He Who Must Not Be Quoted
The Received Opinion crew address the death of The Blessèd Kirk
BOLT UPRIGHT: Good evening, I’m Bolt Upright and this is Received Opinion!
[“Stars and Stripes Forever” run through old Boss Octaver, Harmonist, and Pitch Shifter boxes with the pitch wheels manipulated by chimpanzees on psychoactive drugs. On the screen behind UPRIGHT: A limited action cartoon loop showing CHARLIE KIRK in an angel’s robes and wings, giving the White Power sign and floating above a scene of enraged MAGA-hat-wearing white men shooting in all directions. Caption: THE RED WEEDING!]
UPRIGHT: What can you say about Charlie Kirk? Well, certainly not anything he actually said! The Washington Post fired their last black opinion columnist just for quoting him accurately. And many other people have been fired for saying less than worshipful things about a man who, until his assassination, might be described as a provocateur. One young woman was even arrested for her comments on The Blessèd Kirk — well, she was black and it was Texas, so dog bites man, I suppose.
[Back screen replaced by sound-off footage of Vance’s and Miller’s ravings.]
Vice President JD Vance and Reichsminister Stephen Miller went on The Blessèd Kirk’s podcast the other day. No, The Blessèd Kirk did not rise from the dead, but in his absence Vance did encourage his listeners to rat out people who said bad things about The Blessèd Kirk, and he and Miller said they would attack and destroy liberal “networks” in his honor, including the Ford Foundation. Many other free speech advocates followed suit.
[Screen goes blank behind UPRIGHT.]
I figured, before we go to our first guest, just as an experiment we’d put some Charlie Kirk quotes, from before his beatification, on the board and see what happens. First slide:
[A little picture of KIRK appears with these quotes: “Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.” “If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’”]
UPRIGHT: [Reading] “Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people…”
[Shrieks offstage. Two men and a woman in red hats rush the stage, taking video with their phones. Young STUDIO PAGES hover attentively at the perimeter.]
MAGA MAN 1: How dare you slander The Blessèd Kirk! You’re fired! You’re fired!
UPRIGHT: Slander? What are you talking about? These are Kirk’s own words.
MAGA MAN 1: You lie! Charlie was like Martin Luther King! Content of his character!
MAGA MAN 2: That’s right!
MAGA MAN 1: He was friends with Luther King! I saw pictures of him hugging Marvin Luther in heaven!
MAGA MAN 2: Content of the character!
UPRIGHT: No, Charlie Kirk hated Martin Luther King. He said so. Last year he said “MLK was awful…”
MAGA WOMAN: [Shrieks, falls to the ground, flails]
MAGA MAN 2: [Enraged] Now look what your Em Ess Em lies done to my Betsy! I’m gonna kill you for Charlie!
[MAGA MAN 2 charges UPRIGHT, who boxes his ears; MAGA MAN 2 collapses. MAGA MAN 1 continues to video.]
MAGA MAN 1: You’re fired! You’re fired! You’re fired! You—
[UPRIGHT fakes a punch at him and MAGA MAN 1 runs away. UPRIGHT makes a twirling motion over his head; actual SECURITY GUARDS come in and drag MAGA MAN 2 and MAGA WOMAN away.]
UPRIGHT: OK. Now, we were supposed to have some guy from the Heritage Foundation here, but he appears to have skedaddled. He did leave a death threat, but to be honest we get so many of those here at Received Opinion that I —
VOICE: ACHTUNG!
[Presidential Nazi STEPHEN MILLER, dressed in his usual crypto-SS garb, has rappelled halfway down from the flies on a cord hooked to his belt; he holds a Luger on UPRIGHT.]
MILLER: Now the moment has come, Upright! You and the ungeziefer will pledge loyalty to The Blessèd Kirk or perish!
UPRIGHT: Can’t do it, Steve. Took an oath in the Corps, not gonna break it for you.
MILLER: A Communist Corps, no doubt! But it does not matter. Now at last I have you, Upright, you entartete anchorman! Now comes the moment I have waited for so long —
[MILLER’s line is broken and he hits the floor with a sickening thud, unconscious. UPRIGHT makes the twirling motion again and MILLER is hauled off.]
UPRIGHT: Somebody up there likes me, and they’re in IATSE! OK, time for the Decision Desk.
[Musical dental cleaning as UPRIGHT goes to the Decision Desk, where we find PEONI DOYENNE, wearing an Oscar de la Renta cowhide-printed silk chiffon dress and biscuit Jago ankle strap sandals; and CHAFE DRAMATURGY in a Hawes & Curtis navy chalk stripe suit with an ugly “We Are Charlie Kirk” pin on the lapel, white shirt and blue patterned tie, and black Tom Ford supple grain Kenneth boots with a buckle. DRAMATURGY is squatting behind his chair.]
UPRIGHT: Chafe, what are you doing down there?
DRAMATURGY: Are they gone?
UPRIGHT: Yes, yes, they’re all gone.
[DRAMATURGY returns to his seat.]
“We Are Charlie Kirk.” What does that mean, Chafe?
DRAMATURGY: Well, of course I don’t share his politics but I feel we share a… a connection and a… way of… connecting, in connectivity. You have to admit he did politics right. And he had a very profound impact on American life.
UPRIGHT: You don’t say.
DRAMATURGY: Yes. Yes, of course, especially among the young.
UPRIGHT: And you know this how?
DRAMATURGY: Well, I see young people, you know, out, around. Yesterday I heard a young man at a restaurant, he said, “I hear Charlie Kirk got shot.”
UPRIGHT: I see. Was this young man dining at the restaurant?
DRAMATURGY: No, I think he was a busboy. Very young, though.
UPRIGHT: Peoni, should we get you a pin?
DOYENNE: No, it would clash, but you know I don’t like your tone, Bolt, it seems disrespectful to someone who was so meaningful to the young, or so I’m told.
UPRIGHT: Well, Peoni, as you know I’m a big fan of Martin Luther King, my father met the man and I collect memorabilia and so forth, and the things Kirk said about him —
[Shrieks are heard in the distance. DOYENNE stands up and points to UPRIGHT.]
DOYENNE: He’s over here!
UPRIGHT: [Sighs] Dames! When we come back, we’ll have some guests who cannot be properly identified because they’re wearing neck gaiters up to their noses and sunglasses and, more to the point, refuse to identify themselves, but who were sent by the network president to explain why liberals should be hunted down like animals. I’m told it has something to do with Martin Luther King. See you on the other side!
[Several different layers of bestial wail. Camera vibrates, explodes.]
Another good choice for Peoni, Roy, but charging $6000 for that muddy-looking print is a crime against the fashion gods.
What the Right has initiated following Kirk's murder is the stuff of nightmares, but I'm going to mention a minor point: at least 95% of Americans had no idea who Charlie Kirk was before he was killed. The whole awful aftermath is an elite spasm. White journalists and media figures met Kirk and found him cordial and affable in person, or knew others who had met him and found him to be cordial and affable. We know they eagerly close ranks around anyone perceived as one of their own class and profession.
As professor Kevin Kruse points out, these same journalists/media people define "civility" as a white man saying horrendous things in a polite tone of voice.
Your subtle reference to “We are Charlie Hebdo,” the actual massacre of actual journalists, resonates with me here in France on more than one level. The insane promotion of a carny-level provocateur by the benighted fascists of America would befuddle the French, if they had any idea of who this third-rate Buckley imitator was. I, on the other hand, know that this is but the latest attempt to distract from Epstein, TACO in Chicago, and looming Big Beautiful Bill catastrophes. Every lie about leftwing violence is a confession of rightwing violence. Every cry about cancelled conservatives is a cry to cancel liberals. Some modicum of truth must be slipping through this tsunami of bullshit, or the fascists wouldn’t be ramping up the threats to DEFCON 10. Will Kirk become a permanent fixture in the MAGA universe? Will his killer confess to loving Nick Fuentes? Will Schumer-et-fils write a letter? The suspense isn’t killing me, the stupidity is.