In a sharply worded column published Thursday, The Federalist argued that American women have their sympathies dangerously misplaced, rallying behind a Massachusetts mother accused of killing her three young children while ignoring the widow of a conservative icon.
The piece, written on the one-year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, contrasts the public outpouring of support for Lindsay Clancy with what it calls the relative silence surrounding Erika Kirk, who lost her husband to what The Federalist describes as a left-wing radical’s bullet.
According to the column, Clancy does not deny the killings, yet a contingent of women online — described derisively by the author as “Real Housewives of TikTok and Clancy truthers” — have rushed to her defense. The article says these supporters cast Clancy as the real victim, sometimes blaming her husband for the tragedy, and demand that she be declared innocent even though she has not contested the facts of the crime.
Erika Kirk, the column notes, is not only raising two small children without their father but also helping lead the organization Charlie Kirk built from the ground up, all while enduring what The Federalist calls grotesque conspiracy theories about her husband’s death. The author asks how many of Clancy’s defenders have stood up to condemn those smears, and answers the question bluntly: none.
A Mistrial, Three Jurors, and a Lone Holdout
The Federalist points to the courtroom as proof that the mentality has infected the justice system. After the Clancy case ended in a mistrial due to jury disagreement, three jurors — all described as middle-aged white women — came forward to tell their side of the story on camera, according to the column. One of their primary objectives, the author writes, has been to attack the lone juror, a man, who reportedly refused to acquit Clancy for what the piece calls her evil acts.
The column quotes one juror speaking about the holdout: “He had the hardest time getting over the fact that Lindsay viciously killed her children.” The Federalist frames the remark as an inadvertent admission that the facts of the killings were secondary to the jurors’ apparent willingness to let Clancy walk free.
The column also links to a prior Federalist report suggesting that Clancy jurors appeared to use outside expertise to pressure the holdout. That detail, in the author’s telling, underlines how thoroughly the trial’s outcome was shaped by sympathy rather than evidence.
A Spiritual Diagnosis
The piece is not content to argue that Clancy supporters are merely mistaken. It contends that the instinct to rally around Clancy while ignoring Erika Kirk is the predictable output of a belief system — leftism, which the author describes as a pagan religion — that demands adherents invert traditional moral categories. In a single stroke, the column argues, the truth has been replaced with lies, the good with evil, and the beautiful with ugliness.
Alluding to the late conservative writer and philosopher Russell Kirk, the author claims that as the country has drifted from its Christian roots, its people have lost their grip on what it means to uphold the true, the good, and the beautiful. The Clancy fandom, in this view, is not an aberration but a symptom.
Because the trial ended in a mistrial rather than a conviction, the column acknowledges the gravity of the moment for those who believe the evidence was clear. It calls the case a litmus test for a nation that, in the author’s words, would have convicted Clancy “in no-time flat” had it retained its sanity.
What Comes Next
The Federalist does not offer a policy prescription for the alleged cultural decay. Instead, it urges men and women of faith to step up and fight the battles that matter when they matter, arguing that the cure for what it calls a deeply embedded societal infection will not arrive overnight.
Sometimes, the author concludes, that fight begins with simply saying no in the face of evil — even if it means standing alone.
The column’s timing is deliberate. By publishing on the anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s death, The Federalist ties its critique of Clancy’s supporters to the broader question of which women the culture chooses to elevate. In the outlet’s telling, the answer reveals less about two individual women than about a country that has lost its moral bearings.
Source: thefederalist.com — https://thefederalist.com/2026/09/10/in-a-sane-country-women-would-rally-around-erika-kirk-instead-of-lindsay-clancy/