There are many threads surrounding the MAGA right’s ongoing martyr-making and canonization of Charlie Kirk. We know about the tendentious rewriting of history both from Kirk’s stalwarts and his fellow travelers; we know how his death is being used as the pretext for various crackdowns on free speech and domestic enemies. But the part of this saga that is most interesting to me is the part that is based on a fairly simple and lazy misunderstanding. It’s not a terribly large part of the story but it contains some interesting dimensions.
Ezra Klein, rather notoriously, eulogized Kirk as someone who was doing politics right. He wanted to debate everyone. He was a master of persuasion, Klein claimed. California Gov. Gavin Newsom made similar points. Each of them made slightly better points than their one-line quotes that have gotten the most circulation. But in those comments and in their penumbras an idea got hatched that Kirk was an example of people debating their disagreements, engaging rather than retreating to their echo-chamber bubbles.
