Donald Trump on Tuesday compared conservative commentator and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk to Socrates as he posthumously awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which apparently means nothing now.
The award was announced on what would have been Kirk’s 32nd birthday, if not for his assassination in Utah at the hands of 22-year-old Tyler Robinson.
“Charlie never missed an opportunity to remind us of the Judeo-Christian principles of our nation’s founding, or to share his deep Christian faith. In his final moments Charlie testified to the greatness of America, and to the glory of our savior with whom he now rests in Heaven,” Trump remarked at the ceremony. “Charlie Kirk was a martyr for truth and for freedom. And from Socrates … and to Saint Peter, from Abraham Lincoln to Martin Luther King, those who change history the most—and he really did—have always risked their lives for causes they were put on earth to defend.”
Trump also used the award ceremony to continue to spread falsities about the prevalence of organized left-wing violence.
The Presidential Medal of Freedom was established by President John F. Kennedy to serve as the highest honor a civilian could receive, for people who “have made especially meritorious contributions to the security or national interests of the United States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavors.”
Kirk did not embody that, no matter how much the right tries to sanitize his image. Aside from helping Trump successfully push a significant number of young people towards the MAGA movement, Kirk made his name by talking down to and clipping college undergraduates, pushing blatant anti-Black and anti-Latino racism, and using the Bible to deny the humanity of gay and transgender folk. His life was not one that held the essence of an award that has been given to cultural heavyweights like Maya Angelou, Desmond Tutu, Stephen Hawking, Nelson Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr.
The medal has lost some of its shine in recent years, as Trump has awarded them to people simply for helping him, not adding meaning to American life and culture. In his first term, he gave the award to right-wing commentator (and Kirk inspiration) Rush Limbaugh, Zionist conservative mega-donor Miriam Adelson, and Republican Representative Jim Jordan. And in his second, Trump’s disgraced former attorney Rudy Giuliani and now Kirk have received the medal, with Ben Carson expected to be honored next.
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