Why Erika Kirk failed as Turning Point USA’s leader

https://www.salon.com/2026/09/08/why-erika-kirk-failed-as-turning-point-usas-leader/

One year after Charlie Kirk's death, the organization is a joke — even on the right

When Charlie Kirk was alive, his wife Erika had a retrograde role that was easy to understand. She didn’t use the word, but she was a tradwife.

Her position at Turning Point USA, the organization her husband co-founded in 2012 to promote conservative politics on high school, college and university campuses across the country, was essentially to dote on him as her leader.

After they married in 2021, she became the evidence that Charlie Kirk was living up to his own beliefs about male leadership — and female submission — at home during the crucial period that he was rebranding himself as an evangelical leader from the secular libertarian he had been.

113 points · 32 comments · view on lemmy.world

32 Comments

aramis87@fedia.io · 165 pts · 23h (5 replies)

Because she's a woman in an inherently misogynistic movement?

CubitOom@infosec.pub · 75 pts · 22h (3 replies)

I was gunna say it was a lack of funeral pyrotechnics, but misogynists on the far right makes sense too.

TomMasz@lemmy.world · 42 pts · 22h (1 reply)

Every MAGA woman discovers this at some point. And they always act surprised.

meco03211@lemmy.world · 24 pts · 21h

But they never thought the leopards would eat their face!

a_non_monotonic_function@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 19h

CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 19h

Actually my first thought.

HazardousBanjo@lemmy.world · 67 pts · 23h (1 reply)

She immediately went on a colossal spending spree to celebrate her new found riches, effectively dancing on his grave.

But hey, could you blame her? Imagine having to be the honeypot wife of Charlie Kirk and bearing his children, let alone ever having sex with him 🤮. You'd be over the moon too when his neck exploded.

CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 19h

She alone knows what his little face looks like during his vinegar strokes.

subverted_per@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 54 pts · 22h (3 replies)

This article is disingenuous to say the least. Kirk's death was met with bipartisan celebration, not horror. The left of course because he was a fascist who died in the most ironical manner possible. On the right cause they now had a martyr. The only people horrified were those who bought into his performance of debate.

Bahnd@lemmy.world · 20 pts · 21h (2 replies)

Plus he was fresh in a lot of peoples minds as South Park aired an episode targeted at him and Cartman doing his "master debater" shtick less than a month before it happened.

CADmonkey@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 19h (1 reply)

I've not seen this, it just occoured to me that South Park has probably been trolling all of these people the last two years.

Amuro_eat@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 18h

Mercilessly, at that

riskable@programming.dev · 29 pts · 23h (3 replies)

I'm not sure the media should be encouraging people to give her a shot. Especially after she stuck her neck out for an inherently misogynistic organization.

DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 25 pts · 22h (2 replies)

I don't mind her sticking her neck out.

Triumph@fedia.io · 14 pts · 21h

In that case, let's give her a shot.

RumRunningDevil@lemmy.zip · 4 pts · 22h

Ehhh,

Eehhhhh

I see what you did there.

givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 23h (13 replies)

He died a year ago this week, shot to death while speaking at Utah Valley University.

There's been zero investigation...

And stuff like immediately repaving the concrete before law enforcement looked at it as a crime scene, is weird enough we shouldn't just assume he was shot.

Like, they could have treated it as a normal investigation and people would be able to trust it. But after the shit they immediately pulled, there's always going to be a shred of doubt that his microphone had a bomb or something else.

Dude was breaking from Trump on Israel, obviously America's and Israel's current governments arent above assassinating a streamer.

DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 22h

Shut up.

It can't have been a year already!

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 11 pts · 19h

we shouldn’t just assume he was shot

Conspiracy types don't even believe live video.

nightwatch_admin@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 22h (5 replies)

While you take a few next steps, I agree that Kirk was either a direct competitor, or possibly the one taking over after The Don would snuff it, with his manners, intellect and charisma - either way, he was prone to having a few enemies with a complete lack of morals. I think it’s definitely possible someone from his own team did the job.

givesomefucks@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 21h (3 replies)

I mean, the supposed shooter was legitimately further to the right of Kirk...

I'm just pointing out that a lot of inexplicable shit happened immediately after he died.

Is it most likely he was shot by a rifle? Absolutely.

But we don't actually know that's what happened.

MrVilliam@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 20h (1 reply)

It's possible that his neck just did that. There's just no way of knowing. Maybe the thing he said immediately prior was just so stupid and absurdly racist that, just
POP
Y' know?

SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.ca · 8 pts · 19h

oh yes, he had a neck aneurism. That happens.

TranscendentalEmpire@lemmy.today · 7 pts · 20h

Is it most likely he was shot by a rifle? Absolutely.

Nah, I think his neck just did that. Sometimes it happens, just look at JFK. One day you're being driven in a sweet convertible by your boys, the next second your head just decides to become a different shape.

AA5B@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 18h

The MAGAt party has plenty of evil people, but very few with the personality to take over as cult leader

KrasMazov@feddit.dk · -5 pts · 23h (4 replies)
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unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth · 25 pts · 23h (3 replies)

I saw the video. No, that wasn't an explosion. No smoke, no nothing. There's no credible evidence to support that. Let's not spread baseless conspiracy theories, please.

TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 22h (2 replies)

The person they replied to is also spreading a conspiracy theory, despite the hedging.

unknownuserunknownlocation@kbin.earth · 9 pts · 22h (1 reply)

Yeah, I was referring to both posters, I guess I didn't make it particularly obvious.

TrickDacy@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 22h

Gotcha. I have seen this type of thing a lot here. And more than a couple users can become very defensive if you doubt their version of events. I wish we could have nice things.

DarrinBrunner@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 22h (1 reply)

I'm guessing she proved incompetent.

Maybe she should start a cooking podcast now. She chose the role of tradwife, so she should lean into it.

meco03211@lemmy.world · 18 pts · 21h

I'm guessing she proved incompetent.

Since when has that been a barrier to success for right wing grifters?

AA5B@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 18h

Why won’t that organization go away, at least out of the news.

….. my youngest just discovered there is a tpusa chapter at his university and at least one member 😠

nightwatch_admin@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 22h
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