Influencer faces ‘absolutely insane’ backlash for Charlie Kirk shirt

Comfortably seated in her home on a chalk-colored couch adorned with navy blue pillows, Cassie Clark, an influencer who makes North Carolina-centered content, recalled the moment a man was “berating” her in front of her teenage daughter for wearing a Charlie Kirk shirt. 

“He started just berating me that Charlie Kirk didn’t like people like him. Every time I would try to respond, he would start speaking over me,” Clark told Fox News Digital. 

“Rather than waiting on his group to come downstairs, he ended up walking across the street and sitting at the post office because he didn’t want to sit near us… So I got on X, and I was frustrated, and I wrote a post about it [which] blew up,” she continued.

Clark shared that while some of the responses to her post on X were “extremely negative,” there were commenters who “reached out and praised” her for speaking up. 

The mother revealed that other influencers shared their fears of speaking out, telling Clark that if they were to “speak up” they would “lose sponsors” and “lose brand deals.”

“To me, that’s absolutely insane,” she relayed. “We shouldn’t be in a place in America where you can’t say what you truly believe and you have to worry about getting pushback or losing money or losing a job over it when you’re talking about something that half of the country agrees with you on. That’s crazy.”

The post, which Clark made on Sept. 28, expressed that Clark didn’t fully believe “how hated conservatives were” until that day, citing various “nasty looks” that left her feeling “beyond disgusted.” 

She ended the post by writing that she was “not going to be silent anymore.”

“I am Christian and I am conservative … I may not agree with everything that Charlie Kirk ever said or all of his stances, but it automatically made me think, you know, if he was shot for going out and speaking to people about his views — what would people think of my views,” the content creator continued. 

The social media star made the garment purchase while attending the Salt and Light Convention in Marion, N.C., stating she never “thought about it again” until she wore it that day and experienced “nasty looks” and “pushback.” 

“I probably will continue to maybe not talk solely about politics, but I don’t think I’m going to shy away from it anymore,” the influencer said. 

“We’re allowing the other side to just normalize their views, but we’re being silent on our own. We’re creating a playing field that’s one-sided,” Clark said.