r/politics • u/zsreport Texas • 4h ago
No Paywall Why Erika Kirk failed as Turning Point USA’s leader: One year after Charlie Kirk's death, the organization is a joke — even on the right
https://www.salon.com/2026/09/08/why-erika-kirk-failed-as-turning-point-usas-leader/•
u/zsreport Texas 4h ago
A bit from the commentary:
At a recent TPUSA Chapter Leadership Summit, Kirk inadvertently illustrated her brand’s incoherence in her keynote. Her rhetoric about being a submissive housewife contrasted with her role as TPUSA’s CEO. After beginning her pitch for traditional gender roles by insisting that “submission is not a dirty word,” she rolled out a strange metaphor. Marriage, she said, was like a cathedral, with the husband serving as the building itself, “strong” and “hold[ing] the weight.” But “those stained glass windows are the wife.” She summed up her comparison this way: “If you remove the frame of the cathedral, those stained glass windows shatter. They’re useless.”
But does Kirk think of herself as a shattered, useless person now, a year after her husband’s killing? Judging from the rest of the speech, it’s hard to imagine she does. At points, she compared herself to a soldier in “this battle against Satan.” She offered detailed advice on how to build TPUSA chapters. She outlined the work she’s been doing to run the organization and the plans she is implementing to secure its future. She described herself as someone who has turned her “grief into purpose.”
It makes no sense: Erika Kirk really wants to lead TPUSA while also insisting that a woman’s place is in the home. This dissonance is why she is failing. She can’t offer any real leadership, and that vacuum has invited chaos.
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u/mistertickertape New York 4h ago
She can't be a submissive housewife and a leader of an organization. Even on the right it just doesn't compute. She's also completely unlikable and, at face value, bat shit insane. She's be better off as a Jan Crouch type. Big hair, 10 pounds of makeup, side piece to a grifter. Just like Charlie!
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u/SpooogeMcDuck 4h ago
Having a lot of experience with conservative Christian communities, they somehow operate just fine with glaring hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance as a way of life. What she is saying and doing shouldn’t be something that is causing the organization to fail, it’s her that’s the problem. She’s nuts and everyone knows it- that’s why it’s a joke. She’s a creepy, dead eyed weirdo that makes your lizard brain go into fight or flight mode just by her stare.
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u/TheTrueVanWilder 4h ago
She isn't even original. A cheap knock-off of Phyllis Schlafly for the modern day.
Everyone should go watch Mrs. America with Cate Blanchett if you've never seen it.
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u/Prin_StropInAh Georgia 2h ago
Seconding Mrs America. This MAGA craziness has predecessors, this film illustrates some of them
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u/TheTrueVanWilder 1h ago
When she gets on the elevator at the end after meeting Roger Stone and Paul Manafort, and you realize have the fucks in it had a direct hand in not just Reagan's campaign but the mango too? It's sickening to see how far back all this has been in motion
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u/bt31 36m ago
This is what the left does not seem to understand. The right has extremely long term plans that they have been deploying on multiple fronts for many decades. P2025 is just the predominant one. When the left gets a win, and then they think they are done. Where is the lefts P2029, because you can be certain the rights P2029 ink has already dried.
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u/thegunnersdaughter Pennsylvania 1h ago
Behind the Bastards also did a series of podcast episodes on her. Highly recommend.
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u/Lomak_is_watching 3h ago
Agreed. It’s not the hypocrisy that is making the place a joke. She’s just not good at it.
Also, I wonder if there’s an undercurrent of suspicion around her within their group.
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u/20_mile 2h ago
undercurrent of suspicion around her within their group.
Gosh, I hope no one is spreading unfounded rumors about her!
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u/tarekd19 1h ago
The rest of the grifterverse tripping over themselves competing to fill the void left by Charlie probably didn't do ericka any favors
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u/ScruffsMcGuff Foreign 1h ago
I also think that TPUSA was doomed to be viewed this way no matter what happened. Charlie Kirk was always going to end up being memed because despite being liked by some right wing nutjobs, anyone with half a brain saw the guy as a piece of shit. He went around talking about how gun deaths were a necessary part of the system, and then got shot. Even if it's morbid there's a level of ironic dark humour to it that's impossible to ignore.
She's definitely added to, and exacerbated, the memes with her weirdo behaviour but I think Charlie was always destined to be mocked with his movement being mocked alongside it anyways.
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u/JnnyRuthless 53m ago
He literally got shot while saying that black people had gun/gang problems. Shit writes itself really.
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u/sniper91 Minnesota 3h ago
I see them giving men leeway to be hypocrites that isn’t extended to women
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u/Furthest_Lands 3h ago
But if being a creepy dead-eyed weirdo was the issue, we wouldn't have even a single megapastor. Misogny is the true crux here.
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u/DosSnakes 1h ago
Those pastors are men, it’s to their benefit to be dead eyed soulless creeps. There’s a hard ceiling for creepy women, Loomer pushed the boundaries of it, but Kirk just doesn’t have that capability.
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u/FirebertNY 3h ago
That's generally true re: the hypocrisy, but "no women in leadership roles" is one of those things they just won't tolerate.
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u/bin10pac United Kingdom 3h ago edited 3h ago
They are fine with women in leadership roles, as long as the women are espousing a patriarchal message.
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u/harmala 3h ago
They (American evangelicals) are not OK with women in leadership roles.
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u/YouAndMeToo 3h ago
Blows my mind that she’s preaching “women are meant to be seen and not heard” while holding a microphone.
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u/PurpleFisty 2h ago
That's every right-wing female commentator, whether its youtube or fox news, they all say this.
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u/YouAndMeToo 2h ago
And it’s insane every time they do
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u/sump_daddy 1h ago
Its a cattle call to only encourage engagement from people with no critical thinking skills, which makes them much easier to manipulate.
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u/ShrugsforHugs 3h ago
I think it may even be simpler and grosser than that. She is annoying and not hot enough for them to put up with. If she was better at owning the libs, she would get a pass. If she was hotter, she would get a pass.
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u/senorgraves 2h ago
It's not gross. That's life -- you can be competent, likeable, funny, kind, or hot, and often just one of these things is enough to keep people on your side, regardless of beliefs or politics
She is none of those things
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u/HFentonMudd 1h ago
She also has negative charisma. She just radiates evil, and the inverse of personal warmth.
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u/TwoBionicknees 3h ago
a german state just elected a woman who is anti lgbtq, while being a lesbian, who is against lgbtq adoption, while being a lesbian woman who adopted two kids with her wife. She is anti immigration, while her wife is an immigrant, she hates people who move out of their country to stop paying taxes.... she lives in switzerland.
You can be a walking contradiction and if you hate who you hate and tell the people what they want to hear you can do just about anything because people are fucking stupid.
Her problem is she has zero fucking charisma, and not just Trump speaks like an idiot and makes no sense lack of charisma, i mean when she speaks it feels like an evil robot is trying to suck your soul into her eyes kind of lack of charisma.
Her whole i'm deep in mourning so please buy this lovely new merch I made to celebrate... i mean mourn my husbands passing, also btw I hired my ex boyfriend to help me run the company days after my husband was murdered. Pay no attention i also never dated before Charlie even though I did it on tv for everyone to see and easily pull up a video of.
She's just an idiot.
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u/KiwDaWabbit2 I voted 3h ago
I disliked Charlie Kirk, but he was the face of that organization. That’s a big problem once he’s gone. It’s very similar for Trump and MAGA. Many of them are never going to listen to JD Vance, Marco Rubio, or whomever becomes the replacement. I doubt they will even listen to his own son.
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u/behemoth_venator 3h ago
Wait who is this person??
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u/Moose2342 3h ago
Alice Weidel. Quite a shitstain really.
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u/LadyAsharaRowan 2h ago
Yikes
"Her grandfather Hans Weidel was a member of the SS[106][107][108][109] and a military judge in Nazi Germany.[110]."
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u/blaqsupaman Mississippi 1h ago
She has the same look in her eyes as Kenneth Copeland. If you told me they were both demons wearing human skin suits I'd believe it.
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u/ratpH1nk 3h ago
This wing of the conservative movement, TPUSA etc.. are all inconsistent logically. No reasonably intelligent person ever thought they were the voice for an interesting coherent philosophy. They are retconning an idealized past that never truly existed which is the calling card of conservatism. The left yearns for a future utopia, the right yearns for a mythical past.
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u/BroughtBagLunchSmart 3h ago
She can't be a submissive housewife and a leader of an organization.
Of course she can. One of the beautiful things about fascism is it never has to make any sense. If you gut public education spending for 80 years the people are dumb enough to believe right wing lies. Like these two opposite positions about Erika Kirk are fine. Just like Obama is a rabid jihadi muslim but also gay and weak. Just like how immigrants are coming here and buying up all the starter homes while also being on government welfare and getting free obama phones. They don't care they are being hypocrites because they have cultivated a base of churchgoers that are the dumbest people on the planet.
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u/BoredNLost 3h ago
I think she was hoping to be more of a Jan Couch type.
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u/Declination 4h ago
The thing to understand is that this actual builds her credibility. Part of the myth is of heroic is sacrifice for a greater purpose. She is sacrificing by not dedicating herself fully to the home life she is supposed to want for the higher purpose of populist right political victory. The fact it’s all optics doesn’t matter.
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u/Chocolate_Bourbon America 3h ago
So any woman who works and leads others outside her home should be commended? Because they are acting against their natural role, sacrificing their health to make the world a better place?
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u/MollyRolls 3h ago edited 46m ago
They have to be taciturn and reluctant and sad. Amy Coney Barrett nailed the vibe during her confirmation hearing, for example: remember that tight smile and total lack of seeming to “want” it? Erika Kirk clearly enjoys being in the spotlight and no matter how much she talks about the tragedy of being forced into it, her demeanor gives her away.
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u/Declination 3h ago
I'm not saying it makes sense, I'm describing the mechanism by which the "strong conservative woman archetype" functions in a misogynist culture. She built her credibility by embodying the traditional woman playing second fiddle to kirk so it doesn't code as incorrect when she steps outside it now.
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u/bloody_ell Europe 3h ago
Right. But the people she's trying to lead are misogynistic troglodytes. So it's not working for her.
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u/Niznack 4h ago
I feel like this assumes a media literacy and logical consistency MAGA has never given me cause to believe in. The far more likely reason is Kirk was the face of the organization they identified with who spent his time playing word games with college freshmen. She is a woman and they just don't care about her or what she says
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u/RainyRobin 4h ago
I think this is the correct take. TPUSA was always a cult of personality funded in the background by billionaires. The personality died, so of course the cult lost it's juice.
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u/ScottyC33 3h ago
There’s another cult centered around a certain orange idol that’s going to eat itself apart by vultures trying to pick over the scraps and inherit the sheep once they finally go away.
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u/mcclelc 3h ago
I agree.
Nowhere in the articles does it say that TPUSA has shrunk, gotten less donations. I was able to find a few articles saying that their tours were less popular—well, your main attraction is no longer... active... so that makes sense. But does that mean that Erika Kirk is failing? Or TPUSA is failing?
Let's see some actual numbers.
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u/darth_wasabi Texas 3h ago
Just to add she’s probably not getting much if any support from Charlie Kirks other media friends either. They are probably not telling their audiences to tune in to erika kirk
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u/TheAskewOne 4h ago
I don’t think the dissonance is why she’s failing. Dissonance has never been an issue for maga, conservatives or any kind of far-right movement. Lack of substance is why she’s failing. What does TPUSA even do?
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u/YeOldeBootheel 2h ago
If lack of substance were an issue, TPUSA wouldn’t have ever gained any traction to start with.
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u/buildbyflying American Expat 2h ago
While I get the take, the substance was in creating a sense of superiority. TP followers felt emboldened to debate (even if the cheatsheet was disingenuous, nobody cared because it felt good). Erika fails simply because she isn't Charlie and can't make them feel what he did.
It's the same for Owens -- her viewership wants to be in on the scoop that others don't get. Much like Q Anon, they want to feel superior in having some precious truth in the conspiracy.
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u/Pockydo 4h ago
She's Serena joy
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u/CreasingUnicorn 4h ago
She really is, i dont think she grasps that her own existence contradicts her belief system, and that she is basically preaching a message that ultimately would see her stripped of all her power and authority if anyone implimented her ideas.
The entire concept of the Influencer Tradwife is a self defeating idea.
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u/wrecklesspup 4h ago
She has to think her wealth will protect her from the consequences of her message or she believes men won't impose her own belief system upon herself. I wonder this too about JD giving speeches about how you need generations of family members in the US to be considered a "true" American citizen. His own children and wife would be excluded from being citizens if his world view came into effect.
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u/justprettymuchdone 3h ago
I think for JD, kids are a trophy and sign of success, not people he cares about. He's referred to them as "my wife's children" more than once.
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u/YeOldeBootheel 2h ago
That’s because he’s a self-hating closet case.
To him, his kids are trophies, because they signal that he’s done the deed with a woman and therefore isn’t one of those sinful homosexuals. He lusts for power and external validation and acceptance so badly that he would do and say anything and contort himself into denying his true nature just to (potentially) get a seat at the table and be liked by the people in the club.
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u/UnquestionabIe 2h ago
Pretty much. They're a prop meant to help him appeal to the masses and come off as "normal". Wouldn't be at all surprised if they're part of the play book Thiel has him following, especially given how his wife introduced Vance to his sugar daddy Pete.
Personally I think it was part of the whole plan to infiltrate the federal government. Having a non-white wife helps JD appeal to the Democrats if he was told to run as one and they figured she could be used as a shield if he went with the GOP as a "look we aren't racist" card only they severely underestimated how hateful and racist that base was.
Overall the point being Vance is an empty husk that does whatever sugar daddy Thiel wants provided he gets wealth/power out of the deal.
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u/cisned 3h ago
She knows exactly what she’s doing, she’s just doing it poorly. Plenty of influencers and politicians are hypocrites with their own motive for doing things
She is an influencer trying to divide the country further for her own gains, but nobody is paying attention because nobody cares about her
That’s the paradox this post is trying to point out, sometimes your own work undermines the influence you’re trying to grow, and this is the case here, plus she doesn’t have any charisma
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u/jmarinara Pennsylvania 4h ago
Serena Joy was actually intelligent and strong. She’s neither of those things.
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u/Vyar New Jersey 4h ago
Serena wasn’t smart enough to understand that the Gilead movement was a leopard getting ready to eat her face, she thought she’d be a queen while all the other women became slaves. I’d say the comparison is apt.
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u/LiveChocolate8819 New York 3h ago
Serena was originally a televangelist before the events of the book take place right? That alone gives her infinitely more charisma than Erika.
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u/Vyar New Jersey 3h ago
It’s admittedly been a while so I could be misremembering, but I think she was an author writing books about how women should be submissive and whatnot. She met her husband and thought he would be in charge of Gilead and she would rule beside him, then got a very surprised Pikachu face when it turned out her husband was more of a middle management type (still a Commander, but not in charge of other Commanders) and that women would not be permitted to read the book she wrote in the society she helped promote.
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u/wrecklesspup 4h ago
I've said this since she was named CEO. She is a multimillionaire and has no financial need to work. She also has young children who lost their father. Hypocrisy doesn't seem to matter for those on the right though.
Karoline Leavitt also resigned as press secretary to spend more time with her children, but only to announce a new job within a month. Karoline is married to a millionaire with no financial need to work.
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u/No-Flounder-9143 4h ago
I mean I think it's pretty obvious what this specific case illustrates: the reason we have equal rights for men and women (or should) is a combo of 1) women should be allowed to chart their own path (obviously) and also 2) even if a woman would like to be a submissive housewife sometimes circumstances force you to change.
The reality of life just tends to stand in direct opposition to alot of social conservative principles and always has.
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u/theBloodShed 3h ago
Even if she were an effective leader (she’s not), the sexist TPUSA audience was already trained to invalidate, reject, and ignore women. It was never going to work.
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u/erov 3h ago
She needs to follow her own advice and step away and let a man lead it. Charlie wouldn't want this. She needs to get back into the kitchen and submit to another man. Why is she unmarried? It's been as year.. she can't wander aimlessly without her building. I can't believe these people actually say shit like this and then live a different way. Who'd figure?
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u/ElysiumMidknight 3h ago
At a recent TPUSA Chapter Leadership Summit, Kirk inadvertently illustrated her brand’s incoherence in her keynote. Her rhetoric about being a submissive housewife contrasted with her role as TPUSA’s CEO. After beginning her pitch for traditional gender roles by insisting that “submission is not a dirty word,” she rolled out a strange metaphor.
This is one of those things that really shows how laughable the whole "tradwife" thing is. Why is she doing anything else other than being at home raising her children? Shouldn't it be the role of men to be running TPUSA and telling women how they're supposed to live their lives? You'll see quite frequently that these supposed tradwives live lives that don't match how they're telling other women to live. They all get good educations before they have children so that they have a good opportunity to have a solid career path, but they'll tell young women to start having children ASAP and don't worry about their education or careers.
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u/tierciel 4h ago
Lmao imagine trying to lead an organization after pitching that people like her should be submissive to men and then describing herself as a shattered useless person. I certainly would not listen to a leader who claims they are broken and should be beneath me, even if I don't agree with that world view.
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u/Available_Window_158 4h ago
Thats a bad take. The right doesn't care about the disconnection. They're comfortable looking past any level of hypocrisy if it suits their goals. She failed because shes not charismatic and couldn't rally her audience. Not that Charile was particularly charming either, but he spoke to his audience.
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u/belikethemanatee Missouri 3h ago
I’m guessing she envisions herself as a Phyllis Schlafly figure, but Phyllis was only successful because she established herself as a relentless and outspoken activist on “women’s issues.” She eventually branched out into other policy areas, but that was after she became a conservative icon. Erika is not going to find that today at TPUSA. She has not built those credentials in a way that is acceptable to the misogynist ghouls she is trying to lead.
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u/TryJezzoWhyNot 4h ago
It's hilarious that the author of this thinkpiece thought that Erika Kirk is failing beacause some elaborate metaphor doesn't ring true, instead of that she's a terrible leader trying to fill a cult leader figure vacuum.
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u/the-montser 4h ago
They don’t think she is failing because her elaborate metaphor doesn’t ring true.
The fact that the metaphor doesn’t ring true is an illustration of the cognitive dissonance that she has created that is the reason she is failing.
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u/letsburn00 3h ago
Kirk was an influencer who made a popular video genre for conservatives and everything they do other than that misses the real source of his popularity. Interview 50 kids ten years younger than him with far less experience public speaking, then put the 5 worst performers online. Everything else had to come from them already feeling like their opponents were less than them. The problem is most of the movement thinks Erica is a woman and thus is also less than them.
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u/NorthbyNinaWest 4h ago
Yeah, many women have lived that duality with quite a bit of success. Be it Phyllis Schlafly or Georgia Meloni.
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u/letsburn00 3h ago
Charlie Kirk was an Influencer who found a popular video genre and built everything off of that. He would go to colleges, have 5 minutes arguments with 50 kids and then the worst 5 performers he'd put online. That was the core of his business and the rest stemmed from that. It was to legitimize him to make him look smart. Because out of 50 kids, at least some are going to look bad vs a guy who's been doing this for a decade and who also has final cut. Everything else had to follow that. But to run that well, you need to understand that it's a grift.
I feel like articles claim is a reasonable idea, that deep down, most of the hard conservatives that liked Kirk fundamentally think women are just big children you can have sex with and the most you can trust them with is your children, they will not follow a woman. The problem is that the entire thing wasn't the message, it was short videos that gave people dopamine hits seeing "the enemy" lose arguments. Instead, they acted like the message was what was important, when really, the message is simply something you attach to those dopamine hits because it eventually leads to people voting to lower taxes on rich people.
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u/SethLight 2h ago
The problem is that the entire thing wasn't the message, it was short videos that gave people dopamine hits seeing "the enemy" lose arguments.
So damn true. To be a modern conservative you really need to believe in a lot of weird and contradictory things.
Consistency and facts only get in the way of that so they need to have their 'alternate facts.'
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u/letsburn00 2h ago
The reality is that when I talk to people who are on the further end of politics, they tend to start breaking from reality. But often that is because they fundamentally have been told something that is 100% factually untrue and then their anger often builds off of that. If the thing they had been told was true, then yeah, they behavior actually is comprehensible. There is 1% who knows it's a lie, but 99% really truly just got conned and accepting that it was a con would break their worldview too much.
For instance, they often truly really believe that Climate change models don't account for the sun, water vapour or other basic factors. This isn't them pretending, they really think that that's true. Because they have been told by 20 "different" sources that it's true.
They believe that the entire Trans movement is really guys with sissification fetishes (which btw is actually a real thing. It's just not trans people) and they are getting angry that people are putting their kinks out in front of kids. They got told that this is what trans stuff is. They really believe it. The reality, which is that Psychiatrists basically spent half a century trying absolutely every possible medication and therapy to make Trans people accept their birth gender, but after absolutely everything else was tried, they found that of all treatments, hormones and saying "Ok, we'll just treat you as that gender now." Is the best most successful treatment that medical science has developed thus far. They 100% do not know that.
The truth is, on almost every issue. They are just simple wrong about reality and people are using the arguments to make sure the rich don't pay taxes.
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u/0xym0r0n 1h ago
The crazy reinforces itself too.
If you really believe all the crazy-fear-mongering "kids using kitty litter in school rooms" drama it becomes easier for you to accept schools secretly transitioning kids without parents permission.
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u/H0bbituary 4h ago
His charisma was just gish gallop and racism.
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u/Yiazmad 4h ago
Seems to work far more often than it should
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u/harmfuldischarge 4h ago
It's actually scary how unoriginal Kirk was. I could predict all of his takes to be of certain angle, I just didn't predict how extreme he was. Genuinely a vile human being.
I just saw a guy wearing Kirk shirt at the state fair. He looked very angry.
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u/Talynz_ 2h ago
In an alternate timeline, Kirk would be alive, and even into his 80s, still debating college freshmen and only showing the clips that make him look good.
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u/DoomTay 3h ago
Honestly, I've been starting to wonder how much of that popularity was organic, as opposed to, like, bots and people reposting clips of Kirk "DESTROYING" woke liberal college students. How popular was he really outside of that?
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u/Bromodrosis 3h ago
A paid speaker whose full-time job was studying notes to argue with college kids half his age absolutely should 'destroy' them in a debate.
He was fairly popular with the right, but they'd vote for a brick with maga written on it in crayon.
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u/LiveChocolate8819 New York 3h ago
I remember thinking even 10 years ago as a college student that all of Turning Point's stuff felt unoriginal and astroturfed.
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u/The_Beardly America 3h ago
The people and videos that you saw him “debating” were very much curated to show him in the best way possible.
He was still 31 years old hanging out on college campuses and debating people 10 years younger. Like, those people are still constructing their world views at that point. That said, his debate against the Cambridge students he was very much out his element.
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u/Sensei2006 2h ago
That said, his debate against the Cambridge students he was very much out his element.
Some people did try to cut parts of that debate in a way that made Charlie look good. It was.... interesting.
They pretty much just showed that little "fire and fury" rant he went on about Israel and nothing else. And if you watch the actual debate it's pretty obvious he went on that little tangent for exactly that reason.
"I'm getting owned by these kids. Better throw in a really good 'GRRR BROWN PEOPLE' so my people have SOMETHING to make meme videos with."
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u/Thagyr Australia 2h ago
Watching that debate would be hilarious if it wasn't exactly as you said. Watching his opponent ask him a question and he just kept trying to pivot the conversation to his Right-wing talking bullshit. Was like watching two people trying to have entirely separate conversations at each other.
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u/sanfranfan 3h ago
Anecdotal but there is a guy in my welding course who goes to the break room every day and turns on Charlie youtube videos.
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u/Vilnius_Nastavnik New York 3h ago
Yeah well that’s what happens when you spend 50 years removing anything like critical thinking from public education.
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u/SomeRandomRealtor Kentucky 3h ago
He was very selective of debate opponents as well, and was well practiced on defeating young people who just had passion but no real knowledge or understanding yet. The moment you saw him encounter any practiced debater, you saw him dance around his beliefs trying to win back the moment OR pulling the “that’s nice kid, but you’re young and I’m famous so…moving on from that question”
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u/GonnaFapToThis 3h ago
Yeah, in his Cambridge appearance where he goes up against experienced debaters he finally has to back down and go "...well... I just don't like it." and concede.
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u/GoneRampant1 3h ago
Go look up when Charlie tried debating in Cambridge, he got circles run around him.
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u/SomeRandomRealtor Kentucky 2h ago
Love that one. Kirk is like a backyard brawler who would get obliterated by any trained boxer, the Cambridge debate showcased that.
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u/Omateido 3h ago
Let’s not forget sexism, which certainly contributed to Erika’s failure to capture his base.
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u/Lomak_is_watching 3h ago
Also, a lot of their funding wasn’t just from the grift. It was proactive funding from conservatives with money. It’s possible that those benefactors do not want to crown her because they see her flailing.
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u/spidereater 3h ago
The movement has more than a little bit of misogyny. She was stupid to think she could lead it.
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u/12darkmatter12 4h ago
Unhealthy, corrupt cults of personality tend to collapse after their leaders die.
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u/SMWW66 4h ago
Inshallah for MAGA
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u/Cheese0089 3h ago
I'm curious to see if he becomes a martyr or if they pretend like they'd never liked him in the first place.
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u/FancyEmployee8672 3h ago
they’ll do whatever they’re told
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u/Alarmed-Newspaper994 2h ago
Well the problem isn't their subservience to whichever (male) authority figure is around them, the problem is who is the new cult leader once Donnie Dumpo visits the toilet for the last time?
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u/vegandread 3h ago
That’s why I want him to go from health-related reasons, vs anything remotely political. Harder to martyr when it was the cheeseburgers that took him out and not Iran.
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u/OnTheProwl- 3h ago
They'll definitely turn him into a martyr. That way they will have the backing of the MAGA base and the people that pretended to be moderates can back the party wothout the stigma of backing trump.
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u/thepartypantser 4h ago edited 4h ago
In her defense (ugh) Turning Point was a joke while Charlie Kirk was alive too
Charlie was just a special kind of asshole that was good at getting attention, by being a lightning rod.
That's a skill I suppose, but the inherent hypocrisy of his "submissive" wife stepping into the same role is not lost on the supporters of that brand of right wing misogyny.
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u/letsburn00 3h ago
His skill is that he was good at arguing with kids 10 years younger than him who don't have the job of arguing basic points for 5 minutes at time. He'd then put the worst 10% online. That was his skill and he was very good at it.
Everything else was just a grift he got from that.
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u/RepresentativeAge444 3h ago
Correct. His visit to Oxford where he was obliterated by actual prepared students illustrates that nicely.
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u/Asleep_Project_5252 2h ago
I wonder how he let that one get out. He was good at only disseminating videos with the most bobble-headed opponents only.
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u/letsburn00 2h ago
It was basically challenge thing. I also suspect he started sniffing his own farts and got convinced that he was that great.
It was a grift, but very often a few years in the grifter forgets that this is a scam.
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u/narrauko Utah 2h ago
He'd then put the worst 10% online.
Yeah, most of his supporters would likely only see the times he "owned the libs" rather than any time the people engaging with him actually knew what they were talking about.
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u/letsburn00 2h ago
There actually were a bunch of people when he died who came up and said "He came to my college, my friend I think bested him. He never appeared in the video."
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u/Global_You8515 4h ago
I think "hypocrisy" is actually giving them too much credit.
It's not that they take issue with the inherent dissonance of having a woman lead an organization that champions patriarchal leadership.
It's that they honestly believe that BS.
They haven't advanced far enough to feel hypocritical; they just plain can't bring themselves to accept a woman -- any woman -- in a position of power.
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u/Pretty-Curve5448 3h ago
Charlie would support his shooters right to have a gun that led to his death. Charlie Kirk was merely killed by the America he was preaching for.
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u/padizzledonk New Jersey 4h ago
Its that and its also her support for war and israel and several other smaller things that are slipping my mind right now that she did a full 180 on from kirk
She is also less charismatic than JD Vance, whoch is an accomplishment
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u/oliversurpless Massachusetts 3h ago
Yep, his influence was so toxic, GOP turnout among the youth went down in every election year (except 2024).
Like so many a thing with reactionaries, they’re hoping you don’t remember that…
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u/Crazy-Nights 4h ago
She saw an opportunity to grab some power but completely missed the fact that she was trying to preach to people who believe she should be a pretty, little housewife. Exactly what her husband wanted.
Oh conservatives will happily let her out on stage when they want to push the their "we're the victims of left wing violence" bs. Other than that, they don't have any use for her.
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u/ohanse Ohio 4h ago
Wasn’t the shooter a hardline right winger?
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u/Crazy-Nights 4h ago
Pretty much but the right tried to make him a leftist
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u/Carochio 3h ago
It was a desperate attempt by them...remember they were calling for a "Civil War" until they found out it was one of their own.
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u/Ok_Umpire_5611 3h ago
Their "civil war" would have to happen between their meth binges. So expect the fighting to stay on the internet.
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u/Crazy-Nights 3h ago
Oh yeah. Once actual facts started coming out, they suddenly were so ready to move on from Kirk
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u/williamfbuckwheat 2h ago
He was a guy who bought into the Nick Fuentes narrative that Charlie had become an establishment hack and was controlled by Israel or something so he had to go. I had seen videos from years ago of Fuentes directly calling out Charlie for being some kind of "traitor" so this was nothing exactly new. However, groyper extremism has exploded big time as guys like Fuentes have become much more popular and helped inspire increasingly violent purists.
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u/exhaustedbut 4h ago
Even the happy housewife grift has limits. Do you really need to shell out money to attend a weekend conference to learn how to quit your job and be a SAHM? Preaching that image of family doesn't do anything for young adults who don't have anywhere near enough money to buy a home and support kids, even with 2 incomes. The lifestyle she is trying to persuade them to adopt is only financially viable to 10 percent of the population.
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u/peffer32 4h ago
I remember when the right wing said the death of Kirk was going to be a galvanizing moment that would create a movement that would be an unstoppable force in American politics.
Now all you've got is peeling "I'm Charlie Kirk" stickers on the back of shitty cars.
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u/D-MAN-FLORIDA 4h ago
Probably didn’t help that she had a “Grief Tour” with fireworks and merch, after her husband was killed.
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u/lumberjackname 4h ago
The Hype Widow schtick did not play well with the fundies.
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u/D-MAN-FLORIDA 4h ago
It’s just so weird and gruel ish to use your spouses murder as a way to make money. Like imagine if anyone else in history did that?
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u/CanadianJediCouncil 4h ago
Maybe she should’ve had more fireworks at her husband’s DeathaPalooza event, and like, a t-shirt cannon.
Also, more heavy breathing with dead “doll eyes” staring directly into the camera.
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u/SillyGoatGruff 4h ago
Why? It's cause she sucks and also her audience is a pack of misogynistic bigots
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u/potat0f4rmer Washington 4h ago
Who?
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u/Vorpalthefox Florida 4h ago
some woman that was popping off fireworks after her husband died or something, apparently maga likes her for it, sounds about right considering they've also funded a woman that called a child the N word
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u/Photeus5 4h ago
The right, who wants patriarchy at every turn rejected a female leader?
Literally everyone saw that coming
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u/borkbork234 4h ago
I still see young kids in random towns set up tables like this and try to debate people just walking by. They start with “Have you heard of Turning Point USA”. My response is some version of “You mean the civil rights hating, not based in fact BS talking point shouting, perpetual victim organization? Why don’t you kids go out and actually help people who are less fortunate. You want to pretend to be morally superior to everyone? Go out and prove it. “
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u/MonsieurReynard America 4h ago
See I would just grab my own neck like I had been shot and start screaming owwww my neck!
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u/insomniaczombiex Wisconsin 4h ago
Because she’s a woman and TPUSA is toxic male bullshit. It’s that simple.
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u/StatelyTree 4h ago
Over on r/poisonai they tell the real truth about her. She gave JD Vance rabies and then he gave it to a love seat.
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u/teamdiabetes11 America 4h ago
Sectional harassment is not a laughing matter.
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u/StatelyTree 4h ago
I just feel bad for their little baby sectionals that will never grow up to know their father because he died of Kirk-Rabies.
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u/blues111 Michigan 4h ago edited 3h ago
I think it also didn't help that Charlie Kirk had the "secret sauce" so to speak in regards to TPUSA there was a reason he was well known people on both sides knew Charlie kirk and he grew the org in his own way young conservatives appeared to resonate with... his wife obviously didnt have the same charisma
Also picking a woman leader for an organization of members who think women should only be homemakers who pop out babies probably didnt help either
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u/rkcth 4h ago
I had no idea who he was before his death, and neither did many people I knew. We may have heard his name before, but really knew nothing about him. I had heard bad things about stuff he had said, but never cared to look into them or judge for myself, because he just didn’t matter to me at all.
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u/BallisticHabit 3h ago
Back when all this went down, I thought the same thing.
No way will that cult follow a woman, especially not one they secretly want to bone. She would have been a lot smarter to ham up the grieving widow angle and chosen a figurehead who could carry on Kirks warped message.
I'm not mad the organization is falling to pieces.
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u/RhapsodyofMagic 3h ago
His audience celebrated a guy who said that women should submit to their husbands and promoted a conservative lifestyle where women stayed at home and raised the kids and we're supposed to be surprised when said audience rejects a woman as leader?
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u/we_are_sex_bobomb 3h ago
The message that a woman is nothing without her husband, coming from a woman who was an absolute nobody until her famous husband died, is not landing with anybody.
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u/Brozhov 4h ago
She wants to be the new Phyllis Schlafly, but she doesn't have the juice.
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u/Virtual-Head-2613 4h ago
Candice Owens thinks Erika killed Charlie.
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u/La-Boheme-1896 4h ago
And Candace Owens is more entertaining than Erika Kirk, so she gets more exposure.
She's batshit crazy, of course, but she does seem to have genuinely cared for Charlie Kirk, and she's getting the attention while Erika isn't.
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u/padizzledonk New Jersey 4h ago
Kind of hard to lead an organization that thinks women are objects meant for babies and housework as a woman isnt it lol
Its also very difficult to do a 180 on support for Israel and another foreign war for Israel from her husbands views
Good luck kid lol
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u/ArizonaRon98 Washington 3h ago
I don’t know if I ever truly wrapped my head around how bizarre that whole situation was. They really paraded her around and used Charlie’s death for profit just like he manipulated tragedies during his life.
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u/JobSeeker4034 3h ago
We are Charlie Kirk
We carry the lame
We will be forgotten
We will die in vain
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u/bayleysgal1996 Texas 54m ago
Gonna be frank, the kind of people who like TPUSA are not the kind of people who would accept having a woman as a leader
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u/Valcarde 4h ago
Did she honestly think the organization that thought women are good for nothing but being homemakers and popping out babies would accept her as a leader?
That's simultaneously hilarious, stupid, and sad.
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u/ElysiumSprouts 4h ago
Cult of personality. It seems like three majority of conservatism comes down to cults and "charismatic" leaders. Pull back the curtain and there's no there there. Without the chief cultist, the cult falls apart.
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u/ChanimalCrackers 3h ago
Druski’s skit where he never named anyone but people inferred who he was referencing had to have played a part
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u/metalunamutant 2h ago
Fascists have one critical flaw which eventually leads to failure - they are ALL held together by a leader - charismatic or military or cultural or religious etc. That person holds it together and becomes both the focus and the enforcer. It's literally the central tenet of fascism. When that leader is gone, their movement withers. It's the only ray of hope these days with the army of authoritarian ghouls out there.
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u/Toadfinger 4h ago
It was always a joke. A traitorous joke. As if they worked on a Russian troll farm.
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u/jmarinara Pennsylvania 4h ago
I’m going to take a guess before I read the article: It’s because it was a cult of personality built around Charlie Kirk.
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u/fairwinds2025 4h ago
So, the widow, Mrs Potato Head is talking out of both sides of her big mouth? I’m shocked
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u/mangoserpent 4h ago
TPU is no longer relevant because other influencers can be bought for cheaper.
There is an endless supply of MAGA women pushing the trad wife meme. They all look and sound the same and Charlie Kirk specifically appealed to men.
The best Erika Kirk can to is attach herself to another MAGA man.
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u/trunksshinohara 3h ago
She is a woman and maga will never accept a woman in any leadership position that is not subordinate to a man.
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u/onesneakymofo 2h ago
If this is true, it basically confirms what a lot of us believe - once Trump goes, MAGA goes; now that doesn't mean that the people that voted for him will change, it just means the cult collective will split up and find their next deplorable leaders.
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u/huistenbosch 2h ago
She’s a conservative woman. By any measure that defines her as a failure as a human being.
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u/Inevitable_Mix9744 2h ago
It failed because they are a bunch of grifting hypocrites that would gladly eat each other alive just to be treated as better than anyone else and see everyone else as less than or dehumanize them.
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