I am disappointed and disturbed that in all the discussion of Kirk's career, so little mention in conventional media is made of his actual comments, which were racist, misogynistic, irresponsible and inflammatory.
I do not approve of his assassination, violence should never be the tool for promoting your political ideas. But let us not whitewash this very divisive provocateur, who was careless of the harms he caused.
Is it? And the WAPO has not distinguished itself since Trump acceded to power. I would counter that whitewashing a controversial, divisive figure as a conservative saint is also counterproductive.
America has become tangled in an endless web of partisanship, division and cries of "fake news". It is critical we state the truth of things without editorializing. That is not criticizing. Just the facts.
3 weeks later, I still don’t see any positive outcome from public criticism of Kirk so soon after his assasination. It has indeed fed the MAGA narratives about their victimhood and they’ve exploited it in their contrived narrative about leftwing depravity.
Well they have tried...they are only going to succeed in their own echo chamber, and soft Trump supporters are going to be repelled by an honest appraisal of Kirk's endeavours and words.
What is clear is that when you are a negative destabilizer, you draw a hostile reaction. Whether Kirk was murdered by an insider or outsider...spewing hatred and division never benefits anyone long term.
Whatever white supremacists want, the globe is moving towards an acceptance of diversity. The stats on "mixed" marriages confirm that. Young women...at least the majority of them...are not going to meekly turn back to the kitchen and marital bed. They can't...divorce statistics confirm that.
So this Trump/GOP/MAGA push to make 1984 a reality is ultimately doomed. I am just angry that so much damage will be done while we work through this stupidity. And that so many will have made fortunes off the misery.
I had a similar sentiment reading JVL's piece yesterday. I abhore all violence. It blows my mind that someone could despise another person so much that they would be willing to violently end the person's life.
However, JVL used the word "tragedy" which is a step too far.
I'll provide a contemporary analogy. I'm currently in Nepal. A youth movement just successfully overthrew the corrupt government. On the day before the PM resigned, a police inspector ordered the police to fire into the crowd, killing at least 14 young people.
Aside from those deaths, this has been a bloodless revolution vis-a-vis the actions of the protestors with one exception: the police inspector who ordered that they fire into the crowd. He was beaten to death by a mob.
Do I denounce mob justice? Absolutely. Would I call this a tragedy? Hell no.
God knows how many people Kirk has gotten killed through his vile, often violent rhetoric. That his kids were present to see the killing is horrendous, but I also ask myself what kind of terrible parents would bring their children to watch Kirk spew his hate.
Its like when the habitual drunk driver gets into a fatal accident. Did I wish for his death? No. But rather his death than that of the innocent family he hit.
I agree he was not a good person, should not have been shot, etc. and that his comments and record was gross however Will is the Bulwark’s man in the maga fever swamps. There are tons of articles and posts out there about how bad of a person Kirk was. This article was literally headlined “Why Charlie Kirk mattered so much to the Right.” The right does not care about how bad he was (that is a feature not a bug for them.) So I think it is less about whitewashing him here in this piece and more about seeing what people inside the maga swamps feel about it. Just my 2 cents.
Generic fawning descriptions about Kirk's rapid rise within MAGA is only part of the story. To get a full measure of who Kirk was it's important to go beyond vague references to how he was a "provocateur". He was a racist divisive bigot, and he had the repugnant views to prove it. That fact is just as much a part of the story.
No worries! And I’m sorry if I was overly sensitive. People are attacking the bulwark response all over social media and my knee jerk reaction is to try to explain why I think they are doing what they are doing.
I completely agree with this. Well, this is not the time to heap mean spirited criticism upon him. It is certainly fair to point out what you just did in your comment. He caused a lot of damage along the way and should not be insulated from that despite his tragic death.
It's not "criticism" to accurately state Kirk's beliefs. In fact, he'd probably appreciate it. He very pointedly made himself a public figure. I think this piece should have included a couple of quotes as reference to who he was and what he stood for. That's not criticism. It's just being accurate.
Yes, that presents the relevant information in a commendable, dispassionate style...rather than the lamentable reporting we have seen that omits mention of the controversial nature of his pronouncements:
"Kirk expanded the organization's influence through initiatives such as the Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist, which sought to fire or silence professors for sharing opinions opposed by Turning Point....A key ally of Donald Trump, Kirk promoted conservative and Trump-aligned causes. He espoused a variety of controversial views, especially regarding his opposition to gun control, abortion, and LGBTQ rights; his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Martin Luther King Jr.; and his promotion of Christian nationalism, COVID-19 misinformation, the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, and false claims of electoral fraud in 2020. "
Unfortunately one who felt empowered to use a megaphone and influence others. I find many of his opinions objectionable but as a woman particularly loathe his assertions that women should be content to be wives, offering domestic servitude, sex, childbearing and care as their highest goals.
I wonder what he had on offer for those who find themselves widowed or divorced? How would they survive, with no education or job history? Those who preferred the single life? Those with talent and ambition who wanted careers, those who wanted to contribute more than their biology?
It is. And attempts to erase so much of the equality that any healthy society should strive for...or at least permit.
When I was a tad, in the 1960's, some of my elementary classmates lived in quiet poverty because their fathers had left their mothers. There was no legal expectation of spousal support then, and the women were often unfairly blamed for the failure of the marriage. Most were lucky to be high school graduates and eked out a living as waitresses, housekeepers, and other low paying jobs. Women with children were not likely to remarry. They really fell through the cracks in an inflexibly paternal society.
You are correct. Were his 'Prove Me Wrong' events truly political debate or simply opportunities to "catch", ala gotcha, liberals in order to embarrass and ridicule them before a partisan audience. I think the latter.
I was also thinking this. Having watched some of his talks at campuses, all of his arguments seemed in bad faith to me. He did not have an open mind. And he was a practiced pundit against amateurs. He was doing as all new-age right wingers do: simpering to his base and laughing at the "dumb libs" who thought they could EVER change his mind.
And that oppositional defiance appealed to the young right wing men who bought into his vision of a world where white men are ascendant, simply because they are white, and are thereby in charge of everyone and everything.
I thought we were long past that idea, but I guess it has reared its ugly head. How ironic that it seems likely Kirks' murderer objected to Kirk not being right wing *enough*...
Yes! And we have the President and other politicians on the far right that have used their platform to day hateful things and to "hint" at harming, shooting putting targets on Dem politicians for helping to " normalize" hate.
The politicians are supposed to lift the country not drag it down.
There are two things Kirk said apropos to this moment, I think. First is that gun violence, school shootings and assassinations are the price we pay for the Second Amendment. He called this a "prudent" cost. The second was that empathy was a made-up emotion, something created by the left.
If we are to honor him, should we not apply these two tenets of his philosophy? His death could be part of the price we pay for the Second Amendment. I doubt he thought he, personally, would pay that price. I doubt he wanted his wife and kids to pay that price. He figured someone else would pay that price and that's fine because it would be someone else. And THAT'S okay too because, to think otherwise would display empathy, a construct of the woke left.
The comment about the acceptable cost in lives of gun violence illustrates two things about Kirk.
#1 - Kirk used dehumanizing rhetoric that encourages violence. Human lives are not a toll to be paid, they are sacred. But when we reduce human lives rhetorically to less than sacred, we create a framework which justifies violence. Kirk helped build the framework of political violence in which we all must now suffer.
#2 - Kirk was not a good faith actor, but a charlatan grifter. In April of 2023, Kirk said the following: "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." Do we really think --- really --- that Kirk thought, for even one moment, that he would be fated to pay that worthy cost? Or did he only intend for others to pay the cost?
Yes, thank you for spelling it out, not that it should be necessary. I think there’s a danger that the Bulwark et al., in their concern not to seem to be in any way happy about the killing, are leaning too far the other way. The guy was part of the problem.
Re: "Human lives are not a toll to be paid, they are sacred."
Absolutely right. I wonder if anyone ever pointed this out to him. I wonder what he said. Had he not been murdered, we would have had the chance, but now that some lunatic has taken him out of the conversation, we'll never know and I think we're all poorer for it.
In the intermediate aftermath of his brutal assassination, I’m not sure what the purpose would be of spending a lot of time dwelling on what he actually said.
The MAGA crowd is totally unwilling to grapple with the reality of his messages. They consider him not just an exemplary patriot (I’m sure he did love his country, although not all of its inhabitants). And even more awkwardly, much of the MAGA crowd considers someone who was the total opposite of a ‘peacemaker’ to be a tremendous example of Christian virtue.
Pretty much all of the rest of us are already aware that he made his living stoking the egos of one group of people, at the expense of, well, the rest of us.
He was clearly quite skillful at gaining attention in today’s context, and for almost half the population, he had a form of charisma. Once the dust clears, there will be more room to analyze the forms of his hypocrisy and hostility. And it still is unlikely to be helpful in healing our divide.
Exactly this. It feels disorienting to read about him today and see him now glossed as merely "controversial" but otherwise more or less ok... Ezra Klein even had a headline today "Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way" which I thought was... well, an interesting take.
I’ve thought of Klein as an intelligent person, but his admission in this article about being jealous of Charlie Kirk’s online success was telling, I thought. It struck me as a weird, hot take, and that Klein was focused on the wrong aspects of what is happening.
Agree. He’s very clearly smart, though the entire concept of Vox always was a bit arrogant. It is that habit that comes through the intonation on the podcasts and when speaking.
All that said, he’s been correct about a lot as well.
Unrelated, but it would be nice if the hosts on MSNBC would actually challenge the Dems they have on their shows. Instead they just let them show up and do their blah blah blah routine.
And as for ‘timing’, since no one is answering when I ask if they saw Dowd’s statement in full context or not:
He said this when all that was confirmed was that there had been a shooting. Katy Tur interrupted him after that remark, not to cool down the discussion, but to inform the viewers — and Dowd — that they had confirmation Kirk himself had been shot. It wouldn’t be confirmed that Kirk had died for over an hour. Dowd hadn’t seen anything online; he’d been on air when the news broke. That’s the context and timing.
I was listening in realtime and I was utterly confused when I later heard MSNBC had put out an apology, and even more so when I heard they had fired Dowd. What he said hadn’t even stuck out to me as provocative at that moment, and I’m generally one for abundant decorum in the face of violent events.
This was minutes after the news he’d been “shot once” had come,¹ over an hour before his death would be announced. And replaying in full context, it’s still not even clear to me he was talking about *Kirk’s* “hateful thoughts” and “hateful words”, rather than to the miasma of hateful rhetoric in general.²
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¹ Correction, 16:10 EDT: In fact, rewatching it a third time, the chyron (which I believe Dowd would have only seen in a tiny thumbnail) said there were unconfirmed “Reports” Kirk had been shot, but Katy Tur had only verbally reported “a shooting” at the event. She interrupted the remark for which he was fired to tell Dowd and the audience that there was confirmation Kirk had been shot. Dowd was on air as the news broke, so he was likely not even aware he would need to talk about Kirk.
I understand *why* Dowd’s firing happened. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. If I agreed with that why, wouldn’t I also agree that JVL, Sarah, and Tim need to tone down their rhetoric, too, because it surely annoys Trump.
(Disclosure: My husband is employed at a Comcast company. Comcast is the parent company of MSNBC.)
There is a lot more freedom on a podcast than on MSNBC, but even the Pod boys were somewhat hesitant to point out the inflammatory nature of most of Kirk's positions and comments. I suspect some of this reaction is due to the fact Kirk was a media personality and not a politician. It has hit the media and podcast communities hard. Dowd probably needed to lay off those comments for a couple of weeks until the initial reaction had cooled.
I appreciate the real-time aspect of this and I very well may have thought the exact same thing, but if MSNBC received a hundred phone calls saying they felt this was inappropriate...they had a decision whether or not to take action of some sort.
A leave of absence would seem more appropriate though. Possibly they had other issues with him?
You don’t think I could organize a hundred phone calls to MSNBC right now demanding, say, Stephanie Ruhle be fired for something she said last night (not having even watched her show in its entirety and not having any idea what she may have said)?
This is the sort of argument that for a long time made “thoughts and prayers” the only acceptable thing to say after mass shootings for almost two decades, and has only very recently broken.
Daaaannnnggg....I was simply providing one plausible scenario for what might have occurred, rightly or wrongly, to provoke this management decision. Just because you could organize a hundred callers doesn't mean that it couldn't have happened spontaneously and not part of an organized political response. Further, I don't know, perhaps one of the big bosses in the MSNBC management chain recently lost someone dear to them and was super sensitive to what host said. I don't know what exactly was the reasoning, but that's not really my point.
Geez...sometimes, having the ability to curb your thoughts and not just blurt them out, is actually a good trait....especially for someone being paid to talk to a very large audience on a daily basis.
Finally...I'll say it again...timing is everything with this particular situation and we can totally agree to disagree on that....if you still have an issue with it.
I’d agree, but all he did was state the truth. And within hours Fox was essentially calling democrats demons who needed to be crushed. And I’m sure you heard all the lovely words coming from the Whitehouse.
Bottom line: we’re expecting to show civility and empathy while they continue to set the narrative, engage in misinformation, disinformation and propaganda; using more hateful rhetoric than before.
And we wonder why democrats ALWAYS lose! Although we can take solace in the fact that we are winning the CIVILITY WAR!…:)
I follow lots of people on Bluesky, I keep hearing that but I'm not seeing it there. Everyone is being pretty cautious, at least in the circle I follow.
It’s not my thing, but I don’t like self censoring in any form unless it promotes violence. If people want to vent, let them. I’m not on any social media sites.
I get your point, but if we're comparing ourselves to Fox News and justifying our actions on that, for me, that is not a long-term winning proposition. That's how MAGA got to where they are albeit they demonize the Dems unfairly.
Wait a day and then say it. Don't say it on the day of....that's all I'm pointing out.
Wasn't Trey's point that fact that at the time Matt Dowd was on TV with Katy Tur, it had only been announced that Charlie Kirk had been shot. It would be another hour before anyone was told that he had died. So it wasn't at all like standing up at the deceased's funeral & insulting him.
In my opinion, that's a distinction without a difference. "Being shot at" is the key action...whether or not someone died. That's the defense that the MAGAs use for 1/6..."no one died...except Ashli Babbit" as if that attack was only bad if people died.
Geez...ok...let's change from a funeral to when a jerk gets hit by a car and dies in an intersection...it's not appropriate to start shouting to the gathered crowd that he was a jerk who never listened to anyone and now he finally paid the price.
I am disappointed and disturbed that in all the discussion of Kirk's career, so little mention in conventional media is made of his actual comments, which were racist, misogynistic, irresponsible and inflammatory.
I do not approve of his assassination, violence should never be the tool for promoting your political ideas. But let us not whitewash this very divisive provocateur, who was careless of the harms he caused.
Megan McArdle provides multiple reasons why it’s counterproductive to immediately start criticizing a recently deceased political figure.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2025/09/11/charlie-kirk-political-violence/
Is it? And the WAPO has not distinguished itself since Trump acceded to power. I would counter that whitewashing a controversial, divisive figure as a conservative saint is also counterproductive.
America has become tangled in an endless web of partisanship, division and cries of "fake news". It is critical we state the truth of things without editorializing. That is not criticizing. Just the facts.
3 weeks later, I still don’t see any positive outcome from public criticism of Kirk so soon after his assasination. It has indeed fed the MAGA narratives about their victimhood and they’ve exploited it in their contrived narrative about leftwing depravity.
Well they have tried...they are only going to succeed in their own echo chamber, and soft Trump supporters are going to be repelled by an honest appraisal of Kirk's endeavours and words.
What is clear is that when you are a negative destabilizer, you draw a hostile reaction. Whether Kirk was murdered by an insider or outsider...spewing hatred and division never benefits anyone long term.
Whatever white supremacists want, the globe is moving towards an acceptance of diversity. The stats on "mixed" marriages confirm that. Young women...at least the majority of them...are not going to meekly turn back to the kitchen and marital bed. They can't...divorce statistics confirm that.
So this Trump/GOP/MAGA push to make 1984 a reality is ultimately doomed. I am just angry that so much damage will be done while we work through this stupidity. And that so many will have made fortunes off the misery.
I had a similar sentiment reading JVL's piece yesterday. I abhore all violence. It blows my mind that someone could despise another person so much that they would be willing to violently end the person's life.
However, JVL used the word "tragedy" which is a step too far.
I'll provide a contemporary analogy. I'm currently in Nepal. A youth movement just successfully overthrew the corrupt government. On the day before the PM resigned, a police inspector ordered the police to fire into the crowd, killing at least 14 young people.
Aside from those deaths, this has been a bloodless revolution vis-a-vis the actions of the protestors with one exception: the police inspector who ordered that they fire into the crowd. He was beaten to death by a mob.
Do I denounce mob justice? Absolutely. Would I call this a tragedy? Hell no.
God knows how many people Kirk has gotten killed through his vile, often violent rhetoric. That his kids were present to see the killing is horrendous, but I also ask myself what kind of terrible parents would bring their children to watch Kirk spew his hate.
Its like when the habitual drunk driver gets into a fatal accident. Did I wish for his death? No. But rather his death than that of the innocent family he hit.
Wholeheartedly agree! We can mourn a grave loss without having to take his reputation through the dry cleaners
Here he is in his own words...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/11/charlie-kirk-quotes-beliefs
Well that certainly defines Mr. Kirk's approach to life. Repugnant and arrogant.
I agree he was not a good person, should not have been shot, etc. and that his comments and record was gross however Will is the Bulwark’s man in the maga fever swamps. There are tons of articles and posts out there about how bad of a person Kirk was. This article was literally headlined “Why Charlie Kirk mattered so much to the Right.” The right does not care about how bad he was (that is a feature not a bug for them.) So I think it is less about whitewashing him here in this piece and more about seeing what people inside the maga swamps feel about it. Just my 2 cents.
Generic fawning descriptions about Kirk's rapid rise within MAGA is only part of the story. To get a full measure of who Kirk was it's important to go beyond vague references to how he was a "provocateur". He was a racist divisive bigot, and he had the repugnant views to prove it. That fact is just as much a part of the story.
I was not criticizing Will, but the mainstream media material I have seen. My apologies!
No worries! And I’m sorry if I was overly sensitive. People are attacking the bulwark response all over social media and my knee jerk reaction is to try to explain why I think they are doing what they are doing.
Amen!
I completely agree with this. Well, this is not the time to heap mean spirited criticism upon him. It is certainly fair to point out what you just did in your comment. He caused a lot of damage along the way and should not be insulated from that despite his tragic death.
It's not "criticism" to accurately state Kirk's beliefs. In fact, he'd probably appreciate it. He very pointedly made himself a public figure. I think this piece should have included a couple of quotes as reference to who he was and what he stood for. That's not criticism. It's just being accurate.
Bingo! You hit the nail on the head. Almost none of his sycophants are actually repeating what he said. In that way they can turn him into a martyr.
You can find some info on that at his Wikipedia page.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Kirk
Yes, that presents the relevant information in a commendable, dispassionate style...rather than the lamentable reporting we have seen that omits mention of the controversial nature of his pronouncements:
"Kirk expanded the organization's influence through initiatives such as the Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist, which sought to fire or silence professors for sharing opinions opposed by Turning Point....A key ally of Donald Trump, Kirk promoted conservative and Trump-aligned causes. He espoused a variety of controversial views, especially regarding his opposition to gun control, abortion, and LGBTQ rights; his criticism of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Martin Luther King Jr.; and his promotion of Christian nationalism, COVID-19 misinformation, the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, and false claims of electoral fraud in 2020. "
He was just another Trumpist.
Unfortunately one who felt empowered to use a megaphone and influence others. I find many of his opinions objectionable but as a woman particularly loathe his assertions that women should be content to be wives, offering domestic servitude, sex, childbearing and care as their highest goals.
I wonder what he had on offer for those who find themselves widowed or divorced? How would they survive, with no education or job history? Those who preferred the single life? Those with talent and ambition who wanted careers, those who wanted to contribute more than their biology?
This is apparently the “new” right. Very unappealing.
It is. And attempts to erase so much of the equality that any healthy society should strive for...or at least permit.
When I was a tad, in the 1960's, some of my elementary classmates lived in quiet poverty because their fathers had left their mothers. There was no legal expectation of spousal support then, and the women were often unfairly blamed for the failure of the marriage. Most were lucky to be high school graduates and eked out a living as waitresses, housekeepers, and other low paying jobs. Women with children were not likely to remarry. They really fell through the cracks in an inflexibly paternal society.
Yes. It would have been better to defeat him in the war of ideas. Assassinating him does not further that project; rather, it sets it back.
Except there is no defeat in the war of ideas, as should be abundantly clear at this point.
Fascism and Nazism are back, despite the fact that we fought a world war and tens of millions died to defeat them.
Racism never went away.
Sexism never went away.
Bad and terrible ideas do not die, they merely wait quietly until their time comes round again..
You are correct. Were his 'Prove Me Wrong' events truly political debate or simply opportunities to "catch", ala gotcha, liberals in order to embarrass and ridicule them before a partisan audience. I think the latter.
I was also thinking this. Having watched some of his talks at campuses, all of his arguments seemed in bad faith to me. He did not have an open mind. And he was a practiced pundit against amateurs. He was doing as all new-age right wingers do: simpering to his base and laughing at the "dumb libs" who thought they could EVER change his mind.
And that oppositional defiance appealed to the young right wing men who bought into his vision of a world where white men are ascendant, simply because they are white, and are thereby in charge of everyone and everything.
I thought we were long past that idea, but I guess it has reared its ugly head. How ironic that it seems likely Kirks' murderer objected to Kirk not being right wing *enough*...
Yes! And we have the President and other politicians on the far right that have used their platform to day hateful things and to "hint" at harming, shooting putting targets on Dem politicians for helping to " normalize" hate.
The politicians are supposed to lift the country not drag it down.
I think you're right.
There are two things Kirk said apropos to this moment, I think. First is that gun violence, school shootings and assassinations are the price we pay for the Second Amendment. He called this a "prudent" cost. The second was that empathy was a made-up emotion, something created by the left.
If we are to honor him, should we not apply these two tenets of his philosophy? His death could be part of the price we pay for the Second Amendment. I doubt he thought he, personally, would pay that price. I doubt he wanted his wife and kids to pay that price. He figured someone else would pay that price and that's fine because it would be someone else. And THAT'S okay too because, to think otherwise would display empathy, a construct of the woke left.
The comment about the acceptable cost in lives of gun violence illustrates two things about Kirk.
#1 - Kirk used dehumanizing rhetoric that encourages violence. Human lives are not a toll to be paid, they are sacred. But when we reduce human lives rhetorically to less than sacred, we create a framework which justifies violence. Kirk helped build the framework of political violence in which we all must now suffer.
#2 - Kirk was not a good faith actor, but a charlatan grifter. In April of 2023, Kirk said the following: "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." Do we really think --- really --- that Kirk thought, for even one moment, that he would be fated to pay that worthy cost? Or did he only intend for others to pay the cost?
Yes, thank you for spelling it out, not that it should be necessary. I think there’s a danger that the Bulwark et al., in their concern not to seem to be in any way happy about the killing, are leaning too far the other way. The guy was part of the problem.
Re: "Human lives are not a toll to be paid, they are sacred."
Absolutely right. I wonder if anyone ever pointed this out to him. I wonder what he said. Had he not been murdered, we would have had the chance, but now that some lunatic has taken him out of the conversation, we'll never know and I think we're all poorer for it.
In the intermediate aftermath of his brutal assassination, I’m not sure what the purpose would be of spending a lot of time dwelling on what he actually said.
The MAGA crowd is totally unwilling to grapple with the reality of his messages. They consider him not just an exemplary patriot (I’m sure he did love his country, although not all of its inhabitants). And even more awkwardly, much of the MAGA crowd considers someone who was the total opposite of a ‘peacemaker’ to be a tremendous example of Christian virtue.
Pretty much all of the rest of us are already aware that he made his living stoking the egos of one group of people, at the expense of, well, the rest of us.
He was clearly quite skillful at gaining attention in today’s context, and for almost half the population, he had a form of charisma. Once the dust clears, there will be more room to analyze the forms of his hypocrisy and hostility. And it still is unlikely to be helpful in healing our divide.
Well said, and excellent points!…:)
Unbelievable someone would think or say that about gun violence. All I can think is that perhaps this was karma...
I agree. We should honor his sacrifice.
Really excellent point and I'm pretty sure he's saying "Wait a minute....I didn't mean THIS..." wherever he is at the moment.
Kirk thought there would be no consequences for him.
Exactly this. It feels disorienting to read about him today and see him now glossed as merely "controversial" but otherwise more or less ok... Ezra Klein even had a headline today "Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way" which I thought was... well, an interesting take.
I saw that, but didn’t read it. Likely the dumbest thing Klein has ever written.
Yep, you didn’t miss anything. Actually David Corn wrote a response to it in Mother Jones that I appreciated.
I’ll take a look. Thanks! I have read Klein’s article now.
Thanks for that reference. Corn's article was brilliant.
He rides that smart/dumb seesaw.
I’ve thought of Klein as an intelligent person, but his admission in this article about being jealous of Charlie Kirk’s online success was telling, I thought. It struck me as a weird, hot take, and that Klein was focused on the wrong aspects of what is happening.
Agree. He’s very clearly smart, though the entire concept of Vox always was a bit arrogant. It is that habit that comes through the intonation on the podcasts and when speaking.
All that said, he’s been correct about a lot as well.
Considering Fox Noise did not fire Jesse Waters, I guess you are right-ur-correct.
I can’t believe MSNBC fired Dowd! What cowards.
So True! And I guess if Jesse Waters were an MSNBC commentator, he would have received a promotion!
Unrelated, but it would be nice if the hosts on MSNBC would actually challenge the Dems they have on their shows. Instead they just let them show up and do their blah blah blah routine.
What challenges would you like to see posed? What blah blah blah do you find particularly annoying?
I'd ask them why we should consider them a viable political party in this country and not just the Washington Generals to the Repubs' Globetrotters.
??
Timing was everything on this. He wouldn't have been fired for saying the same thing last week.
Really bad time for him to say what exactly was on his mind.
And as for ‘timing’, since no one is answering when I ask if they saw Dowd’s statement in full context or not:
He said this when all that was confirmed was that there had been a shooting. Katy Tur interrupted him after that remark, not to cool down the discussion, but to inform the viewers — and Dowd — that they had confirmation Kirk himself had been shot. It wouldn’t be confirmed that Kirk had died for over an hour. Dowd hadn’t seen anything online; he’d been on air when the news broke. That’s the context and timing.
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Addendum 17:15 EDT: I’ve listened yet again and transcribed Dowd’s exact words that apparently got him in trouble here: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/why-charlie-kirk-mattered-so-much/comment/154944580 — they read a bit worse in print, and they don’t change my opinion here.
I was listening in realtime and I was utterly confused when I later heard MSNBC had put out an apology, and even more so when I heard they had fired Dowd. What he said hadn’t even stuck out to me as provocative at that moment, and I’m generally one for abundant decorum in the face of violent events.
This was minutes after the news he’d been “shot once” had come,¹ over an hour before his death would be announced. And replaying in full context, it’s still not even clear to me he was talking about *Kirk’s* “hateful thoughts” and “hateful words”, rather than to the miasma of hateful rhetoric in general.²
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¹ Correction, 16:10 EDT: In fact, rewatching it a third time, the chyron (which I believe Dowd would have only seen in a tiny thumbnail) said there were unconfirmed “Reports” Kirk had been shot, but Katy Tur had only verbally reported “a shooting” at the event. She interrupted the remark for which he was fired to tell Dowd and the audience that there was confirmation Kirk had been shot. Dowd was on air as the news broke, so he was likely not even aware he would need to talk about Kirk.
² Addendum 17:15 EDT: I’ve listened yet again and transcribed Dowd’s exact words that apparently got him in trouble here: https://www.thebulwark.com/p/why-charlie-kirk-mattered-so-much/comment/154944580 — they read a bit worse in print, but they don’t change my opinion here.
The media are afraid of Trump. Have you been following the situation at CBS / Paramount? Appointing a Trumpist ombudsman, for starters.
I understand *why* Dowd’s firing happened. That doesn’t mean I have to agree with it. If I agreed with that why, wouldn’t I also agree that JVL, Sarah, and Tim need to tone down their rhetoric, too, because it surely annoys Trump.
(Disclosure: My husband is employed at a Comcast company. Comcast is the parent company of MSNBC.)
There is a lot more freedom on a podcast than on MSNBC, but even the Pod boys were somewhat hesitant to point out the inflammatory nature of most of Kirk's positions and comments. I suspect some of this reaction is due to the fact Kirk was a media personality and not a politician. It has hit the media and podcast communities hard. Dowd probably needed to lay off those comments for a couple of weeks until the initial reaction had cooled.
I appreciate the real-time aspect of this and I very well may have thought the exact same thing, but if MSNBC received a hundred phone calls saying they felt this was inappropriate...they had a decision whether or not to take action of some sort.
A leave of absence would seem more appropriate though. Possibly they had other issues with him?
You don’t think I could organize a hundred phone calls to MSNBC right now demanding, say, Stephanie Ruhle be fired for something she said last night (not having even watched her show in its entirety and not having any idea what she may have said)?
This is the sort of argument that for a long time made “thoughts and prayers” the only acceptable thing to say after mass shootings for almost two decades, and has only very recently broken.
Daaaannnnggg....I was simply providing one plausible scenario for what might have occurred, rightly or wrongly, to provoke this management decision. Just because you could organize a hundred callers doesn't mean that it couldn't have happened spontaneously and not part of an organized political response. Further, I don't know, perhaps one of the big bosses in the MSNBC management chain recently lost someone dear to them and was super sensitive to what host said. I don't know what exactly was the reasoning, but that's not really my point.
Geez...sometimes, having the ability to curb your thoughts and not just blurt them out, is actually a good trait....especially for someone being paid to talk to a very large audience on a daily basis.
Finally...I'll say it again...timing is everything with this particular situation and we can totally agree to disagree on that....if you still have an issue with it.
I’d agree, but all he did was state the truth. And within hours Fox was essentially calling democrats demons who needed to be crushed. And I’m sure you heard all the lovely words coming from the Whitehouse.
Bottom line: we’re expecting to show civility and empathy while they continue to set the narrative, engage in misinformation, disinformation and propaganda; using more hateful rhetoric than before.
And we wonder why democrats ALWAYS lose! Although we can take solace in the fact that we are winning the CIVILITY WAR!…:)
Yeah Rob, It’s definitely a, “thank you sir, may I have another” moment in time.
Apparently people are going wild on BlueSky, if that’s your thing.
I follow lots of people on Bluesky, I keep hearing that but I'm not seeing it there. Everyone is being pretty cautious, at least in the circle I follow.
You’re probably not following the extreme ones.
It’s not my thing, but I don’t like self censoring in any form unless it promotes violence. If people want to vent, let them. I’m not on any social media sites.
I get your point, but if we're comparing ourselves to Fox News and justifying our actions on that, for me, that is not a long-term winning proposition. That's how MAGA got to where they are albeit they demonize the Dems unfairly.
Wait a day and then say it. Don't say it on the day of....that's all I'm pointing out.
Heaven forbid we have honest journalists.
Just because it's factually correct doesn't mean you jump up at a funeral service and shout that the dead guy really was a creep.
Context ALWAYS matters and this guy had a giant microphone and is being highly paid to provide his opinion APPROPRIATE to the circumstances.
Just like he had the right to say it....MSNBC had the right to fire him for it.
Uh... if he molested 10 children and was killed doing so and then the eulogist talks about how wonderful he was to children... lol
Wasn't Trey's point that fact that at the time Matt Dowd was on TV with Katy Tur, it had only been announced that Charlie Kirk had been shot. It would be another hour before anyone was told that he had died. So it wasn't at all like standing up at the deceased's funeral & insulting him.
In my opinion, that's a distinction without a difference. "Being shot at" is the key action...whether or not someone died. That's the defense that the MAGAs use for 1/6..."no one died...except Ashli Babbit" as if that attack was only bad if people died.
Geez...ok...let's change from a funeral to when a jerk gets hit by a car and dies in an intersection...it's not appropriate to start shouting to the gathered crowd that he was a jerk who never listened to anyone and now he finally paid the price.
I'll stand on my previous comment that it was all about the timing and the timing he chose isn't very supportive of nuance.