Erika Kirk and Marjorie Taylor Greene are playing with the same archetype
As President Donald Trump settles into his last term, his approval ratings sinking ever lower, an urgent new question has begun to coalesce at the center of MAGA: Would the movement survive without Trump’s force of personality? What kind of person has the juice to lead it besides Trump?
While the question remains unanswered, a new archetype has abruptly acquired stature among the MAGA faithful, an archetype that is in some ways a photographic negative of crass, mud-slinging, macho Trump. As Erika Kirk strives to take over her husband’s legacy at Turning Point USA, and Marjorie Taylor Greene remakes her image amid her retirement from the House of Representatives, both are building their image around the idea of a Christian woman who is notable for her godliness, grace, and mercy.
Erika Kirk rocketed to political stardom at the September memorial service for her late husband, Charlie Kirk, when she publicly forgave his assassin.
“I forgive him because it was what Christ did and is what Charlie would do,” she said. “The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies and love for those who persecute us.”
Trump, speaking immediately after Kirk, made a point of saying in response that he hated his enemies and would never forgive them.
The reaction from the mainstream media was polite and respectful. While Trump has profited from his alliance with the Christian right, he’s never embodied any of the movement’s traditional virtues. Kirk, outlets declared, showed what Christian forgiveness really could look like.
“The most admirable aspects of religion — mercy, charity, grace and contemplation — were found in Mrs. Kirk’s words, not Mr. Trump’s,” wrote Zaid Jilani for the New York Times. “I can only pray that today’s Christian right finds more inspiration in her than him.”
On the right, the response went beyond polite respect. Kirk was suddenly in the conversation as a major leader on the MAGA right, like a funhouse mirror image of Barack Obama after his keynote speech at the 2004 DNC.
“With her powers of communication, moving story, and personal connection, Erika Kirk could end up the next Billy Graham. She could lead a generation to Christianity. She could be the first woman president,” wrote Matthew Continetti at the Free Press. A post on the r/Christianity subreddit described Kirk as “a new archetype of the conservative Christian woman: graceful, media-savvy, intellectually aligned, and unapologetically committed to a vision of biblical womanhood that is both traditional and powerfully public.” The question, the poster added, wasn’t “if she will become a major leader, but how quickly.”
Among Kirk’s new fans was Marjorie Taylor Greene. Speaking to the New York Times in December, Greene cited the contrast between Kirk and Trump at Charlie Kirk’s memorial as the reason for her recent turn on Trump. “It just shows where his heart is,” Greene said. “And that’s the difference, with her having a sincere Christian faith, and proves that he does not have any faith.”
Inspired, Greene reportedly texted a friend, “I wanted to be more like Christ.” She has since publicly apologized for “taking part in the toxic politics,” while remaining vague about what parts of her behavior she actually feels the need to apologize for.
As religious studies scholar Katherine Kelaidis has written for Vox, the forgiving Christian woman is a familiar archetype within faith narratives, going back to the medieval concept of the forgiving queen who intercedes with a vengeful king. “It is a model that allows the language of Christian mercy to coexist with the harsh realities of authoritarian rule, which is exactly what MAGA is aiming for,” Kelaidis explains. “It was also a model that allowed for women to have a significant public role while not transgressing normative ideas of femininity. Say, for example, Erika Kirk becoming the CEO of Turning Point USA.”
What gives the archetype its juice in this particular moment is that it is an inverse to everything Trump embodies: principled where Trump is vindictive, peaceful where he is violent, religiously motivated where he is plainly secular. In theory, the archetype of the forgiving Christian woman allows MAGA to make a show of installing women in highly visible roles that can appeal to young women, without necessarily threatening the power of the men at the center. Yet the fact that both Kirk and Greene have made a point of adopting this image during moments of transition in their image suggests — without making any claims as to the sincerity of their faith — that they have both made the calculation that MAGA wants a change from Trump as the movement develops beyond his presidency.
That their threat to Trump’s power is real can perhaps be seen through the backlash both Greene and Kirk have faced as they make their moves. As Erika Kirk spends ever more time in public, a narrative has begun to brew that she is using her husband’s death opportunistically to climb the political ladder. She’s become the center of a derisive meme. “Everyone grieves differently,” someone will post, or “Normal widows: ‘I miss my husband.’” And then, “Erika Kirk:” above an image of a woman dancing and setting off fireworks.
Trump, meanwhile, has dubbed Greene “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene.“ She has never cultivated many congressional allies outside the MAGA faithful, and now she’s isolated even from them. “I’m, like, radioactive” on both sides of the political aisle, Greene told the New York Times, adding that she plans to retire from politics for good.
The central question about MAGA since its emergence as a force in American politics has been: Is the movement simply a cult of personality built around Donald Trump and his whims? Or is it a genuine political coalition with real principles and a coherent ideology? If the movement embraces and elevates a figure whose image is built in opposition to Trump’s, we may finally have an answer to that question.