Americans no longer share television shows or social media apps, let alone a common understanding of the basic facts of current events. Spreading the outright lie that Charlie Kirk‘s alleged assassin was a member of “the MAGA gang” got Jimmy Kimmel put in timeout by Disney, only for the overeager response of the Trump administration to give Mickey Mouse the political cover to restore Kimmel to his late-night show.
But if there’s one thing that even the left-wing comedian could find common cause with his adversaries across the aisle, it was that Kirk’s widow, Erika, is a much-needed paragon of Christian grace in our increasingly godless world.
“On Sunday, Erika Kirk forgave the man who shot her husband,” said an uncharacteristically teary Kimmel. “That is an example we should follow.”
Perhaps Kimmel was laying it on thick out of terror of his corporate overlords, but the fact remains that in the single greatest tragedy of her life, Erika Kirk has emerged as an icon of Christian charity, and now, appointed by the Turning Point USA board as the organization’s CEO, a leader of the conservative movement.
On the dregs of the trad Right, conservative clout chasers on social media claimed the widowed Kirk “just ended the Feminist movement” (total number of X impressions: almost 35 million at press time). And the conspiracy theorists of Blue Anon wasted no time trying to claim Kirk was a “honeypot,” tied to every comic book villain from Jeffrey Epstein to “Zionists” and “Raytheon.”
If anything, Kirk’s life exposes the limits of the tradwife/girlboss dichotomy.
It is true that Kirk is a dedicated believer in Biblical marriage.
“Women,” said Kirk at her husband’s memorial. “I have a challenge for you, too. Be virtuous. Our strength is found in God’s design for our role. We are the guardians. We are the encouragers. We are the preservers. Guard your heart. Everything you do flows from it.”
She’s a dedicated mother of two who still looks every inch the former Miss Arizona she once won.
But she’s also no caricature of a tradwife.
“Your wife is not your employee,” Kirk continued at the memorial. “Your wife is not your slave. She is your helper. You are not rivals. You are one flesh. Working together for the glory of God.”
Part of the reason the TPUSA board so readily trusted Mrs. Kirk with a $400 million nonprofit organization is that Erika has proven eminently qualified. Kirk has both a master’s in legal studies and a doctorate in Christian leadership. Before she met Charlie — to interview for a job — Erika was already running a number of Christian nonprofit groups.
Erika didn’t marry Charlie, who was five years her junior, until she was 32, and she didn’t have her first child until she was almost 35 years old. A docile, barely legal doormat, Erika was not.
As Kirk alluded to in her Biblical invocation of a wife’s duty in a marriage, a strong, Christian woman is neither an emotionless, ruthless girlboss nor a weak and withering tradwife. A powerful executive can be a well-educated Miss Arizona, just as a loving mother can run an internationally renowned nonprofit organization.
If we can’t unite on much, at least we can recognize that Erika Kirk is a model for American women across the aisle, a Mrs. America worth emulating.
