Charlie Kirk, the MAGA influencer and head of the right-wing youth group Turning Point USA, has undergone a seismic shift in his branding in recent years, going from a pro-market ideologue to a Christian nationalist who supports theocratic takeover of the state, Amanda Marcotte wrote for Salon — and it's no accident.
Specifically, she argued, he has made this transformation to create a permission structure for hardcore racism — as demonstrated by the fact that one of his idols is a recently-deceased religious figure who endorsed slavery.
"Kirk, who wanted to seem like a young and 'hip' Republican when he started out, claimed in 2016 to have a 'secular worldview.' Two years later, he criticized older Republicans for ignoring the 'separation of church and state.' His organization ... cited their values as 'fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government,'" wrote Marcotte.
However, these days his rhetoric is infused with Christian supremacy and, "By 2022, he was falsely claiming the separation of church and state is 'a fabrication' made up by 'secular humanists.' (In fact, it was 'made up' by Thomas Jefferson.)"
Indeed, she noted, he appears to be the latest right-wing figure pushing the New Apostolic Reformation's so-called "Seven Mountain Mandate" — the belief that Christians, or at least right-wing Christians, must achieve dominance in the seven pillars of culture: religion, family, education, government, media, business and the arts.
To understand why Kirk has shifted his rhetoric so profoundly, Marcotte argued, look to his mourning of evangelical pastor John MacArthur, who died last month.
"Kirk called him 'one of the most influential Protestant minds since the Reformation,' and a 'legend' who 'never bowed to the gods of this age' and 'never apologized for Scripture.' Soaring language — but it’s a euphemism. One of MacArthur’s most famous old-fashioned beliefs was that slavery was godly," wrote Marcotte.
MacArthur proclaimed Black people were cursed by God to be "servile," and that while some slaveowners committed abuses, “working for a gentle, caring, loving master was the best of all possible worlds.” A Black man being obedient to his master was no different from a white man being obedient to Jesus, he claimed.
In reality, Marcotte argued, Kirk was just delighted to find a religious outlet for his racism. "Kirk routinely expresses his own racist views. He suggested Black pilots are unqualified. He blamed a Black fire chief in Austin, Texas, for flooding deaths that occurred a three-hour drive away from the city. He denounced the passage of the 1965 Civil Rights Act and tried to discredit the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as 'awful' and 'not a good person.'"
This kind of rhetoric "has long held this appeal for a simple reason: It puts an ennobling gloss on ugly feelings," Marcotte concluded. "It dresses up bigotry as if it were about faith and philosophy, instead of cruelty. It’s also about escaping responsibility. Since the racist cannot justify their views rationally, instead they blame God, who is conveniently never around to answer questions. It’s a pathetic excuse for small-minded people."
"No wonder Charlie Kirk embraced it so wholeheartedly," she added.