Charlie Kirk’s RNC Speech: An Ironic Betrayal of Western Values
Why Kirk’s Demand for Selective History — an Educational Safe Space — Poses a Greater Threat to Western Civilization than Liberal Educators
As I watched the Republican National Convention tonight, several speakers fretted over the supposed threat liberal educators pose Western civilization. If taught positive and negative aspects of American history, they implied, American children will grow to “hate” America. Conservative commentator and anti-safe-space activist Charlie Kirk went so far as to imply that American life is being dismantled by a cabal of “bitter, deceitful, vengeful activists who have never built anything in their lives.”
Ironically, the anti-safe-space crusader Charlie Kirk’s phobia of an accurate historical record is essentially a demand for a safe space. Like all safe spaces, the right-wing safe space Kirk and his brethren demand will be one that inevitably misses a large part of the truth. No country is perfect. And it is simply undeniable that America—though remarkable for starting as a constitutional republic in an era marked by theocratic monarchs — was far less perfect at its Founding than it is today.
Since 1776, Americans have engaged in a collective project to bring our imperfect reality ever closer to the noble ideal that Thomas Jefferson enshrined in five beautiful words: “All men are created equal.” Those five words are one reason why I — a liberal — love this country.
Unfortunately, throughout our history, there have been many who have wanted to drag our reality not towards but away from the ideal enshrined in those five words. These people are usually quite sensitive, fearful men. Like Trump, they lack a capacity for self-criticism and misunderstand a fundamental truth: That what makes America great is nothing so banal as blood, but instead a commitment to the Enlightenment values of 1776 and 1787 — to the imperfectly realized ideals enshrined in the First Amendment (guaranteeing freedom for the thought and speech that both Charlie Kirk and a radical communist hate) and furthered with the post-Civil War succession of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, Fifteenth, and Nineteenth amendments.
Kirk strikes me as a nationalist, and therefore a tribalist, so it is understandable why he wants to stem criticism of whatever he views as his “in-group.” Whatever the case, American tribalism is as old as American pie (albeit less tasty).
The Know-Nothing Party feared Catholics, the Irish, and Italians. Trump and contemporary Republicans— increasingly fearful and, therefore, increasingly nationalist — seem possessed by the same specter that drove the Know-Nothings.
Abraham Lincoln’s warning about the Know-Nothings thus remains unfortunately (and increasingly) applicable to the GOP:
“As a nation, we began by declaring that ‘all men are created equal.’ We now practically read it ‘all men are created equal, except negroes.’ When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
Although conservatives like Kirk accuse Democrats of anti-Americanism, rising right-wing racism suggests otherwise. Our founding principle and guiding light— “all men are created equal” — is fundamentally opposed to Trumpism.
I do not blame tribalists for their authoritarianism. I understand, too well, that tribalism is part of human nature, as are scapegoating and dehumanization and many other negative human traits that have manifested everywhere from Lebanon (1975–1990) to Germany (1937–1945) to Rwanda (1994) to our very own America (1861–1865).
Yet each of these tribalistic explosions taught that principles are a far better societal glue than “blood and soil.” A holistic teaching of history — one that teaches both the good and the bad — is therefore absolutely necessary to ensure that we do not make the same mistakes as our ancestors.
When Kirk and his brethren paint liberalism (including freedom of thought) as threatening to “Western civilization,” they are — ironically — criticizing a political philosophy that has not only Western but even Anglo-Saxon (e.g., Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government) roots. Their demand for a conservative safe space is a threat to everything the West inherited from the Enlightenment and beyond.
In truth, the chief threat to Western civilization is not liberalism, freedom of thought, or respect for the individual; it is historical chauvinism, blinding nationalism, and tribalism.
As we vote this November, we must remember five sacred words: “All men are created equal.” Many want us to forget those words.
Don’t.
Michael Elias Shammas is a lawyer and scholar currently based at the New York University School of Law. He has written about free speech before while editing the Harvard Law Record, the oldest law school student newspaper in the country, in order to defend the freedom of thought of on- campus conservatives. Feel free to follow him on Twitter.
