Conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the founder and Executive Director of Turning Point USA, has put a new meaning on the words flip flop. The man, who can be seen doing back pain commercials on Fox News, is little more than a Conservative shill. Kirk espouses all the GOP talking points currently circulating, everything from Covid-19 conspiracy theories to support for the legislative filibuster. But what Kirk has also done, perhaps unintentionally, is to backpedal and retract his support or opposition to several key issues when it is politically convenient to do so. One can argue that just about everyone in the political hemisphere is prone to this action. However, Charlie Kirk has taken his reversals to another level.
A prime example of this is his undying support for former President Donald Trump. While Kirk has supported Trump since the Republican National Convention in 2016, he noticeably did not support him in the first year of his campaign. Only until midway through the convention did Kirk decide it was politically convenient to support Trump, and so he did. Granted as time goes on, people change, but Kirk has gone from a run-of-the-mill Conservative activist to a Trump-loving religious fanatic in just five years.
The History of Charlie Kirk
Charlie Kirk, who is just 27 years old, began his Conservative activism in High School in 2010. He wrote an essay for Breitbart News as a senior at Wheelings High School in Prospect Heights, Illinois. This led to a small amount of press and an appearance on Fox Business. Later, at an event called “Youth Empowerment Day,” hosted by Benedict University, Kirk met a Tea Party-backed GOP candidate named Bill Montgomery. Together, they co-founded the organization Turning Point USA, which continues to thrive today. In 2015, Kirk took classes at Harper College, a community college in the suburbs of Chicago. That same year, he decided to pursue Conservative activism full time and dropped out of school.
In 2016, Charlie Kirk spoke in support of the aforementioned Trump at the Republican National Convention. He would go on to create Turing Point Action, a political action committee intended to target Democrats. Around the same time, Kirk created a new political action committee associated with Turning Point Action called Students For Trump. The failed initiative aimed to get one million students to back Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. After it became clear that the committee would not succeed in its goal, Kirk distanced himself from it. In 2020, Kirk spoke at the Republican National Convention once again, this time with overwhelming support for President Trump. In October of that year, he began hosting a three-hour radio talk show on the Conservative Salem Radio Network.
The Abundant Controversy
Charlie Kirk, more recently, has adopted many of the most conservative talking points and conspiracy theories. He has promoted the Cultural Marxism conspiracy theory, that Western Marxists are working hand in hand with European Globalists to subvert Western Democracy and Conservative values. Also, Kirk has said repeatedly that he was denied entry to the United States Military Academy in West Point, New York because a cadet of a different race and value was accepted in his place. In 2020, Turing Point USA and Charlie Kirk himself opposed mask mandates and promoted anti-mask conspiracy theories. They eventually had to walk back some of their statements when TPUSA cofounder Bill Montgomery died of complications of Covid-19.
On other Covid-19 related issues, Kirk is less than impressive for his statements. He refers to the Coronavirus as the “China Virus”, a statement that former President Donald Trump also uses often. Additionally, Kirk claimed in the summer of 2020 that the Trump promoted medication hydroxychloroquine was 100% effective in treating Covid-19, despite no accepted evidence to that end. He has also said that the science of mask-wearing is questionable, and has frequently refused to abide by mask mandates. On the subject of the 2020 Election and the events of January 6, Charlie Kirk has again asserted unsubstantiated claims. He said that there was fraud in the 2020 Election that contributed to Trump’s defeat in several states. Kirk also attempted to downplay the violent events of January 6 by saying that they were not an insurrection and were not representative of mainstream Trump supporters.
The Hypocrisy
Charlie Kirk, for all of his faults, is not an ignorant individual. He realizes the policies and ideals that he has flip-flopped on, yet always seems to ignore them. When he was confronted by Fox News host Tucker Carlson about his changing stances on issues, Kirk simply gave excuses. He said that individuals are entitled to change their opinions, just as he has changed on Trump. This seems like a reasonable enough answer, but not when you compare him to like-minded individuals.
J.D. Vance, the Conservative author of the bestseller Hillbilly Elegy and candidate for Senate in Ohio, is a good comparison. In 2016, Vance strongly advocated against then-candidate Trump, saying that he had no place in the Republican Party and going so far as to write an Op-Ed in the New York Times against Trump. Now, with Vance on the ballot in the increasingly red Trump battleground of Ohio, Vance has changed his tune. He says he had an epiphany on Trump and now fully supports him and most of his policies. The hypocrisy is unbelievable, and this is why Charlie Kirk is right in line with J.D. Vance.
On religious issues, Charlie Kirk has gone from advocating the traditional values of Christianity while also keeping Chruch and State separate to full-on religious indoctrination. However you feel about religion, there is no arguing that Kirk has completely flipped the script on his own ideals. How can one go from generally supporting the separation of Church and State to a fully cultural-religious agenda? Theoretically, one can not, but Kirk has. What is even more amazing is that he has adopted these seemingly far-right-wing beliefs in a matter of three years. Clearly, Kirk has no business advocating for his beliefs because he just adopts whatever is popular in Trump’s Republican Party.
The Roundup
For Charlie Kirk, there is something for everyone to detest. Democrats and Liberals strongly disapprove of his tone on Covid-19, the 2020 Election, race, and several other issues. On the other hand, Republicans and Conservatives should strongly disavow his changing stances on some of the most important issues. Whether it be downplaying Covid-19 or the events of January 6, changing his tune on Trump multiple times, or just his smug personality, there really is ample ground to loathe Charlie Kirk. Perhaps his political ambitions and ideology can best be summed up as a toxic stew of falsehoods and hypocrisy. And yes, Charlie Kirk is indeed a man that believes in nothing.
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