Charlie Kirk supporters have spent the better part of a week lambasting writers like me for allegedly quoting him “out of context,” so I’m giddy at the prospect of discussing context.
The No. 1 criticism received at BNG over the last week about coverage of Kirk’s assassination and the desire of his fans to make him a saint is that we have not appreciated the man for his “dialogue” and willingness to engage in open debate. And all those quotations we keep citing for what he said about Black people, queer people, women and the poor — well, we just missed the context.
An entire political movement predicated on emotion suddenly wants to talk context.
The context of Trumpism
First, understand this: There’s no Charlie Kirk without Donald Trump. Kirk could not have risen to fame the way he did without riding the coattails of Trump.
“First, understand this: There’s no Charlie Kirk without Donald Trump.”
Trumpism itself is rooted in an earlier turn by the Republican Party away from “good-faith participation in the democratic process,” argues Dana Milbank. Starting with Newt Gingrich, the first real Republican “bomb thrower,” the Republican Party became authoritarian and deconstructionist, and as Robert Ivie observes, “destroying truth, decency, patriotism, national unity, racial progress, their own party and U. S. democracy.”
Kirk was both a symptom and promoter of the political mistrust and animosity that ravages democratic principles and values, undermines civic culture and inhibits deliberation while conducting staged events that look like rational debate.
He was a garden variety Trumpian demagogue. His goal was not the advance of democratic deliberation but the shutting down of it by scapegoating and oversimplifying complex issues.
The context of rhetoric
If Charlie Kirk is the boy who cried “wolf” 10 times and there still is no wolf, this means the entire rhetorical situation is the context. If a person is determined to accept everything Kirk said, then she can only interpret Kirk in terms of the truths to which she already adheres.
Patricia Miller-Roberts, professor of rhetoric, offers a helpful way of understanding what is happening in Kirk’s speeches.
Turning Point USA Facebook post
A Kirk follower will refuse to look at anything that might disagree with her, because she believes the only proof she needs that her beliefs are true is that she has those beliefs. The more she consumes pro-Kirk media, the more that media says her sense of herself as a good conservative is connected to Kirk, the more she is a naïve realist (if she believes something, it must be true, and that is all the evidence needed), the less able she is to argue her position rationally, and the more likely she is to dismiss disconfirming evidence on the grounds that it’s disconfirming.
Here’s how that argument works: Instead of assessing the validity of an argument on the basis of how it’s argued (methods that apply across groups), an argument is assessed purely on the basis of whether it is loyal or disloyal to the in-group.
What we’ve seen in the age of Trump is a disruption in the very essence of rhetoric. Rhetorical scholars have not been kind in evaluating his use of language.
Bonnie Dow says the election of Trump threatened her teaching of rhetoric with the “conviction that words matter, that reasons matter, and that rational deliberation should be central to how American culture makes decisions.”
“What we’ve seen in the age of Trump is a disruption in the very essence of rhetoric.”
Paul Johnson argues Trump’s incoherent vacillations between strength and victimhood enable his white audiences to disavow hegemonic whiteness and align themselves with a marginalized, politically exiled subjectivity. Trump, he says, reframes his audiences’ generalized sense of human vulnerability as if it were the experience of structural racial oppression.
Marginalization in the form of reverse discrimination and unfair treatment frees his supporters of any kind of debt or civic obligation to a seemingly cruel and hostile polity.
Robert Ivie focuses on demolition as the “guiding trope” of Trump’s apocalyptic rhetoric.
Jennifer Wingard portrays Trump as the “product of a spoiled bunch” rather than just a “spoiled apple in the barrel.”
Ryan Skinnell calls Trump “a notorious liar.”
Michael J. Steudeman says: “Trump’s rhetoric is centered on the preservation of a conception of American identity rooted in whiteness, masculinity and heteronormativity.”
Anna Young labels Trump “a populist,” and Jennifer Mercieca calls him “a demagogue.”
His constant disavowals, his reliance on paralepsis and occultatio, his transgressions, his denial of consensus reality, are all underwritten by a perverse form of enjoyment that frees his supporters from legal, rhetorical and psychic strictures.
That’s not rational context.
The context of evangelical faith, Christian nationalism and Seven Mountains Dominionism
Kirk’s defenders make a lot of his evangelical Christian faith. He talked about Jesus a lot. I am not doubting his sincerity. He seemed to be a serious Christian. The problem: The Christianity about which he was serious was not shaped by the gospel but the idolatry of Trumpism and an evangelical faith cut loose from its moral values.
Never have the words of Jesus seemed more relevant. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:21).
Saying the name of Jesus to cloak right-wing ideas is not a magical potion. It uses the name of Jesus to assume unmitigated political power.
“Saying the name of Jesus to cloak right-wing ideas is not a magical potion.”
Christian nationalism combines evangelical faith with patriotism. This has produced a false history of America being founded as a Christian nation and the desire to impose Christian teachings in public schools. This kind of patriotism shows up with U.S. flags in churches. Kirk promoted this distortion of the gospel.
Seven Mountain Dominionists are part of a group of independent Pentecostals who joined the evangelical movement as acolytes of Trumpism. They believe Jesus will not return until all culture comes under the dominion of Jesus. They have a proof text for this particular idolatry. “In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it” (Isaiah 2:2).
In their fanciful biblical imagination, this is the authority for evangelicals to rule and control seven cultural mountains: family, government, arts and entertainment, media, business, religion, and education. The goal is for God’s appointed leaders to be in charge of each mountain.
The context of racialized rhetoric
Like Trump, Kirk claimed to be anti-racist. His rhetoric, however, contains a cacophony of racist dog whistles. He opposes DEI because it is a persecution of white people. His intentions, in context, are clear. He attacks “wokeness” and Critical Race Theory. He embraces the Great Replacement Theory as a fear tactic. He defends white privilege. He suggests a core commitment to white supremacy, the center of Trumpian ideology.
Racial warfare and its persistent denial are the primary metaphors of Trumpism. Trump consistently frames issues as racial — Chinese virus, illegal immigrants, economic displacement, Black urban crime and violence, guns, a stolen election, reverse racism. These were common themes in Kirk’s repetition of Trump’s ideology.
The heart of the matter is Trump’s primal ideology of white supremacy and his play on white anxiety. His rhetoric and that of Kirk cloaks white rage with racist dog whistles and claims that later can be denied.
Thus, Kirk’s defenders now circle back to claim, “He didn’t really mean that.” Even though the statement is quite clear and its meaning not in doubt.
About those ‘debates’
Kirk didn’t engage college students in debate. He set them up for manipulation. As a demagogue, he had a bag of tricks of dubious rhetorical integrity. He engaged in paralipsis, the art of saying but not saying something.
“Kirk didn’t engage college students in debate. He set them up for manipulation.”
Jennifer Mercieca notes, “The ironic twist of the demagogue saying the thing they say that they aren’t saying is so obvious that it often elicits laughter from audiences, thus rewarding the speaker once again because audiences enjoy being entertained, especially at the expense of some abhorred outgroup other.”
The other tricks in Kirk’s bag included ad hominem attacks, “what aboutism” arguments, and reification (treating people as objects).
Patricia Miller-Roberts, rhetorical scholar, says demagoguery combines with authoritarianism as a propaganda promoting a pre-existing culture of fear and hatred, relying on in-group and out-group perceptions and using projection to promote bigotry in the pursuit of power.
What Kirk did was not a debate but a setup.
The real context makes an even stronger argument against Kirk than his actual words — as damning as many of those are. Trumpism has unleashed a lethal mix of primal forces opposed to democratic institutions and governance. Evangelical faith has legitimized lying, corruption and bullying in the name of Jesus. Seven Mountain Dominionism has introduced idolatry into the house of God.
Kirk’s demagoguery has fooled many young people. This is the larger context of his rhetoric.
Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 11 books, including his latest, Dancing with Metaphors in the Pulpit.
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