Charlie Kirk

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“”I live like a capitalist every single day, Cenk! I live as a capitalist, okay? I live what I believe!

—Charlie Kirk, losing his temper in a debate with The Young Turks' Cenk Uygur, attempting to physically attack the latter.

Charles J. Kirk (1993–) is an American right-wing grifter, trustfund baby, professional meme maker, and diaper enthusiast. He is the founder and spiritual leader of Toilet Paper USA Talking Points USA Turning Point USA (TPUSA), which organizes bizarre conservative stunts on college campuses and (according to an exposé at the conservative leaning Washington Examiner) has a long history of teen underage drinking and rape at its student conventions. Kirk is also known for cameoing as the spokesperson for the fictional restaurant Li'l Bits in an episode of Rick and Morty.

TPUSA claim that they're a "youth organization that promotes the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government," when in reality, they're just a right-wing echo chamber for dying boomers and edgy white boys that takes any chance they can get to insult socialists and anyone left of Henry Kissinger. Most of their Twitter feed consists of calling out socialists for being "hypocrites" (because apparently using an iPhone and buying things to survive instead of living in a cavemen commune invalidates all your left-leaning arguments), complaining about leftist propaganda in the curriculum, making antisemitic and/or rape jokes, preying on naive first year college students instead of debating professionals, pundits and experts, sharing terrible memes, et cetera.

Kirk really thinks that making "vagina hands" à la Donald Trump makes him look badass.

Biography

Kirk was born into a wealthy Illinois family. His father, Robert W. Kirk, was the project architect manager for Trump Tower in New York. He became politically active after Barack Obama became President. In 2010, he joined the Tea Party and volunteered for the US Senate campaign of Illinois Republican Mark Kirk (no relation). In 2012, he wrote his first piece for Breitbart complaining about "liberal bias" in high school economics textbooks. Despite being promoted as "Trump's man on campus", Kirk actually dropped out of community college; he was allegedly rejected from Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts West Point, and blamed it (without any evidence) on affirmative action. Because of course.

On religion

“”[A]s the world adds more atheists the moral fiber of our civilization will continue to decay. And the more atheists there are in the world, the bigger government will grow[.] Atheism must be defeated[.]

—Charlie Kirk

Kirk, who is an evangelical Christian, believes that atheism leads to socialism, as men attempt to fashion themselves into Gods:

For some individuals it's more real than God, which I think is preposterous, but, as a society gets more secular, unfortunately with it goes its moral conduct and behavior. Now, I am a fierce proponent of the separation between church and state, I think it's actually been positive for Christianity in the United States, I think that the less government has endorsed state-run religion, the more the church has been able to succeed, as long as our religious liberties are intact, preserved, and protected. The point being, is that if you try and have a theocracy like some of the European countries did in the 50's and 60's or the 20's and 30's, people inherently try and rebel against it, so for example, Spain had that huge argument, "Should we become a pseudo Roman Catholic state?" and that kind of started a little bit of a conflict, a little bit. Um, the point being is that the protection of the — uh, individual liberties is super important, but looking holistically, you — there, there's a coincidence — there's no coincidence, there's no argument that one of the reasons behind the rampant, um, escalation of I would say immoral behavior in a lot of these countries, in North Korea or China and the former Soviet Union, is that when you remove God and you say there is no God, government replaces that and the reason is, motivational leaders want to create themselves to be a God-king. And that's, that's what Mao tried to do, Mao was revered as, as a God in China, and Stalin was revered as a God, and there's nothing more evil than that, a human being trying to become a deity, in and of itself. So I am a harsh critic against the American atheist movement for a lot of different reasons. Um, mostly because I say, how could you possibly be so certain? Like, like if you're agnostic, I get it. Like, I understand you're searching for answers, you're always open minded. But an atheist, like, they're so committed to knowing that there's no God? You believe in nothing. And so when you have nothing there's all of these questions that automatically come: Where does your moral conduct come from? What is our point of origination? Are we good or bad by nature? So as an Evangelical Christian I'm very, very worried that as [a] society we get more — we get farther and farther away from our, our Judeo-Christian beliefs that really created Western civilization, there's a reason why the USSR, the alcoholism, the infidelity, and the rampant immoral behavior was so widespread, because when you remove God, I would also argue that, uh, with it you remove the core set of morals that helped create the West.

In short, Kirk blames much moral failure in communist countries on atheism. Of course, he excludes the highly-irreligious countries like Japan, Sweden, and the UK that do not appear to have collapsed amidst their own immorality. He also seems to have missed that former communist countries which have embraced religion (particularly Russia) haven't become more moral as a result. Elsewhere, Kirk has separated "secular" from "Western democracies":

There are four competing global philosophies that will determine the 21^st century:

1) Western centered, pro-capitalist constitutional democracies

2) Islamic Theocratic Fascism

3) Chinese Communist Totalitarianism

4) European-style secular socialism

The West must win

This is deeply ironic, given the history of increasing secularism within the West for almost half a millennium, usually by pro-democracy advocates – a history that Kirk himself acknowledges:

The Constitution of the United States of America is the single most important secular document ever written.

Given his love for tired talking points, it is unsurprising that Kirk also really likes the "not enough faith" line of thought, probably because it sounds clever:

I don't have enough faith to be an atheist

I don't have enough faith to be an Atheist ^[sic]

Of all the religions, the hardest one for me to believe that people believe is atheism

The amount of blind faith it takes to be an Atheist ^[sic] never ceases to amaze me.

Judging by his speech above, Kirk appears not to understand how atheists can "have faith" in a non-God origin of the universe, a non-God creation of life, a non-God origin of biodiversity, or a non-God origin of morality. Fortunately for the rest of us, science and philosophy have moved past the 1500s.

Like most Christian conservatives, Kirk understands how essential it is for us as a society to understand and accept science. Except when it comes to climate change and religion.

Editorial note: Don't capitalize atheism. You also don't capitalize theism. These aren't proper nouns, Charlie.

Conservative deceit

Kirk made fallacious claims about the family of Candace Owens. Kirk claimed that "both" of Owens' parents were alcoholics and also claimed that "her sisters" were on welfare. Owens later debunked his claims about her family on Twitter. However, instead of calling out Kirk for his racially charged lies, Owens decided to denounce the "sadistic" journalism that pointed out his blatant dishonesty (so basically she attacked journalists for doing their jobs).

In addition, Kirk claimed that Roseanne Barr isn't racist for tweeting about Obama aide Valerie Jarrett: "muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj". Definitely no racism there.

He's also not above pretending to be minorities online to make himself look less racist, although he's apparently too stupid to use a sockpuppet for this.

He has defended The Great Replacement conspiracy theory on Tucker Carlson's show.

Kirk praised Ye for becoming an incoherent Trump fanboy politically active, but later he criticized Taylor Swift for endorsing Tennessee Democrats Phil Bredesen and Jim Cooper, and told her to stay away from politics. Sniff sniff, Do we smell some hypocrisy there?

Also, Kirk praised Trump for signing a pardon for someone sentenced for doing drugs, but he attacked Barack Obama for pardoning 330 federal inmates convicted of drug charges.

In a further display of hypocrisy, he criticized Obama for visiting Cuba and not pointing out their corruption, but praised Trump for making peace with North Korea (without pointing out their corruption).

On January 21st, 2019, former Turning Point USA Director of High School Outreach Kyle Kashuv announced that Kirk had thrown out his back and had a potential blood clot, and that the hospital made Kirk lay on a bench outside the hospital as they had run out of beds. Ironically, despite getting screwed over by the American healthcare system, Charlie Kirk firmly believes the United States has the best healthcare system in the world and that healthcare isn't a right. Later, Kirk stated that he had visited a chiropractor who he claimed had made "my spine go back into line" by doing "some very targeted treatment right behind my ear with his hands".

Hilariously, YAF blacklisted Kirk & Turning Point USA in a conservative group feud.

Oh, and he also can't spell "socialism" correctly. That's what happens when you don't graduate from college!

Kirk has basically lost all credibility at this point.

Greatest hits

• In June 2018, Kirk expressed his support for Trump's criminal justice reform that released some non-violent drug offenders. A mere four days earlier, he was complaining about how irresponsible it was for Obama to have done basically the same thing, illustrating just how high his level of partisanship is.
• Kirk complaining about how intolerant "the left" really is for companies not wanting to advertise on Fox while threatening to boycott the NFL if players didn't stand for the anthem.
• Kirk pretending to care about due process as it pertains to Brett Kavanaugh despite the fact that he claimed Hillary Clinton should have been sent to prison even if the FBI and Justice Department didn't think there was enough evidence.
• Kirk in 2014 bitching about how Obama was an open borders Marxist who was perfectly content with letting millions of illegals flood over the border. Then, Kirk in 2018 defending child separation policy by saying that Obama did the exact same thing as Trump. So, apparently Obama was letting a lot of illegals in while kicking them all out.
• Kirk shredding Obama for the Dow-Jones Industrial Average dropping 500 points while remaining awkwardly silent when the same thing happened recently.
• Kirk complaining that taxation is theft while complaining that Amazon didn't pay any.
• Kirk trying to criticize Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for losing 25,000 jobs because of Amazon pulling out of NYC while simultaneously claiming that Amazon pulling out was the right decision.
• Kirk claims that open borders are a sign of a weak and inhumane country while denouncing the Berlin Wall.
• Kirk can't decide if taxes are a good thing.
• Kirk can't decide if Europe is a socialist wasteland.
• Kirk claims that undocumented immigrants don't have rights because they aren't citizens. About a month earlier, while delivering a speech, he said that rights don't come from governments.
• Kirk can't decide if more laws is a good thing.
• Kirk can't decide if he accepts basic biology.
• Kirk can't decide if tragedies should be politicized.
• Kirk can't decide if the Democratic party is the party of the KKK or the party of MS-13.
• Kirk thinks homes and countries are the same things.
• Kirk thinks that Trump deserves credit for Botswana legalizing same-sex marriage.
• Kirk isn't sure if world leaders were ever attacked before Trump's presidency.
• Kirk thinks California, the world's fifth-largest economy, is a third world nation.
• Kirk isn't sure about the lowest-ever black unemployment rate.
• Kirk can't decide if victimhood is a cancer.
• Kirk using Mother's Day as an opportunity to own the libs.
• Kirk doing a complete 180 in regards to Trump being the most moral president ever.
• Kirk confused about majority rule
• Kirk accusing Joe Biden of letting the Taliban win to kick-start the Great Replacement.
• Kirk can't decide if Juneteenth should be a holiday.
• Kirk can't decide if resisting arrest is ok.
• Kirk can't decide how important your mental health is.
• On the first page of Kirk's book Campus Battlefield, Kirk makes an elementary mistake. He confuses rhyming for alliteration; saying protesters chanting "Charlie Kirk is a jerk!" are using alliteration. This is in a book presumably reviewed and edited several times. Kirk apparently doesn't know the meaning of vocabulary words typically taught to young children.On an unrelated note, Kirk was appointed to a panel by President Trump overseeing America's educational policy.
• "So, there's a direct connection to inflation and the trans issue. You say, 'Charlie, come on. They couldn't be further apart.' No, they're exactly the same."
• Kirk bragged that he was part of an all-white basketball team that shared a name with a Serbian death squad, "back in my day," sounding like a 70-year-old remembering playing at a segregated school in the '50s.

Unintentional "stopped clock"

Kirk (most likely accidentally) stated that it was an injustice for Mack Beggs (a FTM trans boy) to be prevented from competing in the boys' wrestling league because of his birth sex (he was assigned female at birth but underwent gender confirmation surgery to affirm his gender). Charlie Kirk has a definite stopped clock moment in his opposition to the death penalty. He says it is more expensive than life in prison and says innocent people are executed.

Charlie and the Bullshit Factory: Turning Point USA

Turning Point USA, Charlie's pet project, is an astroturf nonprofit funded by the Koch brothers in order to make boring old conservatism look cool and appealing to millennials by sharing/posting/reposting cringeworthy memes and image macros. These images consist mostly of inspirational quotes by great conservative thinkers, such as Ronald Reagan, Ben Shapiro, Tomato Larynx, and, obviously, Chairman Kirk himself, but also by filthy commies such as George Orwell and Nelson Mandela (taken wildly out of context, of course). Their other favorite template is Top Panel: Liberal Quote (i.e. "Capitalism is bad." —Bernie Sanders), Bottom Panel: TPUSA's Response ("Then why don't you move to North Korea? Also, socialism has killed 100 billion iPhones"), accompanied by a picture of Charlie Kirk or a smug/confused-looking stock photo model wearing lensless glasses (because that's what dem youngsters wear these days). Along with hashtags such as #BigGovSucks, #SocialismSucks, #iHeartCapitalism, and #iHeartFossilFuels.

Bill Montgomery, TPUSA's cofounder and Kirk's mentor, died in July 2020 of COVID-19 after months of downplaying it. In 2021 during the pandemic, Kirk started rallying his followers against COVID vaccine requirements, and made false claims about vaccine efficacy and "medical raids".

Turning Point UK

Turning Point UK is a spinoff of Turning Point USA Kirk formed in 2018; it is currently chaired by George Farmer, son of a prominent Conservative Party donor. They have right-wing, Donald Trump kind of ideas and support a hard Brexit. It is manned by Kirk himself, Candace Owens, Tom Harwood, Darren Grimes, Oliver Anisfield, George Farmer, and Joe Mappin. Turning Point's attempted launch on the other side of the pond did not get off to a smooth start, as an immediate influx of parody accounts attributing ludicrous ancap ideas to the organization popped up almost instantly and were often indistinguishable from the real thing.

Of diapers and watchlists

“”As of right now, I am in disbelief at how I went from being so upbeat, enthusiastic, and passionate about this organisation to being disgusted, frustrated, and embarrassed to have invested my entire senior year into an organisation founded by a college dropout who hires some of the most incompetent, lazy, and downright dishonest people I have ever encountered.

—Kaitlin Bennett, former president and campus coordinator for Turning Point USA at Kent State University, reacting to the diaper shitshow.

Kirk loves freedom of speech so much, he came up with the idea of a so-called "free speech ball," an oversized beach ball for grade school college students to write whatever the hell they want to. With hilarious results.

Another totally mature TPUSA stunt was their infamous 2017 "diaper protest," in which they dressed and acted as toddlers in order to protest against safe spaces, at Kent State of all places. Not only did they lose funding and members after the incident, but they also have been relentlessly mocked ever since. Kirk himself, in a desperate attempt of damage control, disavowed the organized protest and have not organized anything similar since.

Of course, Kirk also believes that free speech should not apply to the left, so he started a very McCarthyist project called Professor Watchlist, whose stated mission is "to expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom." In reality, Professor Watchlist has resulted in over 100 cases of harassment (including death threats) against "leftist" professors.

Feud with Nick Fuentes

On October 2019, Kirk and Donald Trump, Jr. went to UCLA to promote Junior's latest piece of shit book titled — wait for it: Triggered: How the Left Thrives on Hate and Wants to Silence Us. Expecting to epicly own some easily triggered, blue-haired, antifa SJW communist snowflakes who hate freedom of speech, Don Jr. and Kirk were hilariously heckled off the stage... by a group of Trump supporters. More specifically, by fans of the far-right YouTuber Nick Fuentes (known as "groypers", a reference to a grotesque version of Pepe the Frog). Fuentes, a white nationalist and Holocaust denier, has claimed that TPUSA, Dan Crenshaw, Ben Shapiro and other right-wing individuals and organizations are fake conservatives because they aren't fascist enough for his taste (maybe not, but damn, they're trying).

By 2023, Fuentes was still ripping on them, but he perhaps tellingly remarked that Kirk and TPUSA had become much more like him:

I watched the Turning Point [conference] and they had a pretty good line-up, I'm not gonna lie ... They're coming further and further. I think in 2023, Charlie Kirk, all these others, they sound way more like me, today, than they sound like themselves four years ago.

By early 2024, Kirk and TPUSA were going after Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Civil Rights Act of 1964, where before:

The group has profited from the use of King’s image. Turning Point USA's website sold a $55 T-shirt with MLK's name and stickers of King that say "Let freedom ring." After an inquiry from WIRED, both products were removed from TPUSA's store.

He then expressed that he perceives pilots as less competent if they are black. It's hard to interpret this as anything but a relative shift towards Fuentes's politics. As of 2024, Fuentes again concurs:

Charlie Kirk, as we know, has become a white supremacist, and that's a huge victory. But he remains a — he remains a Jew lover.

Kirk may have won over Fuentes — to some extent — but reportedly, he also earned Trump's personal ire for "causing problems for him in the Black community".

Troll farm USA

Turning Point Action, an affiliate of TPUSA, has been directing teenagers (including minors) to spread disinformation about COVID and mail-in ballots on Twitter and Facebook in an attempt to disrupt the 2020 election in favor of Trump. The campaign has been likened to a 'troll farm'.

2021 Capitol riot

See the main article on this topic: 2021 U.S. Capitol riot

Turning Point Action was one of the sponsors of the pre-riot warmup for the failed coup attempt in 2021.

Bibliography

Kirk has also published some ridiculously out-of-touch love letters to Trump "books":

• Time for a Turning Point: Setting a Course Toward Free Markets and Limited Government for Future Generations (2016)
• Campus Battlefield: How Conservatives Can WIN the Battle on Campus and Why It Matters – Foreword by Donald Trump, Jr. (2018)
• The MAGA Doctrine: The Only Ideas That Will Ruin Win the Future (2020)
• The College Scam: How America's Universities are bankrupting and brainwashing away the future of America's Youth (2022)

See also

• Candace Owens, his only black friend
• Ye
• Kaitlin Bennett (the genius behind the Kent State diaper "protest")
• Prager "University"

External links

• See the Wikipedia article on Turning Point USA.
• TPUSA on DeSmog
• Charlie Kirk on Twitter
  • Turning Point USA on Twitter
• TPUSA Pro, the official, 100% real TPUSA website
• /r/ToiletPaperUSA, a subreddit dedicated to making fun of Charlie Kirk and his cult
  • /r/ToiletPaperUSA, the official Discord server of /r/ToiletPaperUSA
• The New Yorker exposé on Turning Point USA
• "Turning Point USA's blooming romance with the alt-right," by the Southern Poverty Law Center
• "Is founder of Turning Point USA, Charlie Kirk, triggered by reality?" by USA Today
• Charlie Kirk's logical fallacies on Blather
• Charlie Kirk destroyed by Sam Seder at Politicon 2018
  • Sam Seder's full review of the debate
• Charlie Kirk destroyed by Kyle Kulinski at Politicon 2019
• Charlie Kirk Quiz — For each question, click "Shrunken" if you think the image has been altered to make Charlie's face appear smaller, click "Enlarged" if you think the image has been altered to make Charlie's face appear larger, or click "Normal" if you think the image hasn't been altered. Includes some saucy trivia about Kirk and TPUSA.