Debunking Charlie Kirk on The Final Phase
The FBI search at Mar-a-Lago concerning classified documents in August 2022 has ignited an apocalyptic response from Trump sycophants. The use of the term apocalyptic is not used lightly.
Charlie Kirk, founder and president of Turning Point USA, has been at the forefront of that response. He suggested the raid was a line that couldn’t be uncrossed.
In his response Kirk revealed a dangerous link to former Trump aide and political chaos agent, Steven Bannon. Kirk uses a concept from Bannon’s favorite political theory to activate both sets of audiences.
That concept is the “final phase.”
Kirk’s use isn’t as confrontational as Bannon’s. But Kirk nods to Bannon by using the phrase at all, thus giving credence to other more violent parts of the alt-right. The space between the two also may be inconsequential. Kirk has been a recent guest on Bannon’s popular show “War Room.”
Kirk used this phrase “the final phase” to center an August 2022 Human Events post in response to the raid. He also spent some time on the concept in a June 2022 podcast episode.
The phrase comes from The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy — What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America’s Next Rendezvous with Destiny. It was published in 1997.
Its thesis: “Modern history moves in cycles, each one lasting about the length of a long human life, each composed of four eras — or “turnings” — that last about twenty years and that always arrive in the same order. In The Fourth Turning, the authors illustrate these cycles using a brilliant analysis of the post-World War II period.”
There have been several national profiles of Bannon that link him to this book. A 2017 Politico piece argued its headline: “The Crackpot Theories of Stephen Bannon’s Favorite Authors.” A 2017 New York Times article noted: “Few books have been as central to the worldview of Mr. Bannon, a voracious reader who tends to see politics and policy in terms of their place in the broader arc of history.”
The impact of Bannon’s thinking cannot be understated. A historian interviewed by Bannon for his 2010 documentary on the book wrote in Time: “In my opinion, Trump, Bannon, Gingrich, Ryan and the rest will use their opportunity during the next year or two to undo as much of the Democratic legacy as they can — not only the Obama legacy, but that of FDR and LBJ as well.”
The book posits a fourth turn, a “crisis” “when society passes through a great and perilous gate in history. Together, the four turnings comprise history’s seasonal rhythm of growth, maturation, entropy, and rebirth.”
This is where Bannon became interested. He is a proponent of “unmaking the West” as Politico called his mission in 2017. More recently The Washington Post noted Bannon’s link to the insurrection: “What is clear about Bannon and specifically about his Jan. 5 podcast is that he was very engaged in amplifying the idea that the country had reached a critical point in which regular Americans could turn the tide.” Kirk made the same case in his podcast episode.
One of the authors of The Fourth Turning notes in a 2017 Washington Post op-ed: “If history does not produce such an urgent threat, Fourth Turning leaders will invariably find one — and may even fabricate one — to mobilize collective action.” He adds: “America entered a new Fourth Turning in 2008. It is likely to last until around 2030. Our paradigm suggests that current trends will deepen as we move toward the halfway point.”
The phrase “final phase” appears in the book once: “The final phase brings to mind the Stoics’ ekpyrosis, the purifying and transmuting fire that ends one circle and starts the next” (38).
That leads us to Kirk’s use of “final phase.” He begins his Human Events piece with imagery of fire: “The entire world seems to be on fire.” He mentions the raid and other events. Then sums all that up in the claim: “I feel that the current darkness we’re seeing has a purpose. For we are entering the final phase before victory–victory over the forces of leftism and totalitarian control, “The Fourth Turning” if you will.” And he links to the book in that reference.
Kirk revises the Bannon application of Trump as instigator of the Fourth Turning aka the crisis. Kirk suggests the turn or crisis has come due to the need of Democrats for authoritarianism. Then he expounds on that:
That’s why they send the FBI and the entire deep state to surveil and arrest us. That’s why they used COVID to shut down America. That’s why they censor us on big tech platforms. That’s why they want to take our guns. That’s why they want to criminalize speech. And that’s why they raided Donald Trump’s personal home. It’s all because their insanity has been exposed. Now, they can only win by coercion and force. This is the final stage. Now that they realize they’ve lost the people, they mandate the people.
Kirk’s version of Trump played a role but he as he is for Bannon: the powerful “face” of the revolution. Yes, for Kirk Trump is the “face” of “a real right-wing opposition” [contrary to other GOP leaders before him]. But his campaign and administration merely forced “leftists from their hiding places. Trump in many ways shined a spotlight on the left, and by engaging in his own bombastic rhetoric, pushed the left into revealing the truth of their intentions.”
Kirk and Bannon frame their call for revolution as a response to the (mythical) autocratic, anti-democratic Left. Kirk has been hesitant to agree with those on the right asking for more violent ends. But in so framing the Left, Kirk uses violent imagery.
To create that mythical Left, Kirk performs what for him is common: a rhetorical reversal. This is when someone takes the label put on them by the opposition and places it back on the opposition.
In short, Kirk paints the Left as reality-based people would paint Trump after losing the election: “Make no mistake–things will get worse before they get better. But they’re only doing this because it’s their last-ditch attempt to hold on to power. They can only win through coercion.”
To justify this mythical frame, Kirk revises history, and in fact lies about recent US political history.
Kirk posits in his podcast episode a wholesale takeover of the US by the Left from the 70s to now.
Conservatives “did nothing” to stop this, Kirk falsely claims.
For these decades, the Left “captured” all decision-making areas, a nod to the Seven Mountains theology. But conservatives “brushed it off.” Kirk even suggests conservatives largely ignored advice from Rush Limbaugh.
These are false claims for many reasons. For one, the GOP controlled the White House from 1981–1993. And Reagan was the center of a national conservative movement that reshaped America. Then the GOP in 1992 won the House for the first time for the first time in decades. And well, Rush, at his death, was praised as the center of it all. One should note that Kirk is doing a 180-degree turn on his love for Reagan, too.
The next myth from Kirk is when he argues the beginning of a “realization” of conservatives to this dominating threat came in 2008 when Obama was elected.
How the Left was able to control the nation is also important for Kirk. The Left was controlled conservatives with name-calling, labeling people as racists, for example. The “cultural land mines” were too scary for conservatives, Kirk claims.
Then something changed. Trump taught conservatives how to fight back. And to Kirk, this fight nature is more “amplified” now that Trump has “left the public scene.” A “spell was broken.”
The “when” as an exact date is unknowable. But it happened. And now “the final phase” has begun. A different tone has been created, a move away from “the experiment” of trying to persuade or get along with the Left.
Kirk mentions a 10-year anniversary meeting of Turning Point USA donors in 2022 where one donor wondered “who cares?” about media and leftist labels. Kirk said he took that to heart.
Kirk then offers this definition of the final phase: “The final phase is not us doing this. No, no. The final phase is now realizing the Left has only one thing left.”
Kirk’s reference to “this” is unclear. But the context makes clear “this” refers to entering into the final phase aka the crisis. Bannon wants conservatives to “do this” directly — to sow chaos, to disrupt democracy, to remake the West — while Kirk is not as direct. He says the “final phase” is both a crisis and an awakening, a response to the Left by the Right empowered to enact a better movement, separate from that on the Left. Kirk frames the two sides as having non-competing national media, social media, education, etc. A cold civil war, Kirk has said in the past.
But Kirk doesn’t draw the line on whether this “war” is merely political or physical. In fact, he says what the Left has remaining to them is “pure force,” both civil and criminal power. He mentions rigged criminal trials and election “shenanigans” coming, for example. Then Kirk compares the Left to a bully who starts out as a verbal abuser but moves to physical violence. And as he continues to talk about the “fight” that Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson, and Trump gave the conservatives, he says the Left will “launch missiles.” He said the “soft power” of Democrats is gone.
Then Kirk promises “if we get through this” aka the crisis aka the “final phase” victory will be in sight. He calls it a “Constitutional reset, a conservative renaissance.”
How that comes about is unclear and the line between violence and persuasion is made vague on purpose. I don’t know if Kirk has read Bannon’s favorite book. I admit I have not. I don’t need to in order to see how Kirk is using it. By nodding to its most destructive “turn” Kirk can stay encamped with Bannon’s followers and also not alienate those who won’t turn to civil war. Yet Kirk’s rhetoric gives the former group all the motivation it needs.
Finally, why Kirk chooses this historical myth and mythical present is important.
Those of us in reality note the thing “left” for Trump after losing was insurrection. But the coup failed. And to use Kirk’s words, he left “the public scene.”
Kirk though has to create a reason to continue, to find a way forward without Trump. At least for a while. So he uses Trump’s worst label for Democrats. He calls Democrats erratic, cornered, desperate.
Yet this rhetorical move shows his hypocrisy. Kirk cares so much about the labels that reality has put on Trump and conservatives that Kirk must find a way to reverse them.
