On Performative grievance (Analyzing Charlie Kirk)
By Don Kenobi
#MolueMonologue | #OldManInTheMolue | #dk | #TheIndustryOfAbsurdity
Poor Charlie Kirk.
No philosopher. No Socrates.
A loud man hired not to enlighten — but to inflame.
To trade thought for thunder,
and division for dollars.
He didn’t debate — he performed.
He didn’t think — he echoed.
He was a salesman for outrage.
And outrage, these days, pays very well.
They say he was turning toward Catholicism.
That he’d begun to see through the noise,
to feel the pull of the Holy Mother,
and maybe even the sweetness of her Son.
If so, perhaps he was trying to turn back.
To walk away from those who made him a mascot of division.
We’ll never know.
May his soul rest in peace.
Still — what needs to be said, must be said.
The Age of Performative Outrage
Everything now is performance.
Performative anger.
Performative faith.
Performative grievance.
We’ve built an industry that sells indignation by the ounce.
And Kirk was one of its top salesmen.
Remember “Obamacare will pull the plug on Grandma”?
Remember Birtherism?
None of that was ever about truth — only attention.
And that’s the real danger — not intelligence abused,
but ignorance weaponized.
The False Dilemma
Kirk’s favorite slogan was:
“We are a republic, not a democracy.”
It sounds profound — until you think for two seconds.
It’s a false dilemma.
Who ever said America isn’t a republic?
Who ever said it’s only a democracy?
No one.
A republic defines the structure.
A democracy defines the method.
Both exist side by side — like heart and blood.
To pit one against the other is nonsense wrapped in gravitas —
a soundbite pretending to be revelation.
But that’s the point.
In the Age of the Microphone,
you don’t have to make sense.
You just have to sound certain.
The Industry of Absurdity
Kirk didn’t create this — he inherited it.
It began with Sarah Palin —
the moment ignorance went viral.
She discovered that if you say something confidently enough,
no matter how absurd,
someone will cheer.
And when the cheering started paying bills,
a new industry was born.
Now, noise replaces logic.
Outrage replaces wisdom.
They don’t argue to persuade — they argue to perform.
Truth is irrelevant; traction is everything.
Clicks. Likes. Rage. Retweets.
Welcome to the new economy — where chaos pays better than calm.
The Mercenary Creed
Charlie Kirk mastered that economy.
He learned to turn confusion into cash,
and misinformation into power.
He doesn’t teach — he agitates.
He doesn’t lead — he provokes.
His job isn’t to inform but to inflame.
Because in his world, truth doesn’t trend —
but anger always does.
And so, every day, he sells a little more outrage.
Like a hacker flooding the internet with spam,
he overwhelms minds with falsehoods —
half-truths, full lies, and cheap applause lines.
The Week of Nonsense
Monday:
“If I see a Black pilot, I’ll think — I hope he’s qualified.”
You? One of three million passengers that day? Sit down.
Tuesday:
“Some gun deaths are worth it to preserve liberty.”
Liberty for whom — the dead?
Wednesday:
“Successful Black women don’t have the brain processing power.”
Ah yes — spoken by a man who couldn’t process his way into West Point.
And this — “white person’s slot”?
Imagine a Black musician yelling that Kenny G stole his slot.
Ridiculous. Envious.
Because no one’s stopping Kenny G —
he made his money and went home happy.
That’s how life should be.
We create systems for all to thrive.
Be grateful. Be brave. Compete honestly.
Thursday:
“MLK was awful.”
Really, Charlie? The man who preached non-violence and justice?
You wouldn’t last five minutes in his moral universe.
Friday:
“I hate the word empathy. It’s a made-up term that does damage.”
How can you claim Christ and hate empathy —
the heartbeat of the Gospel itself?
A Tragic Comedy
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
We now raise a generation that believes:
thinking is optional, yelling is power.
Rage brings followers.
Certainty, even when false, brings fame.
Truth? It’s negotiable.
And when truth becomes negotiable,
civilization begins to crumble.
Empires don’t always fall by invasion.
Sometimes they die by microphone.
By men like Kirk —
merchants of confusion selling tickets to the bonfire.
Christ’s Mission Statement
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me,
because He has anointed Me
to proclaim good news to the poor,
liberty to captives,
sight to the blind,
freedom for the oppressed,
and the year of the Lord’s favor.”
(Luke 4:18–19)
That’s Jesus’s mission statement — and it’s supposed to be ours too.
You don’t get to rewrite it when you decide to follow Him.
Even faith itself isn’t a personal achievement;
it’s grace — pure and undeserved.
As Paul said:
“The message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing.” (1 Cor 1:18)
So let’s stop worshiping noise.
Let’s heal the world instead.
Let’s proclaim liberty to the captives —
physical, mental, and spiritual.
Let’s give sight to the blind — especially the willfully blind.
Let’s set the oppressed free —
especially those who’ve been shackled for centuries.
And let’s live the “year of the Lord’s favor”
not in slogans,
but in deeds — in goodness, mercy, and truth.
Final Word
Say a prayer for Charlie Kirk.
He seemed to be turning — slowly, quietly — toward something true.
Perhaps toward repentance.
Perhaps toward peace.
We’ll never know.
He was robbed of time — and maybe of redemption.
Still, may his soul rest in peace.
— Don Kenobi
