Who killed Charlie Kirk? - by Derek Beres - re:frame

I don’t know who watches this crap though. I’ve been on Reddit forums that are devoted to these people. I want to talk to the people who watch it, and it’s specifically not just Candace’s shows because Candace is watchable. She’s funny. But these other folks are just not. Why are you watching four hours of Baron Coleman’s streams?

Then Baron leaves his job as a lawyer because he can now make enough money doing this. Then you show him getting donations and replying to people as they’re donating to him. That’s exactly the thought in my head: Who are these people sitting on their computer sending him money?

My granny used to watch these religious shows all day long. Tammy Faye Baker and the like. All day long, the same people saying the same things, just yakkity yakkity yak. And what we’re talking about is like a new religion. These people are the prognosticators. It’s truly weird, and I don’t think it’s good for anybody.

We finished the video a couple weeks ago, and at that time, Baron had said he’d made $350,000 just on super chats. Now it’s over $400,000. That’s the speed at which these people earn money. And that’s not counting merch. What you’re seeing is a multi-million dollar industry, a cottage industry, very specifically around the Charlie Kirk killing.

To get back to coherence: one thing I’ve done on Conspirituality a number of times is grab a transcript of Russell Brand and then actually read what he’s saying. I’ve done this with Kennedy too. There’s a number of people you can do it with, especially Gish Gallopers. When you actually see it on the screen separate from their voice, there’s no logic whatsoever.

It’s often contradictory. Sentence to sentence sometimes. But it doesn’t matter. What in your estimation, having covered this for so long, pulls people in when they actually make no sense?

I’m a former English teacher and librarian. A close reading of a text is really gratifying and important to be able to do. It’s an important skill. So I don’t know. I’ve been doing this beat for so long now, and I have to fight feeling sad.

People are not watching it closely, not thoughtfully, just sort of taking it in as infotainment that makes them feel away from it all. Like a soap opera. They’re not like really invested in the case of Charlie Kirk. They’re not reading the court documents. They’re just thinking about it lightly.

Background noise and emotionally gratifying. Final question: near the end of your video—and I know this was off the record—you meet with Erika Kirk and Turning Point USA. What can you say about the organization’s direction? How do you feel about the people behind it? Where do you think it’s going to go from here?

They invited me there. I thought I was going to go for maybe an hour. And I spoke with Erika and some other folks inside Turning Point for almost five hours. There was nothing I couldn’t ask. The reason that it was off the record, which I think is important, is they have come to the conclusion that the only way they can win is if they don’t play.

The game of conspiracy theories and being inside of one: there’s no way to win. Especially if it’s with MS NOW. We’re a progressive news network, and they’re one of the farthest right wing groups in the country. It doesn’t serve their purposes.

But because I’ve been on this beat for so long and written so much about it, they wanted to give me time and I appreciated it. I asked how the conspiracy theories were affecting them. I saw Erika cry a lot. I saw somebody trying to navigate an impossible situation. Her husband had just been killed. If you knew Charlie at all, which I did a little, then you knew he was a true believer in the president, in his far right ideology, far right Christianity. Erika is as well. She feels the weight of continuing that on her shoulders.

Will she be able to continue it? I don’t know because for all of its money—Turning Point just filed their new 990s, and they brought in 115 million last year, no doubt part in the wake of his death. How do you sustain something that was so much a cult of personality?

I don’t know if she can. Something would have to change. And the rift between MAGA and America First is so large right now, it’s hard to see how they continue on the trajectory that Charlie had. But they’ve got a lot of money. Anything’s possible, I guess.

Regarding empathy: I’ve covered the far right for so long. People often say that I’m being too kind to Erika, that I should withhold some of that empathy. And I’ve covered every major shooting in this country . I’ve watched how disinformation leads to violence. And I don’t want to see that. I don’t like it. I don’t want it to happen.

I’ll never see people only as their political ideology. This is a person hurting and someone was murdered, and that’s bad. When we start to lose the ability to say that and draw that clear line, I just don’t want to live in a world like that.