Former Gawker editor Elizabeth Spiers unloaded in the Nation what may be the most caustic postmortem on Charlie Kirk found anywhere in media so far — comparing the slain Turning Point founder to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbles and labeling Kirk “an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist.”
The latter name calling appeared in the lead paragraph alone of the 1000-word essay under the headline: “Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning.”
Quoting gracious comments by California Gov. Gavin Newsom about the slain father of two, Spiers wrote, “There is no requirement to take part in this whitewashing campaign, and refusing to join in doesn’t make anyone a bad person.”
She continued, “It’s a choice to write an obituary that begins ‘Joseph Goebbels was a gifted marketer and loving father to six children.’”
Spiers criticized Kirk for his support of the Second Amendment, his criticism of feminism, and his Christian belief in the roles of husband and wife.
She also claimed Kirk said that “black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously.”
In fact, according to her own post of Kirk’s words on X, Kirk never said “black women,” but was speaking about specific “affirmative action” examples in politics and the media.
She also wrote:
It’s true that we cannot know what was in Charlie Kirk’s heart because we are not telepathic. But we can make reasonable inferences based on the things he said and did publicly because we are also not colossally stupid. He built a large following, and acquired real political power saying these things — to young people, to the president and his minions, to deep-pocket right-wing donors — and there are far too many people who have been ready to suggest that he was able to do this through a combination of natural charisma and good old-fashioned hard work.
The Nation piece is not Spier’s first literary dance on the grave of a dead MAGA supporter just days after their passing. In late July, she went after Hulk Hogan in a New York Times article, portraying the former professional wrestler as an N-word spouting homophobe who beat his wife.
Spiers was a founding editor of the website Gawker, which Hogan, suing under his real name of Terry Bollea, drove into bankruptcy after a jury awarded him $140 million in damages for releasing clips from a sex tape of the wrestler and the wife of a radio host.
In the Nation article, Spiers argued that Kirk’s frequent debates were simply part of a performance. She argued Kirk’s request to not portray opponents as “evil” was disingenuous, writing Kirk’s entire business “was saying the other side was evil and dehumanizing them”
“Some of the people valorizing Kirk insist that all of his toxicity was acceptable because at least he was open to debate — a bar so low, you’d have to dig into the Mariana Trench to get to it,” she wrote.
She concluded, “Turning Point did not work to bring people together; it worked to bring about a country where anyone who wasn’t a white Christian nationalist wasn’t welcome. I won’t celebrate his death, but I’m not obligated to celebrate his life, either.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
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