"The Context": Issue Two Digital Footprint
In Issue Two of The Context, I check back in with Charlie Kirk the following year to see who he's become, and what he's said. I found him worrying we'd be able to do that and recontextualize why đ§
Over the last week, we have witnessed the conservative hive-mind work to sanitize the maliciously white supremacist, rapist mind and mouth of, Charlie Kirk â in real time.
[The only way Charlie Kirk was remotely ârightâ is that statistics under report SA/SV.]
To be clear, this is not me demonizing Christianity. I am highly spiritual myself, just not in a âgo to church on Sundayâ or any other abrahamic religious way. And I respect each personâs right to religious beliefs, so long as they do not pervert them into hatred.
We will not sit back quietly and allow erasure of the full digital footprint of a neo-nazi.
No matter how many pyrotechnics you use, no matter how much merch Erika sells, no matter how many other known white supremacists that spoke at his memorial, it does not change the revolting, vile, inexcusable hatred that he dedicated his life to spewing.
Building off of Issue One, herein, I began again by dissecting Charlieâs well-funded stochastic terrorism (that generated a hateful targeted harassing body politic) by first looking at a video from the Internet Archive. His online presence, and words, tell all.
After his first appearance on Fox, and his Breitbart op ed, how did he decide to move?
By August 22nd, 2014, after attending the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Kirk continued making himself known in conservative (C-SPAN) spaces, by taking part in a discussion on Balancing Security and Liberty with a state politician at the Steamboat Institute Freedom Conference held in Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
There he rubbed noses with conservatives, while sharing a story shit talking the IRS and warning that the government conspires against citizens via NSA surveillance. He ventriloquized a little u.s. government approved post-9/11 normalized Islamophobia, only to then, once again (throwback to Issue One), chose to frame Obama negatively.
(Not that I defend Obama since he chose to relentlessly drone strike the Global South.)
Point is, Former Governor / Free Congress Foundation president, Jim Gilmore, surely loved to hear a conservative youth, like Kirk, so heavily indoctrinated into propaganda.
Scandalously (according to white conservative sensitivities at least), CK then shared to the audience that Edward Snowden revealed Big Brother to the âunawareâ u.s. public.
(Now, today, we see organized fascists, like the Heritage Foundation, capitalizing on said uneducated u.s. public, while simultaneously spinning rhetorical webs to their advantage by saying theyâre an âenemy to the republicâ. All the while benefitting from, and openly investing in / uplifting, misinfo- / disinformative garbage, like PragerU.)
Shortly thereafter, here, he framed âthe leftâ (Iâm sure, he just meant neo/liberals), as being in favor of growing bureaucracies, arguing they âdidnât care when conservatives were targeted by the IRS,â and asserting âWe have to, as conservatives, lead the charge against the abuse of power. And we have to be the vocal opponents to unchecked federal bureaucrats, wiretapping of american citizens.â Their patriarchal staged back and forth continued into agreement that their concerns lay in being âwiretappedâ and labeled âterroristsâ by the u.s. government after having their digital footprints stored.
How ironic, considering, as Daily Signal writer Tyler OâNeil graciously shared while target harassing me: only a few months before Charlie K. was murdered (by a gunman already forgiven by his wife [at his pyrotechnic / merch-filled memorial]), the Southern Poverty Lawn Centre had added his organization, tpusa, to their impressive hate map.
All along CKâs path, there were forks in the road. He made the decisions that he did.
Karma made sure that young CK got exactly the kind of energy he put into the world.
Anyway, host, Denver Post columnist Krista Kafer, next reminded anyone listening of radicalized u.s. âbad guysâ and Charlie responded: âterroristsâŚwant us to live in fear and paranoia, and a lot of people in this room live in fear of their government or the fear of retribution for your governmentâ warning if the NSA exists, paranoia will too.
Their conversation then shifted into their perspectives on whether Edward Snowden was a âpatriot, traitor, or neither.â Baby Charlie Kirk said that he âwouldnât call him a patriot,â but what he revealed was/is indisputable (no matter how controversial), and it opened a dialogue / discussion about the NSA that was, until then, publicly unknown.
Whereas Governor Gilmore labeled Edward S. as a traitor to the u.s. government here, while revealing a printed black / white flyer of him that read one word âCOMRADESâ.
Doesnât get much more McCarthyesque / red scare obvious than that..huh, comrades?
Need I remind readers, especially now, that just because this awful podcaster did not completely and utterly agree with a literal op, it does not mean that he was not an alt-right pipeline door man, funneling impressionable young minds into fascist apologia.
To not belabor this exchange much longer, Kirk went on to actually admit that other conservatives referred to him as a âterrorist sympathizerâ (which he denied) since, at that time, he did not believe in the abolishment of the NSA. And he continued on to say the reality is that we live in a world where the government has âunchecked powerâ.
If only 20-something Charlie K. had a comprehensive understanding of neoliberalism. But no, instead, he became a far-right mouth piece spreading half-baked neo-nazi shit.
In my masters classes, my mentor, Dr. Lee Artz, used to ask: âWhatâs the definition of âterrorismâ?â and after we answered in usual guesses, heâd then say: âWhatever the u.s. government wants it to be.â Artz also promised that âif we could find him one u.s. president that ever caused social change heâd give us an automatic A for the entire semesterâ. Because no president ever has. Only power of the people makes change.
Since our nation is founded upon eugenics, our government has a long and bloody history of, defining âterrorismâ through the lens of white supremacy. Only through our collective effort, agitation, and risky speaking up will we ever change this system.
Now, tie it back to his 2014 video. Notably, after Charlie finished, total op, J. Gilmore admonished that since the Internet, our technological capacities, changed everything.
And, yes, as Iâve detailed, comprehensively, in my work â over especially the last five years â I couldnât agree more â both for better and for worse. Historically, even nazi sympathizer and traitor, Martin Heidegger, admitted during this life that âtechnology can only reveal what already existsâ. This includes, well-documented digital footprint of white supremacist, cisheterosexist, Christian nationalist, neo-nazis, like Charlie K.
The Context is that this is â exactly â what changes everything in this moment. We are the most connected era in human history. So, despite concerted efforts to censor the truth about who Kirk was during his life, those of us who know cannot unsee him.
Even his past host, Kafer, wrote an article, adding that his death should not be used to âattack free speech rightsâ and he âis not an appropriate candidate for canonizationâ.
Their panel closed with CK stating that u.s. citizens documented (i.e. life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness) constitutional rights are the only ones directly âfrom godâ.
To be so fucking clear, like countless others who choose to ignore actual u.s. history, Charlie Kirk only believed that because he was socialized into a racist ass system built upon a rotten eugenics foundation of colonial capitalism, preaching manifest destiny.
I further unveiled âThe Contextâ of this nation originating Christian nationalist myth, in my newest book. Specifically, I reminded that, since any media can only reveal what already exists, this envirusment era, especially, is revealing the many eugenics logics humans built into systems as features, dehumanizing the Global Majority by default.
And I know this, not just as a media & communication PhD but, as a u.s. white person.
Kirk spoke everyday discriminations that I was born and raised into, and have worked to unlearn, myself. Hence why white neo/liberals and conservatives resonate with him, while staying virtually silent about the carceral and militarized violences they vote for.
Again, I am just a few years older than him. Meaning, at the same time I was working to unlearn u.s. violences (at the expense of familial, social, and romanticized abusive relationships), CK was on TV investing his time infinitely repeating neo-nazi rhetoric.
I have absolutely zero fucking sympathy for absolute fucking fascist cowards, like him. And I trust that this second issue of âThe Contextâ better clarifies exactly why.
No matter what job I lose, everyone informed knows: I am on the right side of history.
And both my and Charlie Kirkâs digital footprints make that abundantly fucking clear.