rulers want to hear. He brought
millions along with him. As with anyone in any world that does not make you
better than any other, the modern conservatives tend to love to elevate people
into lofty positions in their minds to justify believing in demonizing others.
They want to hear the other side is bad because their lives are broken and they
need to blame their brokenness on others. And in most cases their brokenness is
there because of many reasons. The problems stem from them self, ironically Mr.
Kirk says they can overcome it on their own, it comes from society, it comes
from a lack of faith, (many people say they have faith, yet when they turn
inwards something turns back on them), it comes from a culture that no longer has
values or values what is superficial and more. Yet this brokenness exists and
for young people starting off in the world being told that things are all right
helps.
Right now America doesn’t want to know how bad are things.
They want to hear things are great so they can continue to play their video
games and not worry about the next paycheck.
Charlie Kirk tapped into that with a vengeance. And nowadays that energy
is contagious. People do not want to expend it themselves, but when someone on
their side does it works for them.
Obama tapped into the same energy with the youth of this country
in 2008. “yes we can” resonating with young people on the left just as strongly
as Charlie Kirk’s proof me wrong does with the young on the right. Young people
want hope, both offered it for a moment.
Tomorrow will be another day. There will always be someone who
will take advantage of opportunities presented. Charlie Kirk’s message ended
abruptly and horribly. No one should die unnecessarily and he did. I can read
what he said and see where he was coming from. It does not mean I agree with
everything he said, yet I do agree with we need a smaller government, the
markets should be allowed to work and I share my faith a bit. Outside the bubble
though those words are not enough. To share your faith people have to respect
it, to say we need smaller government when there are injustices in the world is
not understanding why even our founding fathers created our government. The
market is great until just a few people control all of the market. Nothing is
an absolute and when you pick a side you lose half your solutions.
Charlie Kirk tapped into a need of this country. It wasn’t
the right need, it wasn’t the wrong need. And he did say much that was just as
damaging in a different way than the clueless elitists that tell us how to
think. People will disagree and okay that is what it is truly all about.
I am not going to pick sides and that is one reason I do not
garner the following of someone like Charlie Kirk or others. Charlie Kirk tapped
into a need that cried we are lacking energy, direction, purpose and he gave it
to some. And he picked one side to express his thoughts on these needs.
Charlie Kirk was wrong not because his side was wrong, he
was wrong because he was a visionary for a movement, yet not a visionary for
what is truly needed. He espoused ideas and policies, but that wasn’t what he
was about. He was about painting a rosy picture to create the same false
illusions all people of movements do.
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