How will people comment on Charlie Kirk in 30 years later?
Posted by Otherwise-Prompt6821@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 99 comments
I’m not American. I’m an international student studying political science in California. I’m currently writing an essay about MLK, and I realized that Americans’ attitudes toward him changed dramatically before and after his death.
I’m not comparing MLK and Charlie Kirk morally or politically.
I’m more interested in how American society sometimes changes its perception of controversial public figures over time.
Unsolven@reddit
They won’t
Ms-Metal@reddit
He was insignificant now and when he was murdered. Like I don't know who'd ever heard of this guy. He certainly not going to be any more significant 30 years from now lol.
aboxofkittens@reddit
He was insignificant, but I was equally surprised at how many people hadn’t heard of him prior, especially if you’re just going by feedback from redditors. I must have started seeing tiny face memes by 2016 at the absolute latest (2014 or 2015 seems more likely). But I guess people who weren’t involved with “discourse” online at the time must not have been exposed to them
DontKnowWhyImHereee@reddit
I saw the memes, saw him say foolish things a time or 2, but never knew his name or his political stances.
BlueSkyMourning@reddit
I didn't know who he was until he died. I don't listen to bs like he espoused. All the Saint Kirk nonsense has been disgusting. Everyone knows the only real Saint Kirk is Captain James T. Kirk.
thebolts@reddit
Who?
DaddyCrit728@reddit
Depends on who wins Civil War II (Electric Boogaloo)
OldnFuninMN@reddit
About as much as Rush the oxy addict Limbaugh.
Which means not hardly at all.
Ok_Sentence_5767@reddit
Hopefully they'll say "charlie who"
GreyGrackles@reddit
WE ARE CHARLIE WHOOOO? WE MIGHT CARRY THE 🔥?
-lousyd@reddit
Who?
02K30C1@reddit
Who? Never heard of her.
davdev@reddit
Who?
not_asleep_yet@reddit
It’ll be a footnote like the Waco thing in ‘93 or ‘94.
5uper5kunk@reddit
He’s not even on the same chapter as the Waco thing. Like the Waco thing was massively important and radicalizing the American right, the Oklahoma City bombings and a ton of domestic terrorism can be directly linked to the Waco unpleasantness. Kirk was a grifter who got popped by a weirdo that’s all he’s ever gonna be
not_asleep_yet@reddit
The Oklahoma City bombing is also a footnote, just as the young people.
BreakfastBeerz@reddit
He will be mostly forgotten about.
_IsThisTheKrustyKrab@reddit
It was significant, but not quite on the level of MLK or JFK. Probably more similar to how we remember the assassinations of Harvey Milk or Malcom X.
bren3669@reddit
He’ll be remembered as a hero and a martyr
Za_Lords_Guard_01@reddit
I pity anyone who sees a lobbyist as a hero.
bren3669@reddit
I pity anyone who doesn’t see him as a hero
Za_Lords_Guard_01@reddit
He did nothing at all to be considered a hero.
A grown adult arguing with college kids isn't a hero. A man taking money from billionaires to push their narrative isn't a hero. An influencer/lobbyist isn't a hero.
bren3669@reddit
ooh, i see you’re quite far behind.
Za_Lords_Guard_01@reddit
Ok, I'm bored. Tell me what he did to be a hero.
Aside from being a puppet for the Koch brothers and getting shot in the neck for his hateful views I mean.
Pirate1000rider@reddit
Any evidence to back up your position? Or is it just "trust me bro" ?
bren3669@reddit
yes, he’s already seen that way, time will only be kinder to him and his memory
Big-Connection6578@reddit
As if, bruh! ✋️
bren3669@reddit
nope, that’s a fact.
unenlightenedgoblin@reddit
Nobody aside from a small segment of right-wing teenagers today will remember him at all
DoubleDongle-F@reddit
I hope they just don't. He was a hack who got famous by going places he wasn't wanted, finding the weakest debate opponent he could get, and using bad-faith tactics to humiliate them for youtube clicks. If he goes down in history as anything other than an example of the dishonest media machine used to make all this bullshit happen, it'll be because the assholes won and made history what they wanted it to be.
Individual99991@reddit
Nobody's going to remember him. TP USA is already collapsing into irrelevance, the attempt to turn his death into a Reichstag fire moment has failed, the Candace Owens Vs Erika Kirk dramaslop has already peaked and the Charlie Kirk memes are already played out.
For comparison, 30 years ago Tupac Shakur - a substantially more significant person in popular culture - was killed. How often is his name invoked today?
5uper5kunk@reddit
I mean if you care at all about hip-hop people talk about 2Pac literally every single day. Like poke your head into any of the big hip-hop subs, there is a threat about him without exaggeration weekly if not daily.
dangleicious13@reddit
If I’m still alive, I’ll be saying the same things I’m saying about him now.
5uper5kunk@reddit
Literally nothing. He exists now only as memes and in the heart of a very selective breed of crazy conservatives.
America cycles through pop cultural phenomenon so fast these days that almost nothing sticks around for very long
Pirate1000rider@reddit
Barely a footnote in history i would suspect.
Chimney-Imp@reddit
I feel like he's a good poster child for how political discussion changed in the 21st century. He was the first conservative commentator to really take advantage of social media and be so successful with it. Between the algorithmic content pushing by social media and widespread access, it feels like someone with inflammatory views was the perfect candidate to get the massive signal boost that he did
MajesticBread9147@reddit
Sonny Bono died 28 years ago. How often is he mentioned in popular culture or history?
West_Guidance2167@reddit
I had no idea who he was when he got shot. I don’t think people tend to remember the people on the wrong side of history unless they are really bad.
WildlifePolicyChick@reddit
Kirk won't be remembered this time next year, let alone in thirty.
MLK was a force of good, and of his time, and changed the face of civil rights.
EatLard@reddit
They won’t. None of these right-wing noisemakers will warrant a special mention.
BananaJelloXlii@reddit
They won't. Historically he was a nobody. Just another right wing pundit in an already saturated market.
Own_Grapefruit8839@reddit
Most people hadn’t heard of him until he was killed.
Nemoudeis@reddit
In thirty years, Charlie Kirk will be remembered about as well as we remember Father Coughlin today.
Joliet-Jake@reddit
The public assassination will probably be remembered, but that’s it. Kirk wasn’t some kind of universally known figure or a household name.
Ok-Energy-9785@reddit
We won't even remember him by then
thingsbetw1xt@reddit
They won't. He was only just entering relevance when he was killed.
WASP_Apologist@reddit
Charlie who?
someofyourbeeswaxx@reddit
He’s not famous or important enough to be recognized in 30 years. Maybe by people studying religious social history, or domestic terrorism, as a footnote. He was just some guy who liked to pick fights with teenagers.
Ms-Metal@reddit
Same as we did now, Charlie who? You have to realize that unless you were in a very small subculture of people, you've never heard of this guy. I don't know one person who's heard of them. So I don't think he will be remembered at all because I don't think he was very well known outside of Evangelical Christian MAGA circles. Obviously his family will remember him and his loss is a tragedy for his family but aside from that, I don't think anybody will remember it in any way.
Professional-Pungo@reddit
Charlie is partial already credited to helping trump win votes among young voters.
I’d say many people knew about him and just pretend they didn’t
Wink527@reddit
Black Americans will still see him as racist prick and an all around bad person. Other Americans probably will be somewhat more nuanced.
The further right-wing a person is will see him as a hero doing the Lord’s work. As you move to the left not so much. Very few will see him as Black Americans do.
Steerider@reddit
Hopefully the "everyone I don't like is a Nazi" movement will have passed by then (if it hasn't we're in big trouble.) There plenty of video that speaks for itself — he had a huge influence. He was murdered because communists (another movement that will hopefully have ended) were terrified of how effective he was at reaching young people.
Za_Lords_Guard_01@reddit
Funny as hell that you're whining about the "Everyone I don't like is a nazi!" crowd while being a member of the "Everyone I don't like is a communist!" crowd.
He was murdered because he was a hateful piece of shit and someone got tired of it. He's a prime example of FAFO.
Hey-Bud-Lets-Party@reddit
He was killed by a groyper
Steerider@reddit
No he wasn't. Dude was a leftist who reportedly changed his official party registration a couple months before the assassination. The bullet casings were carved with messages like "catch, fash" and the like.
Calling him a right-winger is blatant denial of reality.
Hey-Bud-Lets-Party@reddit
The bullet casings had groyper slogans on them. It was caused by right-wing infighting.
What part of Russia are you in?
Steerider@reddit
Bullet casing included the following carved messages:
Clearly a fascist slogan?
A reference to, among other things, furry culture.
A reference to Italian resistance against Nazis in WWIi
Hey-Bud-Lets-Party@reddit
All co-opted by groypers
Steerider@reddit
So... Groypers are right wingers who only pretend to be left wingers? That's some real 4D chess there, man.
Or perhaps the term entirely exists to give leftists a means of denying obvious leftists belong to their own movement?
Hey-Bud-Lets-Party@reddit
Just on the off-chance that you are sincere, read this.
Steerider@reddit
Truly you have the Secret Kowledge.
Hey-Bud-Lets-Party@reddit
So you don’t read things. That’s probably your issue right there.
Hey-Bud-Lets-Party@reddit
You don’t seem to get the irony employed when one right wing group uses anti-fascist slogans to attack another right wing group.
Steerider@reddit
He looks, acts, and talks just like a hard leftist, but he's actually a super-double-top-secret hard right winger. Genius!
Hey-Bud-Lets-Party@reddit
You can lead a horse to water…
Steerider@reddit
Propaganda's a helluva drug. You certainly have your talking points down.
Hey-Bud-Lets-Party@reddit
Talking points? I bet you frequent r/conservative that just had three Russian accounts banned that along with their bots contributed almost half the traffic in the sub.
Individual99991@reddit
Lols all round.
Popular-Local8354@reddit
Depends on if he’s a one off or if shooting journalists and commentators is a new normal.
Za_Lords_Guard_01@reddit
Lobbyist. Kirk was a lobbyist.
Turning Point USA was (and still is) funded by dark money from billionaires. Notable among them the Kochs, who had control over the org for the first few years in return for money to start the foundation.
WhiskeyDeltaBravo1@reddit
Well, he wasn’t a journalist or a commentator. He was a piece of garbage.
_WillCAD_@reddit
They probably won't. He wasn't that big a deal, he was just a racist asshole.
PainterEarly86@reddit
He'll be used as a great example of selective free speech.
All the things he said in life were seen as okay.
But quoting him on his own words after his death is somehow seen as wrong.
His life was pathetic but his death was highly political.
How the US reacted told us a lot. A lot about how racist and stupid a lot of Americans are.
1029394756abc@reddit
A podcaster who someone got toads named after him.
I literally never heard of the guy till the shooting.
Many-Rub-6151@reddit
They won’t. He’ll be forgotten until a grandkid brings up his name out of the blue and you chuckle
Uuuuugggggghhhhh@reddit
They won't remember him
NotenStein@reddit
He will be less remembered than LBJ's Sec. of Housing and Urban Development.
Who was actually a big deal then, but no one remembers him.
matt_chowder@reddit
Who?
BigScoops96@reddit
Tbh if he debated people earnestly, and basically just tried to get people to have a different point of view, he’d probably wouldn’t have been shot.
His whole shtick was going onto colleges and debating with students at a folding table. He would use strawman arguments constantly, if he was getting embarrassed in an argument you’d never hear or see it. He was just there so he could release greatest hits videos that would essentially be “Charlie EMBARRASSES students at XYZ University”
Aware_Acanthaceae_78@reddit
I don’t think they will remember or care about him.
themzdaroolz@reddit
Who?
Popular-Local8354@reddit
Seriously?
Ms-Metal@reddit
I'm quite sure. I don't think most people have any clue who this guy was. Unless you're in highly religious right-wing Maga circles, you've never heard of them. Even when he was shot, most people had no idea who he was. They don't even know him now, as I didn't, he certainly not going to be remembered 30 years from now.
sundancer2788@reddit
Who?
cloudkite17@reddit
Huh? They won’t even remember him in 30 years with the way this news cycle is going. Most people barely knew who he was until he got shot.
MsPooka@reddit
He won't be remembered except by his family.
Hey-Bud-Lets-Party@reddit
He’s already fading into the background. It would be interesting to track the closure of TPUSA chapters across college and high school campuses over the next few years.
charcoal_kestrel@reddit
First off, check out Gary Alan Fine's books Difficult Reputations and Sticky Reputations. They are all about how Americans reconceptualize and shift emphasis on our collective memory of historical figures.
As to Kirk in particular, it really depends what trends he will be seen as emblematic of a few decades from now. As someone else noted, if there is a wave of assassinations, he will be remembered as part of that trend.
Here are some other trends he could be remembered as a part of:
Something he was objectively important to but which will likely not be remembered by the general public is the Republican coalition developing a serious GOTV (get out the vote) operation as they attracted a low propensity coalition.
Cheap_Coffee@reddit
He was a professional troll.
riptor3000@reddit
He'll be remembered in lists of ironic deaths like that guy who tried to prove how strong the windows in his building were by jumping into them then fell to his death
HippityHopMath@reddit
Honestly, the best comparison I can think of is Budd Dwyer. Dwyer’s death was so graphic that it’s still talked about today. On the flip side, can the average Joe say who Budd Dwyer was politically or why he was in trouble to begin with? That’s what Charlie Kirk will be.
krept0007@reddit
We'll let you know in 30 years
JuanSolo9669@reddit
The same as they comment 90's activist Dave Roberts now.
HippityHopMath@reddit
He will be more known for being assassinated so publicly rather than any of his political opinions or works. Hell, we’ve already seen this happen barely half a year out from his death.
AggressiveKing8314@reddit
Who?
Less-Load-8856@reddit
Conservative American Christians will think of him favorably. Other American Christians will have mixed feelings. Other non-Christians will have mixed feelings.
Basically.
Idustriousraccoon@reddit
Who?
Apprehensive-Pop-201@reddit
They won't.
idster@reddit
Society usually moves toward the left socially whereas Kirk was on the right