Streicher orchestrated his early campaigns against Jews to make the most extreme possible claims, short of violating a law that might get the paper shut down. He insisted in the pages of his newspaper that the Jews had caused the worldwide Depression, and were responsible for the crippling unemployment and inflation which afflicted Germany during the 1920s. He claimed that Jews were white-slavers responsible for Germany’s prostitution rings. Real unsolved killings in Germany, especially of children or women, were often confidently explained in the pages of Der Stürmer as cases of “Jewish ritual murder”.
Compare to Charlie Kirk:
Kirk promoted debunked claims about George Floyd, such as that he was “illegally counterfeiting currency” and had once “put a gun to a pregnant woman’s stomach.”[92] On Facebook, YouTube, and Rumble, Kirk repeatedly promoted the false claim that the medical examiner who performed the autopsy declared Floyd had died of an overdose. After a fact check by AFP that noted the doctor stood by the classification of Floyd’s death as a homicide, corrections were added to Kirk’s posts on social media.[93]
On October 14, 2021, Kirk said “the facts are that there are only two genders; that transgenderism and gender ‘fluidity’ are lies that hurt people and abuse kids.”[129] In early 2023, he said that transgender women in women’s locker rooms should be “taken care of the way we used to take care of things in the 1950s and '60s”.[130] On April 1, 2024, Kirk called for Trump to propose a nationwide ban of gender-affirming care for transgender people.[131] The same day, he called for the imprisonment of doctors who perform gender-affirming care and demanded “Nuremberg-style” trials for them.
At a 2023 event at Missouri State University, Kirk said that immigration to the United States should be completely stopped.[120] In the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election, Kirk promoted the false claim that Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, were eating residents’ pets and other wildlife.[179][180] Kirk called for the use of force against migrants at the U.S.–Mexico border, including the use of tear gas, rubber bullets and whips. Kirk said that migrants were “bringing force upon themselves” by “invading” the country. In justifying this use of force, Kirk promoted false claims of disproportionate criminality among migrants, saying: “Those are the men that will go into your communities and break into your homes and rape your women, take your children. But, hey, they’re – they’re dreamers.”
Charlie Kirk built his entire career using the exact same techniques as the various propagandists of 1930s Nazi Germany. Among the shared vile techniques:
- Obsessively publishing about and sensationalizing crimes committed by members of minority groups, while ignoring those of majority groups.
- Spreading conspiracy theories that malign minority groups for countless social ills and crimes.
- Advocating for policies that meet the literal legal definition of genocide - trying to create conditions that are designed to physically eradicate or bring about the destruction of a minority group at whole or in part.
These are all things Charlie Kirk actually did. He was guilty of incitement to genocide and crimes against humanity. Vigilante justice is not the answer. But in a just world, he would have met the same end as Streicher - tried, convicted, sentenced, and duly punished for crimes against humanity. On trans issues alone he is guilty of incitement to genocide. He didn’t deserve a bullet to the neck, but he did deserve a rope to the neck.