It’s hard to believe that Charlie Kirk died only eight months ago. Honestly, it feels like years ago. It feels like yesterday. It feels like time is a cruel trick, a series of absolutely insane events perpetuated by a continually gaslighting U.S. government. Republicans are very firmly at the heart of this, but Democrats are much less an opposition party than they are an appeasement party. Truly wild that Democrats are still acting like working with Republicans is not only possible, but preferable to destroying these fascists wholesale.
But hey, I’m always willing to be surprised. If the Democrats want to shock the hell out of me, go for it! Prove me wrong. I’ve never wanted to be more wrong in my life.
Anyway, back to Kirk. His murder was framed as a pivotal galvanizing point of the conservative movement. It was supposed to bring young people (young, white, Christian men, mostly) running into the arms not only of the Republican Party, but also evangelical Christianity.
For a period of time after his killing, it was forbidden to speak ill of Kirk, with sites like Bluesky suspending people left and right for making comments perceived as derisive. But the huge uprising of red-hatted, Jesus-loving, Trump-supporting young’uns hasn’t happened.
A fine example of this faux-uprising is Turning Point USA Faith’s “Make Heaven Crowded” tour.
Now, evangelical Christians believe that people who have accepted Jesus will go to heaven. I understand that. But they have to die first, which makes the whole “Make Heaven Crowded” thing pretty macabre, considering what happened to Kirk.
One could also argue that the conservatives were doing a fine job of making heaven crowded with their firm stance against any kind of gun violence prevention. Maybe that’s all part of the grand plan.
In a recent Salon piece titled “TPUSA’s ‘Make Heaven Crowded’ revival tour is a disaster,” senior politics writer Amanda Marcotte peels back the curtain on an event so poorly attended that not even celebrity widow Erika Kirk is showing up.
“The Make Heaven Crowded tour is sponsored by Preborn!, an anti-abortion group, and each stop features heavy-handed shaming of women who have abortions,” writes Marcotte. “One speaker after another turns to politics, such as Blaze Media’s Allie Beth Stuckey, who lectures the crowd about how same-sex marriage and abortion supposedly offend God, or Christian commentator Millicent Sedra, who argues that this is an age of ‘sexual perversion’ based on ‘young people dressed up as fairies, dressed up as dogs’ and ‘kitty litters in the toilets.’”
Why are these people so obsessed with toilets? Why do they want so badly to believe that absolutely wild things are happening in public school restrooms? Everything from kids getting lunch break “sex changes” to kids using litter boxes — these claims keep getting repeated as if they are the gospel truth. Gosh, what could possibly be the reason?
Look, these folks have to sensationalize everything because the reality is, well, largely boring. Take trans kids, for example. The Fill ‘er Up Heaven folks want people to think that trans kids live this wild life of debauchery when in reality much of a trans kid’s life is filled with going to school, doing (or not doing) homework, getting nagged by parents to clean their bedrooms, hanging out with friends and playing video games.
“I got this crazy belief that everything in life is theological,” Lucas Miles, TPUSA Faith director, told Salon. “Every issue that you can think about is actually first and foremost a spiritual issue.”
Um, sure. I guess. I certainly think that every issue has a moral component, though I doubt that Miles and I share the same morality. For example, I think the most moral thing humans can do on this earth is to work to relieve the suffering of others — making sure people have healthcare, housing and food. All things that are entirely within reach if the United States had the will, because we definitely have the money. I mean, we had no problem finding the money to bomb schoolchildren in Iran, but Republicans (and a disturbing number of Democrats) want you to believe we don’t have it to feed schoolchildren in the U.S.
Bullshit.
But that’s not the kind of suffering the Ram ‘Em and Cram ‘Em Into Heaven crowd is interested in — at least not the kind they want to relieve. Causing it doesn’t seem to be a problem for them, considering that they consistently vote for a party that does everything it can to make the lives of the most vulnerable people in the U.S. more painful.
Maybe folks trying to sell you a heaven that depends on creating hell on earth don’t have your best interests at heart.