Charlie Kirk was what historians call a “controversialist.”
Prior to his tragic death, Kirk flourished by picking a side in the culture war and telling his people exactly what they wanted to hear. Many in the MAGA movement credit Kirk with winning the 2024 election for Donald Trump. They might be right.
In 1953, the year of my birth, Kirk’s most controversial comments would have passed as commonplace observations. Kirk argued that children need to have two parents and that these parents must have clearly defined roles. The husband’s role is to bring home the bacon. The wife handles the lion’s share of parenting and bears primary responsibility for cooking, cleaning and changing diapers. Boys learn to be boys by watching what their fathers do, and girls learn to be women by following the lead of their mothers.
None of that was controversial in 1953. My mother considered herself to be a “liberated woman,” and she worked outside the home from her late teens to her mid-60s. But Muriel Bean was a full-time housewife between 1951, when my sister was born, to 1959, when I started to school. That’s just the way it was.
“None of that was controversial in 1953.”
Kirk believed children should be taught to venerate their families, their faith and their nation. Parents, church leaders and the heroes of the American story might not be perfect, he admitted, but they should be respected, even celebrated. Children need to feel good about who they are and where they come from.
Welcome back to 1953
This view wouldn’t have been controversial in 1953. The history texts of the period extoled American greatness, and each school day began with a reading from the Bible. A generic Christianity walked hand-in-hand with American patriotism. We disagreed about the religious details, but most people simply assumed America was a Christian nation.
But Charlie Kirk proclaimed these traditional American verities after the Civil Rights Movement, after the Vietnam War, after the women’s rights movement, after the gay rights movement, after the sexual revolution, and after the devastating critique of colonialism that took root in the colleges and universities of America. Kirk believed America couldn’t get back to 1953 without discrediting the movements that grew up around civil rights, women’s rights, indigenous rights, immigrant rights, gay rights and, most recently, trans rights.
The Civil Rights Movement was a disaster, from Kirk’s perspective, because it ushered in the celebration of diversity, equity and inclusion. For Kirk, highly successful Black Americans like Kamala Harris, Barack Obama and Ketanji Brown Jackson were essentially DEI hires.
For similar reasons, Kirk denounced feminists and gay-rights advocates for being anti-family. If we want to get back to a world in which straight white males are seen as the God-ordained guardians of the social order, he argued, every movement at odds with this conviction must be thoroughly discredited.
American conservatism has coped with the growing emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion by creating little islands of 1953 nostalgia: evangelical churches, Christian colleges, conservative talk radio, Fox News and, in the last decade, a variety of podcasts catering to 1953 sensibilities. Safely ensconced in these safe spaces, life conforms to 1953 standards. America’s inherent goodness is never questioned, enslavement and Jim Crow segregation rarely receive a mention, men are men and women are women, and “the gay agenda” is frequently denounced.
“1953 America is painfully aware that the minute they step outside their safe islands of nostalgia they will be bombarded with unwelcome signals from progressive America.”
But 1953 America is painfully aware that the minute they step outside their safe islands of nostalgia they will be bombarded with unwelcome signals from progressive America. In this world, America was founded on racism, genocide, patriarchal violence and puritanical sexual codes.
American progressives preach the doctrine of intersectionality, the idea that all oppressive systems (racism, sexism, homophobia, xenophobia) work together. Kirk asserted a conservative form of intersectionality in which all movements for human rights are viewed as part of one concerted strategy to undermine the 1953 definition of family.
Dual intersectionality
Like most prominent MAGA operatives, Charlie Kirk claimed to see through progressive values. Liberals claim to support women, racial minorities, asylum seekers and the LGBTQ community, he told the audiences who flocked to hear him, but all they really care about is tearing down the American family. Progressives, Kirk concluded, are anti-child.
A quarter of the way through the 21st century, dedicated liberals and conservatives are preaching mirror-image forms of intersectionality. On the right, every movement that undermines the 1953 social consensus is denounced as part of a coordinated, anti-family conspiracy. On the left, pro-family politics is dismissed as a thinly veiled assault on basic human rights.
Conservatives and liberals are both peddling package deals. If you’re not down with the entire project, you’re part of the problem.
If conservatives harbor a fondness for the social consensus of 1953, the progressive alternative peaked in 2020, the year George Floyd was murdered and Black Lives Matter protests engulfed the nation. It wasn’t just Black lives that mattered. According to one study, only 21% of BLM protesters were Black while 54% were white. The BLM phenomenon demonstrated the intersectional understanding of linked oppressions had escaped the safe confines of the humanities classroom.
“The MAGA movement is best understood as a desperate attempt to revive the social consensus of 1953.”
To a significant extent, Donald Trump’s electoral victory in 2024 was a backlash against the protests of 2020. That doesn’t mean the intersectional progressivism that peaked in 2020 is a dead letter; but the social justice movement has lost considerable momentum. The MAGA movement, by contrast, is best understood as a desperate attempt to revive the social consensus of 1953.
This is no mandate
Not all conservatives are keen to return to 1953, of course, just as many liberals are uncomfortable with aspects of the 2020 agenda. In fact, most American voters are far too distracted by the challenges of everyday life to give sustained thought to either option.
If the second Trump administration believes it has a mandate to return America to 1953, it is in for a severe shock. Most Americans would like a third option, but don’t find one on the political menu. Forced to decide between 1953 and 2020, uncommitted voters swing listlessly in one direction or the other.
Most Democratic politicians, realizing they can’t win with an unapologetic 2020 agenda, build their campaigns around kitchen table issues like jobs and wages. MAGA operatives like Charlie Kirk put all their chips on a back-to-1953 agenda and rolled the dice. Remarkably, they won.
Kirk believed he had detected a chink in the progressive armor — the emotional needs of children and white males. If Americans of every political stripe are worried sick about the prospects for children and white males, the party that talks about kids and men will win.
Most young voters had little use for Kirk’s back-to-1953 message. For most, his thinly disguised racism, misogyny, xenophobia and homophobia were too blatant. But Kirk didn’t have to convince a majority of young voters to vote for Trump; he just needed to edge the needle a few ticks in the right direction.
“If the second Trump administration believes it has a mandate to return America to 1953, it is in for a severe shock.”
For a slice of young male voters, the transgressive quality of Kirk’s message was titillating. Few were utterly convinced but, given a binary choice, they were willing to roll the dice. It was enough.
Are American progressives sufficiently worried about the emotional needs of men and children? I don’t think so. Because straight while males controlled virtually every aspect of social, religious and economic life in 1953, any strong critique of the 1953 consensus is bound to sound anti-male.
Kirk asked if children and straight white males were the only groups devoid of basic rights. It is difficult to overstate the appeal of this message, especially in the wake of 2020 protests.
For many progressives, Kirk’s message reeked of heresy. Many feminists view marriage and motherhood as a social prison for women. Most progressives are uncomfortable with an assessment that harsh but are reluctant to push back too strenuously. Many women, after all, are trapped in abusive marriages. And when women are expected to assume the lion’s share of child care, there is little room for building a career or personal flourishing. As every parent quickly learns, children are all-consuming.
Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” quip spelled political disaster in 2016. But the real damage was done by her suggestion that many of these people were “irredeemable.” When we see our opponents as intrinsically ugly and awful, we have crossed a dangerous line. It’s a line that true believers on both sides of the ideological divide are crossing with increasing frequency.
“One of the most grievous developments in modern American politics,” David French noted in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination, “is the conviction among many that freedom of speech is somehow an obstacle to diversity and inclusion.” The leading lights in the MAGA firmament seem convinced free speech is incompatible with their agenda as well.
An overwhelming majority of Americans tell pollsters “violence is never acceptable.” But among Millennials, French notes, only 71% agree with this statement. Among Gen Z, it is only 58%.
‘It takes a village’
A second aphorism associated with Hillary Clinton is much more helpful and hopeful than her “deplorables” quip: “It takes a village to raise a child.” It doesn’t just take a mother to raise a child. Not even a mother and a father working in combination can turn the trick. Children once were raised by an extended family of aunts, uncles, grandparents, siblings and family friends. It took a village. It still does.
Not everyone wants to be a parent. I get that. And many who would love to have a child are tragically deprived of the opportunity. I get that too. But we all start out as children, and when young ones are abused, neglected or tyrannized by unrealistic expectations, we all suffer the consequences.
“It will take a village to protect our children from addictive algorithms designed to maximize corporate profits.”
When children are consigned to virtual worlds dominated by cell phones, nasty social media memes, websites marketing hate, and online porn, really bad things can happen. We never have lived in such a world before, but its perils are gradually smashing their way into our awareness. Adults who are engulfed in dreams of personal success and self-fulfillment are tempted to minimize the dangers American children face. It will take a village to protect our children from addictive algorithms designed to maximize corporate profits. Too many kids are on their own.
One-way ticket to civil war
Charlie Kirk’s valorization of the 1953 consensus was great for Turning Point USA (his organization), the MAGA movement, the Republican Party and evangelical Christianity, but it constituted a one-way ticket to civil war. It didn’t work. It couldn’t work. We couldn’t get there from here even if we wanted to. And we shouldn’t want to.
The 2020 critique of white supremacy, patriarchy, homophobia and xenophobia must find a spiritual foundation. Denouncing our ideological opposites as haters, even if we can produce the empirical receipts, isn’t a winning strategy. We need fresh social models that can nourish children and ennoble men. Deconstruction without reconstruction is a recipe for chaos.
1953 Americans, and their 2020 counterparts, see their ideological opponents as an existential threat. Peaceful coexistence seems impossible; nothing short of total victory will do. But 1953 Americans, 2020 Americans and the perplexed majority of people with a foot in both worlds and a stake in neither, can’t be disappeared, dissolved or exiled. We’ve got to work through our differences whether we like it or not.
There are those who feel the pull of one side of the culture war but are deaf to the alternative. There are those who have no interest in either side. And there are the blessed few who understand the appeal of both sides of our simmering culture war. Christ followers shouldn’t rest until they can understand, and treasure, zealots on both sides. We can’t forgive what we don’t understand. We can’t love what we can’t forgive.
This is where progressive churches can help. René Girard argued that Judaism and Christianity originated the idea that God stands with the oppressed of the world. It is a scandal that we need an essentially secular social justice movement to call us back to our roots.
The 2020 critique of the 1953 consensus is a logical extension of the Christian gospel. Progressive Christianity needs to reclaim its birthright. Apart from the radical notion that we all were created in the image of God, the logic of human rights breaks down. We are strategically placed to build it up.
Alan Bean
Alan Bean leads the nonprofit Friends of Justice and lives in Fort Worth, Texas, where he attends Broadway Baptist Church.
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On Charlie Kirk, selective outrage and a church that refuses to tell the truth | Opinion by Justin Bronson Barringer