Studying Time: 3 minutes
Final week, Erika Kirk took the stage on the College of Mississippi to introduce Vice President J.D. Vance.
Kirk remains to be mourning the dying of her husband, Charlie Kirk, the controversial podcast host who was shot and killed throughout a talking engagement in Utah in September.
However whereas Erika has talked about her late husband’s life and work in any respect of her latest appearances, many have been delay by the notion of a newly widowed single guardian reserving talking engagements and podcast appearances within the weeks after her accomplice’s homicide.
Erika Kirk speaks in the course of the memorial service for her husband, political activist Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium on September 21, 2025 in Glendale, Arizona. (Photograph by Win McNamee/Getty Pictures)
Kyle Kulinski criticized for Erika Kirk meme
One such critic is left-leaning journalist Kyle Kulinski, who shared a meme final week that ruffled fairly a couple of feathers.
The format was one that can seemingly be acquainted to any social media person:
A Spirit Halloween costume impressed by Erika’s public persona, guarantees an correct “Fake Grieving Widow Grifter” costume.
The costume consists of “fake teardrops” and “skin-tight black leather mourning pants,” the latter a reference to the outfit Erika wore when she launched Vance at Ole Miss final week.
(X/Twitter)
Kulinski’s publish was promptly referred to as out by many on the Proper who felt that he was making mild of Kirk’s dying.
“Awful. Shame on you,” wrote one such person, in line with the Day by day Mail.
“Wow, you’re a horrible human being,” one other added.
“No one is requiring you to mourn Charlie Kirk. They’re asking you not to be a satanic piece of sh-t who celebrates brutal murder,” wrote rightwing commentator Blaire White.
“The bar couldn’t be lower, and it’s still too high for millions of you. Sick.”
Erika Kirk, widow of Turning Level USA founder Charlie Kirk, and U.S. Vice President JD Vance embrace on stage throughout a Turning Level USA occasion on the Pavilion at Ole Miss on the College of Mississippi, on October 29, 2025 in Oxford, Mississippi. (Photograph by Jonathan Ernst-Pool/Getty Pictures)
After all, White and others made comparable jokes within the wake of different latest acts of political violence, together with the assault on Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi.
However as a result of we reside within the age of hypocrisy — a time when either side name one another out for conduct they routinely interact in themselves — no introspection takes place, and the cycle continues.
Kulinski’s joke was actually insensitive. Nonetheless, plainly it was not his intention to mock Charlie’s dying, however slightly to level out the strangeness of seeing Erika take the stage amid pyrotechnics so quickly after her husband’s homicide.
Maybe that’s an excessive amount of nuance for such a delicate topic.
However the issue with our present political panorama is that there’s no room for nuance on any topic, and the least beneficiant evaluation of an individual’s feedback can also be the most typical one.
