Deceptive Hero Worship - Ulf Poschardt and the Rehabilitation of the Right

Ulf Poschardt wants to create a martyr. "Charlie Kirk was shot," he wrote in a dramatic Facebook post, "the footage on X shows him collapsing as he does what he always tried to do: approach people who think differently calmly and speak with them using arguments and reason." It is a sentence that sounds as if a peaceful humanist was torn from life in the middle of a conversation. But it is a distortion, a reinterpretation - almost a canonization - of a man who spent his entire life sowing hate, dehumanizing minorities, and justifying violence.

Charlie Kirk was not a "master of debate." He was a radical right-wing activist who instrumentalized the massacre of Paul Pelosi in his podcasts and called on his listeners to raise money for the attacker. After the political murder of Democratic Senator Melissa Hortman and her family three months ago, he tried to link Democratic Governor Tim Walz and his party to the crime. He publicly declared: "It is worth the price to unfortunately accept some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment." - a sentence that turns human lives into bargaining chips. Anyone who calls that a "defender of debate culture" has either lost their memory or wants to deliberately downplay where the right-wing culture war has led.

See our article from September 11, 2025: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/charlie-kirk-tod-eines-polarisierers-zwischen-extremismus-und-gewalt/

The comment section under Poschardt's post proves what such hero myths unleash. "Unbelievable, this is unfortunately what happens when you stand for values and speak the truth. What a sick leftist world we live in," wrote Thomas Momper. Mela Rauh lamented: "... it is obviously becoming more dangerous to be conservative..." Sylvia Bertrams already saw an escalation here as well: "The left is slowly losing it. They are becoming more and more aggressive in Germany too." Bastian Benner fantasized about the "fascistoid fight against the right" and claimed that physical violence is "no longer a taboo as long as it hits the right people." Cornelius Bernhardus raged: "Another heinous left-wing terrorist murder! And the disgusting SHITBÜRGERDOM applauds!!" - as if this had been a state-organized terrorist attack.

Others painted the downfall of Western civilization: "When you see how the left celebrates in the ZDF comment sections, you have to fear that Antifa will soon start killing non-leftists in Germany," warned Tim Radenbach. "Don't worry, dear friends, here in Germany there will surely be shootings soon too," prophesied Manfred Steinbach. Jörg Lindemann seconded: "The left knows no mercy, no empathy. Violence is their language!" Dietmar Kampka openly demanded: "Leftist/islamist terror must be fought with all means." This is not grieving. This is political mobilization. This is the attempt to turn a man who himself encouraged violence into a victim of the "leftist world" - and to derive from that a license for revenge and escalation. This is precisely what makes Poschardt's post so dangerous: it serves a narrative that reverses the perpetrator-victim logic.

There was also dissent. "This guy is known more for lies and conspiracy theories than for reason," wrote Artjom Altenhof. Eva Schweitzer reminded that Kirk himself had propagated the lack of weapon controls: "This is like advocating for free driving for free citizens and then getting run over at 150 km/h while walking across a freeway." Sascha Meininger asked the uncomfortable question: "Did you, Mr. Poschardt, show as much compassion after the attacks on Pelosi and the Hortman family?" - a reminder that empathy from the right almost never flows toward Democratic victims.

But these voices were drowned out by a chorus of self-glorification. "A voice for truth and justice has been extinguished. Deepest sadness," wrote Aliana von Richthofen. "He was a family man and one of the greatest fighters for freedom of speech," declared Stephan Kluth. "Shot by a leftist lunatic because he spoke biological and socio-political truths," ranted Björn Spielmann. It is the same old story: right-wing radical agitation is glorified as a courageous fight for freedom, and every contradiction becomes proof of one's own persecution.

Poschardt knows what effect his words have. He knows that in today's heated climate, a sentence like "approach people who think differently calmly" does not calm down, but emboldens. He gives the right-wing narrative a bourgeois, intellectual superstructure that pretends it is about discourse culture when in truth it is about power - and about normalizing an ideology that is no longer peaceful.

The truth is: Charlie Kirk was not a martyr for democracy. He was one of the loudest propagandists of an America that disenfranchises, intimidates, and persecutes minorities, women, queer people, and political opponents. He was a man who relativized violence when it struck his opponents. That he has now himself become a victim of deadly violence is tragic - but it is not the end of a culture of debate, it is the end of a figure who himself contributed to radicalization.

Anyone who today pretends that he only "fought with arguments" is rewriting history. And anyone like Ulf Poschardt who engages in this reinterpretation becomes a prompt-giver for a movement that is already in revenge mode. It is this self-righteousness that is dangerous - not the alleged "leftist aggression."