I got a spam email today, addressing me by my first name. That always annoys me. It is never proper to address a grown stranger by his first name. It is insulting, because it’s a transparent trick intended to foster a false sense of intimacy. It doesn’t work on me. It offends me, because I hate two things: having my intelligence insulted, and being manipulated.

I’ll post the text.

Charlie loved witnessing excellence.

It’s why he loved sports so much.

He loved watching the best of the best perform at the level of greatness God intended for them.

[Insert your first name here.], that’s why this photo…

One of the very last photos ever taken of Charlie…

Took the breath right out of my chest. Because I know that look…

I fell in love with that look. He’s in athlete mode. Locked in. Dialed. Focused. Just Charlie. In his element.

And now, this image is permanently etched in time, held in my heart, as I admire his greatness.

Forever.

[Insert your first name here.], this is a message I never imagined I’d write.

You knew Charlie’s voice…

But I knew his heart.

That’s the story I want you to know – and the man I want you to remember: turnpt-usa.com/6etCd_ZXd

-Erika Kirk

Reply STOP to end

I am old-fashioned by 2025 standards. By the standards of my grandparents, I am practically a savage, but in 2025, I look like Emily Post. Am I wrong to be old-fashioned? Putting it gently in view of the time frame, I am unfavorably impressed by this text.

Charlie Kirk’s body is in a coffin somewhere, still above ground. It has been 13 days since he died. Now his wife’s company is sending me seemingly-ghostwritten texts in her name, trying to get me to sponsor her career as a political pundit.

If I had a friend who was poor, and he died, and I knew his family needed money to get them through the months following his death, I would be thrilled to help. I wouldn’t be upset if the widow came right out and asked me. I would offer before she could do that. But this is a rich woman with many, many millionaire and billionaire contacts, and I am being asked not for help making ends meet, but for help advancing her media career.

Worse, I could be helping the dangerous antisemite Tucker Carlson, who seems to be jockeying for Kirk’s job. That would feel like sponsoring Josef Goebbels.

There is no way she wrote this. Not by herself, anyway. It has the smell of professional copywriters all over it. I think a company that does fundraising for a lot of outfits wrote this. It reads exactly like the computer-generated letters I used to get many years ago, before I realized prosperity preachers were the among the lowest creatures on Earth.

“[Insert your first name here.]: MY WIFE DEONDRIANNA AND OUR CHILDREN JAYDEN, HAYDEN, PAYDEN, AIDAN, PEYTON, ASHLEY, ASHLYNNE, MICKAYLA, BRAYDEN AND I HAVE BEEN WEEPING OVER YOUR FINANCIAL SITUATION! OUR HEARTS ACHE OVER YOUR LACK! JESUS WOKE US IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT AND TOLD US TO PRAY FOR YOU AND LET YOU KNOW THAT IF YOU WOULD JUST SEND US YOUR BEST POSSIBLE SEED GIFT OVER $250…”

I think TPUSA does wonderful work. It’s well worth supporting if you’re the kind of person who gives money to political causes. I’m not that kind of person, and I haven’t been since Bush I was running, but if you are, I can’t think of a better political cause than this. But this is not the way to go about getting donations. This is fodder for Charlie Kirk’s leftist critics.

Now that I think about it, I may have given Trump $25 in the process of buying a hat and a shirt, but I can’t recall.

I say it was spam because it was. It was an unsolicited and unwelcome fundraising pitch, sent to a random person with no previous communication.

I have never had anything to do with TPUSA. I saw very little of Kirk’s work. He did not inspire or influence me. I didn’t subscribe to his Youtube channel. If Charlie Kirk had spoken next door, I wouldn’t have gone, because his bag was not my bag, and I hate crowds. I’m glad he did it, just as I am glad there are people who become morticians, accountants, and septic tank pumpers, but I don’t want to be part of it.

I never signed up for a mailing list or gave anyone any indication whatsoever that I was interested in TPUSA. I have been blogging for 24 years, and prior to his assassination, I have mentioned Charlie Kirk precisely once.

I didn’t give them my number, so I know they got it without my consent. They bought it, or some other political corporation gave it to them in an underhanded, rude, and thoughtless way.

Back in 2014, a car thief who went to a church I used to attend drowned while fleeing the cops. His name was Alex Nicolas. He knew a lot of wealthy Jewish kids, so Rich Wilkerson, the pastor of the church (Trinity Church in Miami) offered to hold a memorial service.

Some of Alex’s rich friends came by to pay their respects, and Rich Wilkerson saw his plan coming together. He asked for a cash offering. To help Alex’s family.

No, he didn’t. You knew I wasn’t headed that way. He asked for a cash offering to go to his own “charity,” from which he personally drew funds. A charity which did nearly nothing for anyone not named Wilkerson.

It was ghastly.

I can’t help thinking of it now.

The folks at TPUSA need money, so they ask for it. That’s fine, but they should not spam innocent people, and this is not the proper time to send out emails in his widow’s name. I don’t think they should be using this kind of emotional appeal, either. It seems very inappropriate to me. There is a lot more of it on the page the text links to. Maybe it’s sincere, but I just don’t feel it, and anyway, I did not know these people.

They could have said, “People funded TPUSA largely because they knew they were supporting the work of Charlie Kirk. Now that he is gone, we need your help more than ever. Please consider sending a generous donation while we recover from this tremendous loss.” And they could have refrained from spamming.

You know what? I’ll post the link they sent me. Go ahead and donate if you like. I think TPUSA was fueled by Charlie Kirk, and I expect it to dry up and vanish like The Daily Wire without Ben Shapiro, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe lightning will strike twice in the same place, and they’ll find someone who can do what Charlie Kirk did. Make up your own mind.

I don’t think this disturbing spam necessarily justifies abandoning what is fundamentally a good cause. I’m just put off by the tone-deaf approach. I now have a sour opinion of the character of the people involved.

As you will see, suggested-donation buttons range from $25 to $100,000. Seems bold to me. Maybe, for the first time in 24 years, I should put donation buttons on this blog and suggest amounts ranging from $10,000 to two billion dollars.

Of course, the link they sent has tracking code in it to show where it came from, so I guess they have already tracked me and realized I went to the site. I guess I can expect more spam now that there is blood in the water. I stripped that code out in the link above, not that it matters, since it would have led back to me, not you.

I guess people will be mad at me now. But as many people have said, being offended doesn’t make you right. Kirk himself said that, although it was not his original thought. I used to say it before I had ever heard of him, and you probably said it, too.

I think it’s time to register as an independent.