Charlie Kirk’s Memorial Service: Propaganda and Kitsch
The MAGA movement is staging Charlie Kirk’s memorial service like a rally in an evangelical theocracy. The dismantling of U.S. democracy continues.
The memorial service for far-right agitator Charlie Kirk, who was killed on Sept. 10, resembled a propaganda rally in an evangelical theocracy. It mixed evangelical megachurch spectacle with the ceremonial kitsch that has long characterized political gatherings in the U.S.
U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Trump's Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, her deputy, Stephen Miller, 10 cabinet members, the FBI director, the national director of intelligence, Republican senators and representatives, and the who's who of the far-right media and influencer scene were there. In addition, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Dana White, head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and other MAGA celebrities gathered together in Arizona before tens of thousands of supporters to canonize Kirk, their “martyr," and to declare war on the political left.
Such a concentration of power is rare in a football stadium. But it really did happen. Because many credit Charlie Kirk, at least in part, with making it cool for young Americans to lean right again. That they now hold the positions they do is telling in itself.
From conspiracy theory podcaster Kash Patel, now permitted to head the FBI, to former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who runs the Pentagon with no discernible qualifications, or to Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has wholly dedicated her office to targeting Trump’s opponents: The fact that they all came to Arizona to thank Kirk posthumously follows a certain logic.
The most brazen conflation of far-right politics, religion and state apparatus witnessed in Western democracies since Spain’s Franco dictatorship has characterized U.S. government conduct — at least since Kirk’s assassination. Three days of mourning, with flags at half-mast at all federal buildings and embassies for a far-right political activist — this marks a new level in the top-down culture war.
The speeches were marked by talk of “us” and “them,” “good” and “evil,” “us” and “our enemies.” Miller’s speech — which reminded many of the political speeches delivered by another agitator in Berlin’s Sportpalast during the 1930s — stood in sharp contrast to the address from Kirk’s widow, Erika, who expressed forgiveness for her husband's killer, as Jesus Christ and her late husband would have done. The crowd applauded both speeches. In the MAGA universe, logical contradictions no longer pose a problem.
America's propaganda machine, Turning Point USA, now has Erika Kirk as its new CEO. She pledged to carry on her slain husband's mission, which he had recently described as guided by two central objectives: to strengthen Trump's administration and to help Vance win the 2028 presidential election. Following Kirk's death, Turning Point has finally become the strategic front organization of the MAGA movement, and the fusion of spiritual leadership with political abuse of power is gaining momentum. Any talk of healing, as invoked in song by several Christian musicians at the onset of the event, was clearly not in evidence. Endgame rhetoric, by contrast, was widespread.
The memorial service for far-right agitator Charlie Kirk, who was killed on Sept. 10, resembled a propaganda rally in an evangelical theocracy. It mixed evangelical megachurch spectacle with the ceremonial kitsch that has long characterized political gatherings in the U.S.
U.S. President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Trump's Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, her deputy, Stephen Miller, 10 cabinet members, the FBI director, the national director of intelligence, Republican senators and representatives, and the who's who of the far-right media and influencer scene were there. In addition, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Dana White, head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and other MAGA celebrities gathered together in Arizona before tens of thousands of supporters to canonize Kirk, their “martyr," and to declare war on the political left.
Such a concentration of power is rare in a football stadium. But it really did happen. Because many credit Charlie Kirk, at least in part, with making it cool for young Americans to lean right again. That they now hold the positions they do is telling in itself.
From conspiracy theory podcaster Kash Patel, now permitted to head the FBI, to former Fox News host Pete Hegseth, who runs the Pentagon with no discernible qualifications, or to Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi, who has wholly dedicated her office to targeting Trump’s opponents: The fact that they all came to Arizona to thank Kirk posthumously follows a certain logic.
The most brazen conflation of far-right politics, religion and state apparatus witnessed in Western democracies since Spain’s Franco dictatorship has characterized U.S. government conduct — at least since Kirk’s assassination. Three days of mourning, with flags at half-mast at all federal buildings and embassies for a far-right political activist — this marks a new level in the top-down culture war.
The speeches were marked by talk of “us” and “them,” “good” and “evil,” “us” and “our enemies.” Miller’s speech — which reminded many of the political speeches delivered by another agitator in Berlin’s Sportpalast during the 1930s — stood in sharp contrast to the address from Kirk’s widow, Erika, who expressed forgiveness for her husband's killer, as Jesus Christ and her late husband would have done. The crowd applauded both speeches. In the MAGA universe, logical contradictions no longer pose a problem.
America's propaganda machine, Turning Point USA, now has Erika Kirk as its new CEO. She pledged to carry on her slain husband's mission, which he had recently described as guided by two central objectives: to strengthen Trump's administration and to help Vance win the 2028 presidential election. Following Kirk's death, Turning Point has finally become the strategic front organization of the MAGA movement, and the fusion of spiritual leadership with political abuse of power is gaining momentum. Any talk of healing, as invoked in song by several Christian musicians at the onset of the event, was clearly not in evidence. Endgame rhetoric, by contrast, was widespread.
Previous article![]( "‘Department of War’ Renaming: The Repulsiveness of a Belligerent Attitude")
Next article![]( "Trump, the Press and Politics")