Unknown to Glory

 More than a month after Charlie Kirk's assassination, people are still getting canceled for saying the wrong thing about his death—even on the other side of the Atlantic. The Associated Press reported yesterday that the head of the Oxford debating society was forced out this week for reportedly celebrating the killing in a group chat. 

Meanwhile, right-wing activists across the country are continuing their campaign to turn Kirk into a martyr and a patriotic symbol. In my home state of Florida, Republican state legislators have proposed using state funds to coerce public universities into renaming college roadways in Kirk's honor. One county has already reportedly rechristened a highway in his memory (at least on one sign). 

New College of Florida—which was known as an academically-respected if slightly hippie-ish liberal arts school when I was in high school; but which has since been captured and refurbished by the Republican state government as a training ground for right-wing culture warriors—apparently posted an AI-generated image of a hypothetical Charlie Kirk statue on campus. 

And other state legislatures have taken up similar proposals to build "Charlie Kirk memorial plazas" on university campuses. 

Now, look, it's terrible that the guy was killed. It's especially horrible that he was killed in the act of trying to engage other people in nonviolent political debate. It was an awful day that shook us all; and a massive setback, in one blow, for any effort we are making as a country to overcome our partisan differences with reasoned discussions instead of violence. 

But the unifying patriotic martyr the right has been trying to erect ever since then bears no relationship to the antisemitic conspiracy theorist and white nationalist troll that Kirk actually was in life. 

Back in September—the day after Kirk's death—I wrote on this blog that people seemed to be mourning "not what he was, but what he should have been"—borrowing a line from Byron. 

Two days later, in the New York Times, I saw Mariann Budde, the Episcopal Bishop of Washington, say something similar. She observed that such sentiments are common after a death. When a person dies, she said: "we try to focus on the good, to the point that some people say, 'I don’t recognize the man who is being eulogized.' [...] If that happens in family life, why would we be surprised if it happens in our national life with a public figure? Can’t we be gracious about that too?”"

As appalled as I was by the killing in September, I certainly don't recognize the person that conservative state legislatures are trying to memorialize now, with their proposed Charlie Kirk statues and roadside shrines. I thought it was worth returning to Byron's words, since the whole passage honestly has become even more apt to the situation, now that people are literally trying to build cenotaphs across the country in his honor: 

When some proud Son of Man returns to Earth,

Unknown to Glory but upheld by Birth,

The sculptor's art exhausts the pomp of woe,

And storied urns record who rests below.

When all is done, upon the Tomb is seen

Not what he was, but what he should have been.