The title of this opinion piece makes it sound like an exoneration of Kirk’s legacy, but the article itself reads differently and speaks to what is happening in our country.
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The thing about rage baiting titles is that they don't really work behind a fucking paywall. NYT, WSJ... So many known publications that don't let you read without a subscription... Us poor don't even bother trying to link hack to see if the article stands up.
sep 12, 2025, 4:01 am • 2 0 • view
Thanks. I read it and did see some good points. I was speaking specifically to the notion that Kirk promoted healthy discourse on campus. Klein left out something central to Kirk’s legacy, which was his efforts to undermine free expression of views he disliked.
sep 11, 2025, 10:55 am • 343 9 • view
I think the headline is Klein's way of making the point that cancelling him (Klein) based on a, yes, inflammatory headline without addressing his larger point is part of the problem. Kirk and his ilk are bomb -throwing performance artists. Clownish wannabe stand-ups and fame whores.
sep 13, 2025, 6:46 pm • 1 0 • view
...and I won't discount the possibility that some nut case could take him literally and do real damage. But the left has to own up to an ideology that *equates* speech with literal violence. And the aggression can never be too micro. It's a weird narcissism that's helping drive us off the cliff.
sep 13, 2025, 6:49 pm • 0 0 • view
Gun nuts convince themselves that *their* guns are the only thing standing between us and tyranny. What they seem blind to is that this country is nothing if not the idea that democracy is the thing that is meant to stand between us and tyranny. And democracy's likely to be lost before the guns.
sep 13, 2025, 6:52 pm • 0 0 • view
Um, no offense but you’re downplaying his advocacy of killing anyone he didn’t like.
sep 11, 2025, 4:52 pm • 4 0 • view
Agreed! The title of the article is stomach turning for sure. And it’s hard to imagine how Kirk practiced “politics” could be seen as right in any way. But Klein spoke to something more insidious that includes and goes beyond Kirk’s political views. Hate is a virus too.
sep 11, 2025, 11:05 am • 52 0 • view
He did not address Kirk’s specific views that deem most Americans to be unequal to him or his to kill.
sep 11, 2025, 1:48 pm • 2 0 • view
It’s paywall-blocked for those of us who have cancelled our three decades of funding the NYT. If he wants a fuller hearing, he should try a less offensive teaser and get out of the NYT.
sep 11, 2025, 1:15 pm • 259 4 • view
Try your local library. Most have free 1-day passes for the NYT. And many other papers & magazines besides.
sep 11, 2025, 5:15 pm • 1 0 • view
Oh, great idea!
sep 11, 2025, 7:01 pm • 1 0 • view
The San Francisco library gives you a three day pass that’s renewable when you go back.
sep 12, 2025, 2:28 am • 2 0 • view
This link claims to be 'share'. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/o...
sep 11, 2025, 6:58 pm • 2 0 • view
Thank you!
sep 11, 2025, 7:00 pm • 0 0 • view
Thanks
sep 12, 2025, 12:10 am • 1 0 • view
There is no paywall for this article, sir.
sep 11, 2025, 2:13 pm • 0 0 • view
There is for me.
sep 11, 2025, 2:18 pm • 0 0 • view
Weird. Mine says "Shared with you by a Times subscriber." Sorry that I can't help out.
sep 11, 2025, 2:38 pm • 0 0 • view
Why where you paying for the homophobic, biphobic, transphobic nyt? They've been known shit for decades or are we forgetting such hit articles as "gay, straight or lying" and "bisexual men: the aids Spector for women"
sep 12, 2025, 2:31 am • 0 0 • view
You can read NYT using paywallbypass.com on the occasions when it's helpful to know what folks are talking about! After their nonsense platforming Rufo I'll never give them money again either.
sep 11, 2025, 2:54 pm • 1 0 • view
He should gift it out. Like you, I cancelled my subscription before the election.
sep 12, 2025, 12:10 am • 0 0 • view
And his own post repeats his title, without further explanation. Ugh, I'm not taking the clickbait.
sep 11, 2025, 1:37 pm • 115 0 • view
His next column will be called "Hitler was a good painter".
sep 12, 2025, 9:30 am • 65 1 • view
“And, liked dogs.”
sep 12, 2025, 11:35 am • 29 0 • view
I’ll play spoiler and tell you that the title of the op-ed is a direct lift of a sentence from within it. And no, context doesn’t help.
sep 12, 2025, 3:05 am • 1 0 • view
The op-ed itself is stomach-turning.
sep 12, 2025, 7:26 pm • 1 0 • view
Yes, hate does spread like a virus.....and Charlie Kirk was an individual who spent his life spreading hate against nonwhites, trans folks, leftists, etc, like a virus Ezra Klein thinks this is doing politics "the right way". What a dumbfuck thing to say
sep 12, 2025, 12:10 am • 1 0 • view
Is saying gay people should be killed “healthy discourse”?
sep 11, 2025, 12:22 pm • 14 1 • view
NYT titles are exactly the reason I cancelled my subscription and will never read another article again. NYTs is part of the polarization problem. I actually don't care what Ezra Klein has to say in his article because his title is exonerating. Major media actively seeks to divide us.
sep 11, 2025, 6:35 pm • 2 0 • view
It is kind of an exoneration though. He doesn't tend with the connection of political violence to violent political speech-- the kind Kirk was prone to. It's a very both-sides-y status-quo position that was clearly outdated 10 years ago.
sep 11, 2025, 6:17 pm • 8 0 • view
He does the usual "both sides" equating the left pointing out that Kirk said it's OK if some people are shot because gun rights, versus the right using the tragedy as a "Reichstag fire for our time." Pointing out irony = clamping down on democracy in Klein's equation - in the text, not the headline
sep 12, 2025, 1:35 am • 4 2 • view
The article absolutely does not read differently, it does not mention his promotion of the murder of lgbtq people, his dehumanization of so many, his constant lies, and his part in jan 6
sep 11, 2025, 1:56 pm • 15 1 • view
The article even admonishes people pointing out he said shootings are a fair price for the second amendment. He died as he wanted to live.
sep 11, 2025, 2:11 pm • 9 0 • view
Yet the essay doesn’t admit the inflammatory ideas that Kirk presented to young people day after day. We can condemn political violence (and the gun worship culture that allows it) while also condemning the words and ideas of people who promote this divisive & violent culure.
sep 12, 2025, 3:56 pm • 2 1 • view
The article reads like a whitewashing of a white supremacist and his legacy of advocating for violence-based policies targeted against every class of human being that wasn’t simultaneously male and caucasian, as if the writer’s aesthetic of politeness would effectively mask their lack of vertebrae.
sep 11, 2025, 11:21 am • 45 6 • view
Headlines spread messages all by themselves. Anyone with a career in media should know this.
sep 11, 2025, 1:47 pm • 10 0 • view
The title and the article cannot be viewed as separate pieces of media.
sep 12, 2025, 12:45 pm • 2 0 • view
The title of the article makes me not even want to read it. That is the consequence of a headline like that.
sep 11, 2025, 2:34 pm • 4 0 • view
How man times have I heard "This horrible NYT headline doesn't fairly represent the nuances of the article"? Why does this keep happening, though? Their headlines consistently skew to the right, relative to the article content. It's an editorial decision.
sep 11, 2025, 1:53 pm • 7 0 • view
The headline seems to be engagement bait. But it attracts the engagement of people who didn't read past headline or who had their entire view of the article shaped by the headline.
sep 11, 2025, 2:34 pm • 1 0 • view
Assuming that’s true, Ezra must never, ever, work with that publication or those editors again. To do otherwise would be to endorse the headline.
sep 11, 2025, 6:08 pm • 1 0 • view
So ezra used the title to bait. Bad journalism
sep 11, 2025, 5:19 pm • 1 0 • view
I agree. Saying Kirk did politics the right way was a bad choice. By that definition Trump did politics the right way by hold rallies despite the content of those rallies.
sep 12, 2025, 1:19 am • 4 0 • view
But it's doesn't. Klein is totally laundering Kirk's shitty reputation and legacy.
sep 14, 2025, 10:41 pm • 0 0 • view