Susan Glasser: We’re Moving Very Quickly From Charlie Kirk The Man To The Phase Of Canonizing Him
“The New Yorker” scribe Susan Glasser on “Washington Week” said it is “striking” that “we’re moving very quickly from the phase of, who was Charlie Kirk, the man, the political activists, into the phase of canonizing him.” “He’s going to be sort of the MAGA martyr and he may mean very different things a year from now, six months from now, five years from now than he does right now,” Glasser added.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG, ‘WASHINGTON WEEK’ HOST, ‘ATLANTIC’ EDITOR: Susan, it’s fair to say that he was truly committed to free speech and he wanted to be out there and mix it up verbally, but only verbally mix it up with liberals, other people who may oppose him. I mean, he did play a positive role in modeling a kind of open inquiry, or is that an unfair — SUSAN GLASSER, ‘THE NEW YORKER’ STAFF WRITER: Yes. I mean, I think, and that’s the way he’s being remembered. That was, in fact, you know, key part of the very, I thought moving obit for him that the vice president, J.D. Vance, posted on X the other day, that’s what he said is that he exemplified this essentially constitutional virtue of free expression. He was on his way to a college tour around the country, not just at this university in Utah, where this horrific killing took place, but he was headed to other universities where he was going to debate liberal social media influencers. And I think he’s being remembered in that way by a portion of both the left and the right. But what’s striking to me right now is that, you know, we’re moving very quickly from the phase of, who was Charlie Kirk, the man, the political activists, into the phase of canonizing him. He’s going to be sort of the MAGA martyr and he may mean very different things a year from now, six months from now, five years from now than he does right now. And it’s very interesting in that context that while many in the left and the right are calling for this as a sort of a wakeup call, let’s talk about the toxicity of our political culture, where have you not heard that from, and that is from the White House, which has a very different interpretation.
