Something deeply disturbing is happening in the aftermath of this person’s death. Pundits are tripping over themselves to paint a man who built his career on hatred as some kind of champion of civil discourse. Charlie Kirk died the way he lived, making headlines and stirring controversy, and there’s a bitter irony in the fact that a man who championed gun rights and argued that some gun deaths were an acceptable cost for the Second Amendment died by gunshot himself. The sanitized version of his story being told across major news networks bears little resemblance to the reality of what he actually said and did.

For someone who supposedly championed debate and open dialogue, Kirk spent most of his time trying to silence the voices he disagreed with. His professor watchlist wasn’t about fostering intellectual curiosity or challenging ideas. It was designed to get people fired, to intimidate educators into avoiding topics that made him uncomfortable. Women, people of color, and LGBTQ+ faculty found themselves disproportionately targeted, their lives disrupted by harassment campaigns that followed Kirk’s public naming and shaming.

The young people who flocked to his Turning Point USA events weren’t getting lessons in critical thinking or democratic participation. They were being fed a steady diet of conspiracy theories, racial resentment, and thinly veiled calls for violence against anyone who didn’t fit Kirk’s narrow vision of what America should look like. He told teenage girls their primary purpose in attending college should be finding husbands. He called transgender people abominations and quoted biblical passages about stoning gay people to death.

What strikes me most about Kirk’s legacy isn’t just the content of his message, but how he delivered it. He understood that in our current media landscape, being outrageous was more valuable than being truthful. The more inflammatory his statements, the more attention he received, the more money flowed into his organization. It was a cynical business model that turned human dignity into a commodity to be bought and sold.

His rhetoric about immigrants eating pets and Black people being inherently dangerous wasn’t just offensive talk radio banter. These weren’t abstract policy debates happening in some ivory tower. Real people live in the communities Kirk demonized. Real children attend schools where his followers learn to see their classmates as enemies or invaders. The language he used wasn’t just words floating in the ether, it was programming that shaped how his audience saw the world around them.

Kirk amassed a $12 million fortune spreading these views, building his wealth on the foundation of other people’s fear and anger. He took money from right-wing donors who understood exactly what they were paying for, a man who could make bigotry sound intellectual and hatred seem patriotic. The success of his business model says something deeply troubling about what sells in America today.

Now that he’s gone, we’re being told we should focus on his commitment to democratic values and open debate. But Kirk didn’t practice democracy, he practiced demagoguery. Democracy requires good faith engagement with ideas and respect for the humanity of those who disagree with you. Kirk built his entire persona around denying the humanity of vast swaths of the American population.

The eulogies pouring in from unlikely sources reveal something uncomfortable about our political culture. Politicians and pundits who privately found Kirk’s views reprehensible are now praising his commitment to civil discourse. Major news networks that knew exactly what he stood for are choosing to focus on his media savvy rather than his message. This collective amnesia isn’t accidental, it’s a choice to prioritize politeness over truth.

There’s a deliberate sleight of hand happening when Kirk’s statements get labeled as political opinions rather than hate speech. Calling Black women intellectually inferior isn’t a policy position, it’s racist propaganda. Describing transgender people as abominations isn’t a legitimate religious viewpoint, it’s dehumanizing rhetoric designed to justify discrimination and violence. When we treat these statements as merely controversial political takes rather than dangerous hate speech, we normalize the very language that tears communities apart. Kirk understood this distinction perfectly well, which is why he was careful to dress his bigotry in the language of political discourse and constitutional rights. But hatred doesn’t become acceptable just because someone delivers it while wearing a suit and tie.

Some will argue that speaking honestly about Kirk’s impact is inappropriate so soon after his death, that we should show respect for his family and supporters. But respect for the living doesn’t require us to lie about the dead. Kirk’s children deserve better than having their father’s legacy whitewashed by people who want to avoid uncomfortable conversations about the hatred he spread.

The tragedy isn’t just that Kirk died young, it’s that his worldview continues to shape American politics. The conspiracy theories he promoted, the racial resentments he stoked, and the democratic institutions he undermined don’t disappear with his death. His followers are still out there, still convinced that their neighbors are their enemies, still believing that violence might be necessary to protect their vision of America.

Kirk often said that when people stop talking, violence follows. But he wasn’t interested in the kind of talking that builds bridges or finds common ground. He was interested in the kind of talking that draws lines and declares enemies. His version of dialogue was really just a sophisticated form of warfare, using words as weapons to tear down rather than build up.

America has always struggled with the tension between free speech and harmful speech, between protecting dissent and preventing violence. Kirk exploited that tension masterfully, hiding behind the language of constitutional rights while working to deny those same rights to others. He claimed to defend Western civilization while actively working to undermine the democratic values that define it.

The real measure of Kirk’s impact won’t be found in the sanitized obituaries being written today. It will be found in the classrooms where teachers hesitate to discuss difficult topics because they fear being added to a watchlist. It will be found in the communities where immigrants live in fear because of the conspiracy theories he helped spread. It will be found in the young people who learned from him that cruelty can be profitable and that hatred can be dressed up as patriotism.

Moving forward means acknowledging what Kirk actually was, not what we wish he had been. It means recognizing that the problems he represented didn’t die with him. The media ecosystem that rewarded his inflammatory rhetoric is still intact. The donors who funded his operation are still looking for the next person to carry their message. The audiences who cheered his most vicious statements are still seeking someone to validate their worldview.

Perhaps the most fitting tribute to Kirk’s memory would be an honest reckoning with how American political culture created and rewarded him. Until we’re willing to have that conversation, we’re likely to see more figures like him rise to prominence, and more communities torn apart by their poisonous speech.