Author and Journalist Ta-Nehisi Coates on Charlie Kirk in Vanity Fair: “It is not just, for instance, that Kirk held disagreeable views—that he was pro-life, that he believed in public executions, or that he rejected the separation of church and state. It’s that Kirk reveled in open bigotry.”
Posted by tattooinenights
6 Comments
Alt link: https://archive.ph/2025.09.16-234358/https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/charlie-kirk-ezra-klein-tanehisi-coates
> What are we to make of a man who called for the execution of the American president, and then was executed himself? What are we to make of an NFL that, on one hand, encourages us to “End Racism,” and, on the other, urges us to commemorate an unreconstructed white supremacist? And what of the writers, the thinkers, and the pundits who cannot separate the great crime of Kirk’s death from the malignancy of his public life? Can they truly be so ignorant to the words of a man they have so rushed to memorialize? I don’t know. ***But the most telling detail in Klein’s column was that, for all his praise, there was not a single word in the piece from Kirk himself.***
this is such a good point. the only people i’ve seen quoting Kirk’s actual words just get yelled at for speaking ill of the dead.
a difference in political views is like, about taxes or government programs or infrastructure spending. not racism, bigotry, misogyny.
Why tf does everyone that’s supposed to be on our side have to say his death was a tragedy when you know for sure he would have never said that about their death.
What is astonishing is that Ezra “Abundance Agenda” Klein has decided to stake his entire professional reputation on stanning for Charlie Kirk. Just — why?
I am grateful Ta-Nehisi Coates had the clarity and moral grace to write this and articulate exactly why Klein is so morally depraved and intellectually disingenuous here.
Here’s Kirk, in his own words.
“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
“If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022
“Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023
“If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because affirmative action?”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024
“We record all of it so that we put [it] on the internet so people can see these ideas collide. When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.”
– Kirk discussing his work in an undated clip that circulated on X after his killing.
“Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.”
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025
“The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.”
– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024
“We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 April 2024
“I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.”
– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023
“America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 22 August 2025
“The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 20 March 2024
“The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 March 2024
“America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 30 April 2025
“We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilization.”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 24 June 2025
“There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.”
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 6 July 2022