Macdara has long held it to be a commonplace that the unbearable Timothée Chalamet has been cast in any and seemingly every Role available to a male actor in the last decade because he reminds directors of the awkward White Youth they used to be. It was less clear to him that Charlie Kirk was a similar avatar of Americanism, but all was revealed as soon as Kirk became newly Dead and his proliferation began.

Tall, doughy smiling face, fascist: one assumes that for White Settlers, he is a kind of ideal of the young-ish man: everyone’s promising son, everyone’s image of the young father. He seemed unthreatening, he engaged with young people, was not highly educated but was capable of arguing with those who inhabit the hostile world of academia. This prepared the way for an egregious and unconstitutional Elevation of Kirk into whatever might be the MAGA equivalent of a Saint. The terms of this elevation were accepted in the commentary on his death by the entities of the Liberal Right, who were at times honest enough to admit that some of their shock was about an attack on a fellow influencer, and the implications for themselves. We were forced to listen to a Portrait of the Pundit as a Young Man, as the Pod Saves Gang and Ezra Klein in particular paid tribute to this strange and dangerous character. Klein, notably more petulant and rightwing on the New Yorker podcast than on his own, seems to have alienated his own supporters, though he has predictably pivoted to making the whole moment a discussion piece for further episodes.

We were told that the US lost a White Man who meant so much to so many people; Kirk was doing politics the right way; a family had lost a father and husband. On this latter point, his wife’s speech was one of the more uncomfortable and odder things the present writer has seen. This grieving widow pouted and smirked through a short tribute to political extremism, talking about her late husband’s love for Trump and certain sports teams, as well as that most famous American: God.

Your correspondent has never subscribed to the idea that those who have done wrong should be eulogised without reference to the harm they have done. Nor should it be disregarded that Kirk flippantly supported gun deaths. If these facts are not going to be raised now, then when? What is the imaginary point in the future at which there will be a public reckoning with this man, if the Left is silent now? 

Kirk set up events with the apparent structure of a debate. But he was surrounded by his hounds at all times and he was happy to tell people he just did not believe what they had to say, even about their own experiences. He edited it all afterwards into tidy little packages of propaganda to further an undisguised agenda of Hate and Division. Oh but he didn’t look threatening to those used to elite politics: his mode of political engagement was congruent with what is familiar to the Washington Set: dinner parties, podcasts, late night discussions in Capitol Hill. He was not disruptive to them, so they felt comfortable joining in the mourning.

This is the normalisation of Fascism. Next the Liberal Right will be paying tribute to living Fascists, as long as they are halfway cute.