This left winger claimed, about Charlie Kirk's death, that "people aren't being fired for celebrating his death, they're literally being fired (or threatend with it) for *Criticizing the content of his views*. Or in the most amazing cases - simply quoting him accurately, verbatim."
I decided to look into this allegation, and looked for a list of such firings so I could evaluate the truth of this claim (ignoring what corporate social media policies, which might justify their firing even if just criticised him, might be).
Expose Charlie's Murderers was mentioned by many news articles on this.
Of course, Google was engaging in censorship as usual. I tried to find the URL for the "Expose Charlie’s Murderers" website and it was not on the first 3 pages of Google search results, only articles about it.
It was on the first page on DuckDuckGo: Expose Charlie's Murderers.
Unfortunately, it was down as of the time I wrote this post.
Let us look at a list of specific examples of sanctioned individuals compiled by The Guardian, which would be ideologically motivated to highlight examples of the most innocuous comments leading to being fired. For the full text/context of what these people said, it is necessary to consult Twitter, as we know media reports are unlikely to be accurate and complete.
1) Anthony Pough, Secret Service Agent
This was a Secret Service agent.
Pough posted that:
"If you are Mourning this guy .. delete me. He spewed hate and racism on his show.
Especially when we should be mourning the innocent children killed in Colorado.
At the end of the day, you answer to GOD and speak things into existence. You can only circumvent karma, she doesnt leave."
This is not merely criticising Charlie Kirk, but mocking his death and expressing disdain for those who would mourn his death.
Pugh also posted that "Charlie Kirk says black women do not have brain processing power".
Snopes mischevously posted a subtly different version of this claim and rated it as true (the tweet they featured was different from the claim they "fact checked"):
"Turning Point USA founder and CEO Charlie Kirk once said some prominent Black women did not have "the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.""
So we can confirm that Anthony Pough also misquoted Charlie Kirk.
2) NASDAQ Employee
The article The Guardian linked to does not name the NASDAQ Employee, but Parrot Capital says that Lisa Schmidt, a senior advisor of sustainability and climate at NASDAQ, got fired.
Her offending words?
"interrupting the euro trip content to say fuck charlie kirk. rest in piss"
In the accompanying photo, she is also flipping both middle fingers at the camera.
This is not criticism, but mockery and insult.
3) Carolina Panthers Employee
The article The Guardian linked to does not name him, but Will O'Donoghue reports that it was Charlie Rock, who posted:
“Why are yall sad? Your man said it was worth it…”
One might interpret this as criticism, but even if it is, it is definitely mocking those who are sad over his death.
4) Kelly Brock-Sanchez, Elementary school teacher in Clay county
Captain Kieran Kelly reports that she posted "This may not be the obituary. (sic) We were all hoping to wake up to, but this is a close second for me." and attached an article about Charlie Kirk being killed.
There is no criticism or even quoting of Charlie Kirk here - just celebrating his death, with an allusion to the death of someone else, which would be even more celebrated (and we all know who that is).
5) Susan Horn, High school counselor in Clay county
According to Mama Tried, she wrote that:
"I disagree with violence and I'm a supporter of common sense gun control. This man was perfectly fine with innocent children dying to protect his rights. 37 years in public education, ready to take a bullet for my kids. No I'm not shedding a tear, he chose to sacrifice himself for the rights he protected. Karma's a bitch."
Charlie Kirk did not phrase gun rights as important because they were "his rights", and Horn disregards the complexity of Kirk's argument (could someone who didn't want to ban cars be fairly said to be "perfectly fine with innocent children dying to protect his rights"?) to mischaracterise it.
Furthermore, she ends by mocking him.
6) Matthew Dowd, MSNBC Analyst
Dowd said that "He’s been one of the most divisive, especially divisive younger figures in this, who is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in."
Accusing someone of being hateful might count as bargain basement criticism, but this is basically blaming him for his death.
7) Sports reporter
Defector reports that this is PHNX Sports's Phoenix Suns reporter Gerald Bourguet. While they shamelessly pile onto the Charlie Kirk hate machine, at least they provide a screenshot of the offending comments:
""Political differences" are not the same thing as spewing hateful rhetoric on a daily basis, and refusing to mourn a life devoted to that cause is not the same thing as celebrating gun violence. Just so we're 100% clear on that.
"He was a father"
Half of y'all didn't give a DAMN about doing anything to stop gun violence when the victims of mass shootings were LITERAL children. And those kids weren't bigots spreading genocidal propaganda, or a mindset he directly fed into with this Holy Grail of Ironies:
*Charlie Kirk quote on gun deaths and the Second Amendment*
If you're saddened by today's "political violence," horrified by the video, or repulsed by my response, ask yourself why your reaction was different when it came to school shootings, mass deportations or the HUNDREDS of videos of horrific murders in Gaza (which Kirk cheered on)
Truly don't care if you think it's insensitive or poor timing to decline to respect an evil man who died. Too many of you are more concerned with being polite and *appearing' to be good people rather than showing some damn backbone and standing on principal to condemn hate"
Once again, there is no real criticism.
Bourguet was calling him evil and hateful, lying that he spewed "hateful rhetoric on a daily basis", defaming him as a bigot "spreading genocidal propaganda", mocking the characterisation of his assassination as "political violence" and drew a false equivalence between them and school shootings, mass deportations and (presumably) civilian deaths in Gaza, and claiming that he was condemning "hate" (i.e. opposing the Left Wing Agenda).
Specifically about the Gaza claim, which would appear to be the most egregious calumny, there're too many videos about Gaza on Kirk's YouTube channel.
Mint, in the video Charlie Kirk’s Top Most Provocative Controversies: From India To Guns, Gaza And Women | EXPLAINED, highlighted the following comment on Gaza:
"No, Israel is not starving Gazans. Watch."
"The deaths of women and children in Gaza are the fault of Hamas, not Israel, just like the deaths in Japan during World War 2 were the fault of Japan, not America. When a government engages in unprovoked, murderous aggression, they are to blame for everything that results."
It also said that "he dismissed images of starving children in Gaza as propaganda and emotional visual optical warfare" and quoted him as saying that "Muslims that run Hamas are not going to stop until they kill every single Jew on Earth". There was no primary source given for either, and I cannot find a source for the latter quote (or similar quotes).
Whatever you might think of the truth of Kirk's claims about Gaza, and even if we accept that the 2 non-sourced statements are true, claiming that he "cheered on" "horrific murders in Gaza" is ridiculous. But left wingers have very poor comprehension skills when it comes to defaming those they disagree with.
8) New Orleans firefighter
American AF 🇺🇸 identifies this as Ashley Creekbaum. She said:
"I think he should be forced to carry that bullet in his body. That bullet has a right to be there because it's a gift from god"
This is clearly saying that Charlie Kirk should have been shot, and that no effort should have been made to save him.
9) Teacher in Oregon
The Judgmental Baby identifies this as John Colgan, who said:
"Hearing that Charlie Kirk got shot and died really brightened up my day. Nobody deserves it, but some are asking for it.
Edit: For anyone else that wants to creep my wall and tell me how upsetting this is, Charlie was a fucking ghoul who got on tv after every school shooting and mass shooting and defended guns. He'd want us to support the gun in this case. See more in comments."
Unsurprisingly, this was not criticizing the content of his views or quoting him.
So in conclusion, the evidence points to everyone being fired over Charlie Kirk being fired not for criticising his views, but mocking him and celebrating his death.
