It’s not every day that you can claim without reservation that someone is almost entirely responsible for a cultural achievement. But you can absolutely make that claim about Charles James Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, which is, without question, the most successful grassroots youth political organization in the conservative movement in history.
It was a shocking thing then, to see this 31-year-old, tall, athletic, cheerful, and, at times, goofy-looking character in the prime of his life and career be gunned down in broad daylight while doing what he did best: debating and arguing with people he disagreed with on the campus quad of Utah Valley University.
This senseless, targeted act of political assassination has not only deprived a family of a husband and a father, but it has deprived an organization of its leader, a nation of an earnest and good-hearted patriot, and the conservative political movement of a cheerful evangelist who succeeded in connecting with young people and changing hearts and minds, complete with an ever-expanding closet of corny political T-shirts.
And that was precisely why he was the target of so much vitriol. Vitriol and hatred that culminated in his untimely and horrific death. The effectiveness of his activism is precisely what vaulted Kirk into the stratosphere of recognition that made him a target for the evil that took place at Utah Valley University.
I won’t pretend to have known Kirk well. I met him on a handful of occasions while I was a college student many years ago. But I will always remember the time that I ran into him on a street corner in Washington and, against all odds, he remembered me and greeted me before I even realized it was him.
That affability was part of what made Kirk such an infectious personality, even as he showed a knack for efficiently reciting talking points on cable news and itched for a fight with every campus liberal who crossed his path and was willing to engage with him.
Kirk made a career out of advocating free speech on college campuses. And it is the cruelest fate that his young life was taken from him as he sought to engage in good-faith dialogue with the very people who wished him ill.
And it is also why his death is so shocking and painful to reckon with. The sense of horror and shock extended well beyond the conservative political class and has penetrated even the most apolitical people with any conservative sympathies. It is a clarion call for conservatives that they will never be left alone by those who align with the leftist political cause because their very existence is a threat to the Left.
EDITORIAL: WHAT THE MURDER OF CHARLIE KIRK MEANS
The inescapable message of this assassination is that many on the Left believe that the ideas of the conservative political project are so dangerous that it is acceptable to kill those who profess them. While Democratic Party leaders sought to denounce the killing, their voters took to social media by the hundreds of thousands to celebrate his death.
It makes Kirk’s death a true “turning point” in the national political discourse, one that raises the serious and dangerous question: If a man can’t speak his support for the president and his political agenda without fear of death, then where does that leave us?
