David Weiss is a Los Angeles-based freelancer who grew up in Oak Park. He has written for the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the LA Herald Examiner and Men's Journal and co-founded the band Was (Not Was) with Don Was. His father, the late Rube Weiss, was Santa Claus in the Hudson's Thanksgiving Parade.
By David Weiss
Charlie Kirk and President Trump
The recent murder of conservative firebrand Charlie Kirk was a tragedy plain and simple, no matter one’s ideological bent or religious beliefs. I myself – the Jewish grandson of a Russian-born anarchist/atheist -- have little in common with Kirk’s world-view, a crowd-pleasing hodgepodge of biblical homilies and populist clichés. Ditto for his slavish loyalty to Donald Trump, a crude apostate who held the good book in his tiny hands but once: while posing for a stagey photo-op in front of St. John’s Church during the George Floyd-induced unrest.
But it must be grudgingly admitted that both Kirk and Trump were master media showmen. Charlie Kirk was the YouTube-era’s answer to Socrates, using a similar dialectical, Q&A format to engage his audience.
For the record, Kirk’s act wouldn’t have played as well in Classical Athens, where he’d likely have been vilified as a lowly Sophist and banned from the agora. Such glibly clever types were scorned for their ability to take either side of an argument (but were welcomed at aristocratic suppers for stirring up philosophical rivals to the point of actual fisticuffs -- which apparently made for a successful party back in 399 BCE). Nothing better than a bloody brawl after wine, lamb and baklava.
Sound vaguely familiar? Yes, division and discord sell like hotcakes, no matter the time and place. Whatever you may think of the Kirk & Trump Show, you must admit they could sell ice to Eskimos in the dead of winter, and at twice the going price when you throw in the tariffs. By the way, Kirk had a net worth of around $12 million when he was felled by that armed and angry young man – not a bad portfolio for a one-semester college dropout. That’s the beauty of the Internet Era -- anybody with a silver tongue and a smartphone can rack up enough views to raise a family and park a Tesla Cybertruck or two in the driveway. I give the man props for that -- he’s a regular Kim Kardashian in that regard.
In Donald’s case, the habitual and colorful fabulist used to place phony phone calls to legacy outlets like the NY Post to spread falsehoods about his outsize wealth and sexual irresistibility. Using the pseudonym “John Barron,” he fed Page Six self-glorifying rumors that Madonna and Kim Basinger were dying to date him -- file those fantasies under either delusional or downright pathetic. And then he named his last-born love child after the fictional publicist, which is more sad than anything else. If Donald was so proud of his racist, slumlord father Fred, why couldn’t he have named the kid after grandpa? Poor Barron.
As for Charlie Kirk, a card-carrying millennial, he used social media to preach his gospel of MAGA-ready, racism-lite Christian nationalism. He founded Turning Point USA in 2012 at the age of 18 after receiving a hasty rejection letter from West Point. Our Fearful Leader, Donald Trump, never even bothered to apply -- given those crippling, combat-excluding bone spurs of his. Otherwise, he’d certainly have joined the ranks of stalwart warriors like Grant, Westmoreland and Patton rather than wasting his youth stiffing contractors and seducing young women. Thank you for servicing something, Mr. President.
Two Peas From the Same Pod
What moves me to write about the Castor & Pollux of the New American Right is that they are two peas from the same pod, cut from the same cloth of tireless self-promotion and lust for the limelight. I’ve been a disinterested observer of Kirk for several years, a byproduct of doom-scrolling YouTube and TikTok videos when bored senseless by snide MSNBC punditry or microdoses of toxic cranks like Fox’s Sean Hannity. Frankly, I never took him too seriously, lumping him in with other conservative loudmouths like Ben Shapiro or Laura Loomer.
In retrospect, I may have been in error, having “mis-underestimated” his profound influence on the political landscape. Kirk’s TPUSA was a political game-changer, and his extensive influence and charismatic personality are to be admired from a goodly distance.
As Friedrich Nietzsche wrote of lambs and birds of prey, vultures aren’t to be judged as “evil” for eviscerating helpless young animals, nor lambs as “good” because they are incapable of such predation. In that light, I can’t condemn Kirk for his effectiveness in the public arena – certainly his will to power came at the right place and time to help Trump regain the presidency. P.S., it didn’t hurt that he was a confirmed election denier – no surprise given that Ginni Thomas was on his advisory board (when she wasn’t cruising the country in that quarter-million dollar RV that Clarence wangled from a rich donor).
But I did not come to either praise nor bury this telegenic Internet Caesar, but to regard his ascendancy as an example of a phenomenon described in a book I read decades ago and have ever since admired: “Feet of Clay, Saints, Sinners and Madmen: A Study of Gurus,” by British psychiatrist and author Anthony Storr. Within its pages, Storr helped me understand what leads some people to become charismatic Svengalis, and many others to follow them blindly – whether we are talking about dangerous psychopaths like Jim Jones or less lethal persuaders like Kirk and Trump.
“All authorities,” wrote Storr, “whether political or spiritual, should be distrusted, and extremely authoritarian characters who divide the world into ‘us’ and ‘them,’ who preach that there is only one way forward, or believe that they are surrounded by enemies, are particularly to be avoided. It is not necessary to be dogmatic to be effective. The charisma of certainty is a snare which entraps the child who is latent in all of us.”
Let me add a couple of details that I remember vividly from my reading of the good doctor many moons ago. Those who succeed in the role of guru – or cult leader, depending on the circumstances – are also endowed with certain physiological traits that aid and abet their quest for power.
Robust Head of Hair
Laugh if you must, but that includes possessing an imposing physical presence, having a robust head of hair and being endowed with vocal cords that lend themselves to stentorian pronouncements and histrionic speechifying. Think Adolf Hitler and Father Coughlin in the radio era, or Jack Kennedy and Billy Graham when television added visual imagery to the potentially mesmerizing effect.
I swear this is true, even though it seems cooked up for the occasion: upon hearing of Charlie Kirk’s undeserved assassination, I immediately thought of Dr. Storr’s theories and asked Uncle Google how tall the man was. The answer – six-foot-five -- was a surprise to me, but made perfect sense in light of Storr’s fail-safe recipe for successful guruhood.
Give a big man (Trump stands 6’ 3”) with a big voice a bottomless jar of mousse and then stand clear. For better or for worse, they have the prerequisites to magnetize the minds and hearts of the disenfranchised, angry souls to whom they make their fervent appeal. Daddy, please save us from the evil monster of woke progressivism and equal rights for all!
And while it could be argued that Donald Trump believes in absolutely nothing when it comes to either politics or religion, it must be acknowledged that he is a highly gifted salesman at heart, no matter what he’s peddling on a given day: second-rate steaks, fraudulent university degrees, worthless meme-coins or finally, and most dangerously, the hateful and neo-fascistic policies of craven apparatchiks like Stephen Miller or Russell Vaught. His abiding usefulness is that he is a blank slate, and that he’ll haltingly read whatever is currently on the teleprompter, no matter the content. I’ll give poor Charlie Kirk the benefit of the doubt and call him a true believer by comparison, which I admit is damning him with faint praise. Sorry, Charlie.
Finally, the current Republican ruse -- accusing liberals of setting the stage for Charlie Kirk’s murder -- is the ne plus ultra of projection and Donald Trump’s reflexive defense when rightly accused of crimes and misdemeanors. The classic schoolyard gibe, “I know you are, but what am I?” is the president’s standard retort when cornered by hard facts. That conservatives should use the occasion of Kirk’s death to create further division and persecute political rivals will not only weaken our already frail republic, but inevitably lead to more senseless violence. Live by the sword and die thereby.
Caveat emptor.
