11
votes
Charlie Kirk's murder reveals a cultural sickness (Just Asking Questions podcast episode)
Link information
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- Authors
- Liz Wolfe, Zach Weissmueller
- Published
- Sep 18 2025
- Word count
- 458 words
A bit understated. Kirk vehemently hated transgender people, publicly and clearly.
https://www.advocate.com/politics/charlie-kirk-anti-lgbtq-quotes#rebelltitem5
I grew up in a church where that particular brand of hate spewing was (and is) common, but absolutely none of the people in the church consider it "hatred". They believe (and I genuinely think some of them believe it) that saying things like this is a way to show the church's version of "love".
The logic is something like:
I bet if you could ask Charlie Kirk, his response would be something like "I don't hate you, I hate your sins and want you to wash them away with the blood of Jesus" or something.
That layer of internal logic redirection has been used for my entire lifetime in my hometown to try to get people to stop reading Harry Potter, or drinking alcohol, or being queer, or pick a thing. This brand of manipulation works really well in rural communities where there just aren't other groups of people to be around. If half of the town goes to the same church and you're put on public display, you can't go to the grocery store without being shunned because everywhere you go someone from the church is there.
This is true of most conservative Christians who share Kirk's views, as I can attest from having grown up in that environment myself as well (though luckily not as isolated as I would've been in a rural community). But I think you're underestimating how inflammatory Kirk was more generally. I wouldn't necessarily bet against you on this, but I don't think it's as safe a bet as you think it is.
(Also shoutout to my mom for accidentally being woke in advance by not letting me read Harry Potter as a kid lol)
Seems to fall apart when that "sin" is the color of your skin. As is lately. Can't exactly suddenly become white.
Or not wanting to join a cult engaging in such abuse.
Can confirm. Had a cousin who's side of the family became pretty religious while our side was not so religious. Growing up they would constantly try to put us down about how they didn't approve of us or some of our actions. They would justify the prying and comments by saying "they cared about us and are just trying to save us". In their minds, they truly are doing the right thing by trying to get us to stop the "bad behavior" so we can go to heaven with them. They love us, they want us to make better choices so we can be saved.
From a certain point of view, I get it. You see someone you actually care about doing some destructive behavior, you want to intervene so they don't ruin their lives. But there's a world of difference between someone potentially ruining their life through let's say, hard drug use or gambling addiction, vs. reading Harry Potter or playing Pokemon.
Those who are in that religious mindset equate anything outside of that mindset as harmful and dangerous, and that's what they use to justify their actions. They also fail to understand the perspective from the opposite side. They never once consider how they would feel if someone from a different religious background started acting the same way towards them, belittling them, telling them their actions are terrible, etc. They would hand wave it off because in their mind they know with certainty that their worldview/religion is the correct one, so the person doing this to them is just misinformed. Basically a "it's ok when I do it because I'm actually right" situation.
The real culture sockness is being able to say "The Civil Rights act was a mistake" 60 years after its drafting and then the media is too spineless to say anything more than "supposed hatred".
That same media swept the GOP messages under the rug while harping on reddit comments a Senate candidate made over a decade ago. Our "culture" was bought out by those who want to erase culture as a whole.
It's fascinating how people who are more-or-less on the same level intellectually and who essentially have access to the same information can form so many different opinions about the same person.
Well, people's access to information is somewhat selective but that said I do believe there is an intense effort from right-leaning media to downplay positions he was quite explicit about and proud of.
Reason is libertarian. Ezra Klein (who I picked here because he famously wrote an article about this) is center-left, Freddie deBoer (the guest in this podcast episode) is a Marxist. It's possible though the deBoer did not exactly downplay Kirk's positions in this episode, but rather talked about the toxic online culture that contributed to Kirk's murder.
I always hear Ezra Klein is center-left. But any policy he discusses outside of identity politics is center-right. I'd say he is a conservative who is ok with queer BIPOC folks as long as they are wealthy.
It's perhaps easier to understand when you contextualize it from Liz Wolfe's perspective, which is a person who would:
I wouldn't say she is at the same level of anti-trans hysteria that Kirk was, but she's fairly sympathetic to his side.
Which is regarded as evil in some religious sense, I suppose?
Good rhetoric and rationalizations require intelligence. Finding your position is different from supporting your position. The strongest abolitionist and pro-slavery voices both used scripture. I can't claim to know all their motives, but a good guess would be having an economy built on chatel slavery has most doing it from self-interest instead of religion/ideology.
By pointing out that Liz Wolfe probably shares the same positions about trans people as Charlie Kirk slipping in a "supposed" is expected. It waters down what is pretty blatant hate in calling trans people "an abomination to God", making her view more palatable. The same with "rampant celebration and dehumanization of a father and husband who was killed for the words he spoke."
I haven't listened to the podcast and couldn't find a transcript. Did they bring up his support of Jack Posobiec (at least neo-nazi-curious), or the movie-length plug of Unhumans?
It seems like that would be relevant to a Marxist guest.
Just noting that denying human status to a group of people is one of the stages of behavior that leads to genocide. Ten Stages of Genocide
No, this is the first time I've seen or heard that name.
He's been a contributor, guest, and host for TPUSA for years. If you've seen eulogy-ish pieces for Kirk odds are he wrote them or is at least referenced.
Sorry, what do you mean?
This seems exactly the perspective you might expect from a podcast named "Just Asking Questions" on a site named "Reason".
In the final episode of Reason's Just Asking Questions, Liz Wolfe and Zach Weissmuller talk with Freddie deBoer (who is an American Marxist author) about Charlie Kirk and cultural sickness.
It's somewhat US-specific, but in many ways touches topics that are rising everywhere in the West at least. I thought the talk was quite interesting, with some kind of polar opposites on the same table talking quite sensibly. Brought a bit of hope to me at least.
DeBoer's website is https://fredrikdeboer.com/