‘Woke Right’ Gains Ground in US After Kirk Controversy
The fervent demands for retribution have escalated in the days following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, as notable conservatives launch a campaign aimed at promoting public shaming, dismissals, and the potential for prosecution against those who express negative sentiments about him. However, several prominent backers of Mr. Kirk are now cautioning that assaults from the right on political expression could mar the legacy of the contentious right-wing activist, who was regarded as a defender of free speech by his many supporters.
Tucker Carlson, stated to his audience this week that Mr. Kirk would never have wished for his death to serve as a justification for limiting free speech. “You hope that a year from now the turmoil we’re seeing in the aftermath of his murder won’t be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country,” said Mr. Carlson. His words of caution were the latest indication that a small but growing group of media and political figures on the right have expressed concern over recent calls to punish and prosecute those who malign Mr. Kirk. Concerns have surfaced in influential media within the conservative movement, particularly following the widespread approval among conservatives regarding ABC’s decision late Wednesday to indefinitely suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show. That came just hours after the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, suggested that the agency might take action against ABC because Mr. Kimmel had implied that the man accused of killing Mr. Kirk was a right-wing Trump supporter. Officials in Utah have stated that the man held a leftist ideology.
Ben Shapiro, host of one of the nation’s top-rated podcasts, expressed to his audience that although he is not an admirer of Mr. Kimmel, he opposes the notion of the F.C.C. intimidating broadcasters regarding content that the agency considers false. “Why? Because one day the shoe will be on the other foot,” Mr. Shapiro said on Thursday. If the situation were reversed, and the F.C.C. under a Democratic president targeted a host like Mr. Carlson or Sean Hannity, Mr. Shapiro posed the question, “Would the right be OK with that or would they be claiming, quite properly, that is massive regulatory overreach, unprecedented in scope?” Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, on Friday likened Mr. Carr’s remarks to a mob shakedown. “That’s right out of a mafioso coming into a bar going, ‘Nice bar you have here. It’d be a shame if something happened to it,” the senator said. Even among the conservatives who have expressed concerns, there are boundaries to their willingness to engage in self-criticism, given the profound impact Mr. Kirk’s assassination has had on many of them. Many perceive minimal value in assigning blame to anyone other than liberals who are derogatory and disrespectful regarding Mr. Kirk’s death. Few have come to the defense of Mr. Kimmel, who has long made President Trump and his supporters the target of his humor.
The conservative opposition played a crucial role in preventing further efforts from the right this week aimed at penalizing individuals for their expressions. A congressional measure aimed at censuring Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota, for remarks regarding Mr. Kirk that Republicans deemed “reprehensible” did not pass, as four Republicans opposed it, expressing worries about free speech. Following criticism from prominent conservative figures such as Matt Walsh and Erick Erickson, Attorney General Pam Bondi retracted statements she had made in an interview where she pledged to “absolutely target” protesters involved in “hate speech.” The rapid and intense response from influential supporters of Mr. Kirk to criticisms of his legacy has elicited pointed criticism from various political factions. Critics of the conservative movement assert that the Trump administration and its media allies are taking advantage of Mr. Kirk’s death to pursue a campaign of repression. They have started making an unfavorable comparison to other recent attempts to regulate political discourse, highlighting that the right’s reaction aligns with a recognizable pattern. The right, they claim, has become “woke.”
Jonathan Rauch, known for its liberal perspective, has remarked that the progressive left has undermined its own causes through unreasonable purity tests in recent years. He has also noted the emergence of a “woke right.” He stated that the conservative campaign aimed at punishing individuals who have expressed negative views about Mr. Kirk — whether by celebrating his death or highlighting his remarks that insulted Black, gay, and Muslim individuals — mirrors previous attempts to suppress right-wing discourse on college campuses. “What they’ve learned from the left,” Mr. Rauch said, “is that if you can control what people say, if you can make them afraid of being canceled, you can make the minority view look like the majority view.” Mr. Rauch stated that he perceives the crackdown from the right as a calculated effort to manipulate the facts surrounding events such as the circumstances leading to Mr. Kimmel’s cancellation, enabling them to control the public narrative. “They also have this deeper view that ultimately the truth is whatever story wins,” he said, adding, “And that allows them to be singularly ruthless.” However, numerous conservatives reject the notion that a “woke right” is developing within their ranks. They react strongly to the notion that they are acting like the left-wing activists they have derided as “snowflakes.”
“I don’t think cancel culture applies here,” said Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Texas Republican who wrote a book in which he described a “prevailing safety culture” that is coddling and irrational. He stated that he found nothing unreasonable regarding the overall defense of Mr. Kirk from the right. In defense of a husband who abandoned his two children and wife, Mr. Crenshaw remarked, “That’s a little bit different than ‘canceling’ someone for glorifying the assassination of a family man.” The phrase “woke right” had been making the rounds in online political discussions for several months prior to Mr. Kirk’s assassination. It implies — in terms that many conservatives find distasteful — a legal and rhetorical framework that reflects the relentless strategies that critics argue the left employed to bring academic theories about social justice into the mainstream. James A. Lindsay, a writer who spoke at several events for Mr. Kirk’s organization Turning Point USA and gained popularity in right-wing circles for criticizing wokeness, began using the term “woke right” several years ago as he observed some conservatives becoming more inflexible in their beliefs. He has characterized it as an initiative by certain activists on the right to employ “moral shaming, purity tests and social media pile-ons to enforce loyalty.”
Mr. Lindsay expressed his belief that the right is on a self-destructive trajectory if it persists in demanding a pound of flesh for perceived slights against Mr. Kirk, whom he regards as a friend. “I understand that this thing we call the culture war is very important to settle, and that there is a side that needs to win this,” he said. “But on the other hand,” he added, “how you win matters.” Rod Dreher, a conservative writer who has engaged with the “woke right” critique, expressed his concerns in The Free Press prior to the Kirk assassination. He articulated his unease regarding what he perceived as the totalitarian tendencies of a repressive right, mirroring his apprehensions about a repressive left. Mr. Dreher, who has predominantly commended the conservative response to Mr. Kirk’s assassination, remarked this week that the danger of overreach is indeed significant. “Mostly I love this,” Mr. Dreher expressed on Substack. “But I recall feeling precisely this way after 9/11, and that unchecked anger drove me to support misguided, foolish actions.” Stephen K. Bannon, the former White House strategist who advised Mr. Trump and hosts a pro-Trump podcast, acknowledged that some of the aggressive tactics employed by the right mirror those that he and other conservatives criticized the left for using. He stated that the tactics remained justified. “This is an inflection point,” Mr. Bannon stated. “And we aim to win, not unite.”
