It's been one year since Charlie Kirk was murdered and what do we have to show for it? Not very much. Things in the conservative movement have gone as badly as we could have expected them to without the man who held them all together with a smile, a kind word, with confidence in the future, and with a deep and real love for the United States of America. In this year since he's been gone there have been accusations and lingering acrimonies, open fights, and vicious recriminations.
It's been ugly. It's been bad for friendships. It's been horrible for the movement. And we're about to see if all of the in-fighting and cancellations will cost the GOP the midterm elections. With Charlie on the team, even captaining that team from time to time, it felt like even if we lost a game or two, we were still walking away with the championship at the end of the season.
The fracturing we've seen has been disappointing, and that is a severe understatement. Following the live-streamed brutal assassination of the Turning Point USA founder, there were a few days where people spoke about coming together, sharing God's love, spreading the word of salvation. There was collective prayer and a willingness to bridge gaps, a determination to build on Charlie's legacy.
And then, somewhere in those early days, it all collapsed. Controversies and conspiracies about his murder were manufactured, perhaps for clicks, perhaps in good faith, perhaps out of a confusion that so many of us had about how a great man could be taken down apparently by just some dumb kid lashing out because of the hate in his heart.
It is so crazy how good men can be felled by something seemingly so small, a tsetse fly, a single bullet from a borrowed rifle. Charlie wasn't the first man to be murdered for pathetic reasons, and he won't be the last. There is no honor in taking a great man down and there is no honor in slitting a man's throat to silence his voice.
But in the year that's followed, this is what supporters of the conservative movement that Charlie led with grace and wisdom have allowed to happen. For sure, not everyone. There have been stalwart voices and diligent efforts to not just remember his legacy but to further it, to make Heaven crowded, and of course to continue the mission of bringing the United States back to a meritocracy where individuals can thrive without government handouts and we can all remember what it means to be American without grievance.
But those voices haven't quite been the loudest. It would be hard to be louder than the detractors who have come both from right and left, who show up at drag shows to mimic Charlie being shot in the neck and falling with the impact. Kids on TikTok turned his murder into a fashion meme. Activists “joked” that others with whom they disagreed should and would meet the same fate.
Assassination culture got loud this year and the leftist violence that Charlie spoke about, that he condemned, that he argued showed just how much the movement of Turning Point, of patriotism, had to do to reach the young people of America got even bigger. Leftist violence has not been condemned by the socialists who have taken over the Democratic Party, it has instead been heightened, glorified, and the rhetoric of hatred, of murder over political ideology, has metastasized to become part of the fabric of a leftism that seeks to take over America and remake it into something neither our founders nor Charlie would recognize.
It’s easy to say that “it’s got to stop,” that the socialists need to quit supporting violence, that conservatives need to stop being at each other’s throats. It’s hard to see how that could or would happen. The socialist faction of the Democratic Party likes the violence, it works for them, it sows chaos and chaos is what they court because it leads to unrest, upheaval, and revolution.
What do the conservatives, the podcasters, the pundits, get from attacking one another? From in-fighting? Charlie spoke daily on his show about how key it was to not get bogged down in the little trivialities, that the work of saving the country was about big picture, not petty details. Every one of the issues tearing conservatives apart are problems, sure, but they’re not worth sacrificing elections to the socialists over.
Yet here we are, verging on an election where socialist candidates have gained a foothold because the conservative movement is not offering the young people of this country anything tangible. The socialists offer free housing, free education, free buses, free healthcare, and conservatives say, “Hey, liberty is great, wouldn’t you rather have that?”
Charlie knew that more had to be done, that there was no time for in-fighting and rancor, that American youth must be embraced, lifted up, and given a real, tangible path toward a better future. If there’s any conspiracy that’s made itself plain this year, it’s that the conservative right would rather quibble over minutiae than find a way to give the kids a fruitful way forward with faith, family and real meaning. Charlie knew that competing against the empty promises of socialism was hard but necessary and small disputes must be sacrificed to that mission. Do you?
It's been ugly. It's been bad for friendships. It's been horrible for the movement. And we're about to see if all of the in-fighting and cancellations will cost the GOP the midterm elections. With Charlie on the team, even captaining that team from time to time, it felt like even if we lost a game or two, we were still walking away with the championship at the end of the season.
The fracturing we've seen has been disappointing, and that is a severe understatement. Following the live-streamed brutal assassination of the Turning Point USA founder, there were a few days where people spoke about coming together, sharing God's love, spreading the word of salvation. There was collective prayer and a willingness to bridge gaps, a determination to build on Charlie's legacy.
And then, somewhere in those early days, it all collapsed. Controversies and conspiracies about his murder were manufactured, perhaps for clicks, perhaps in good faith, perhaps out of a confusion that so many of us had about how a great man could be taken down apparently by just some dumb kid lashing out because of the hate in his heart.
It is so crazy how good men can be felled by something seemingly so small, a tsetse fly, a single bullet from a borrowed rifle. Charlie wasn't the first man to be murdered for pathetic reasons, and he won't be the last. There is no honor in taking a great man down and there is no honor in slitting a man's throat to silence his voice.
But in the year that's followed, this is what supporters of the conservative movement that Charlie led with grace and wisdom have allowed to happen. For sure, not everyone. There have been stalwart voices and diligent efforts to not just remember his legacy but to further it, to make Heaven crowded, and of course to continue the mission of bringing the United States back to a meritocracy where individuals can thrive without government handouts and we can all remember what it means to be American without grievance.
But those voices haven't quite been the loudest. It would be hard to be louder than the detractors who have come both from right and left, who show up at drag shows to mimic Charlie being shot in the neck and falling with the impact. Kids on TikTok turned his murder into a fashion meme. Activists “joked” that others with whom they disagreed should and would meet the same fate.
Assassination culture got loud this year and the leftist violence that Charlie spoke about, that he condemned, that he argued showed just how much the movement of Turning Point, of patriotism, had to do to reach the young people of America got even bigger. Leftist violence has not been condemned by the socialists who have taken over the Democratic Party, it has instead been heightened, glorified, and the rhetoric of hatred, of murder over political ideology, has metastasized to become part of the fabric of a leftism that seeks to take over America and remake it into something neither our founders nor Charlie would recognize.
It’s easy to say that “it’s got to stop,” that the socialists need to quit supporting violence, that conservatives need to stop being at each other’s throats. It’s hard to see how that could or would happen. The socialist faction of the Democratic Party likes the violence, it works for them, it sows chaos and chaos is what they court because it leads to unrest, upheaval, and revolution.
What do the conservatives, the podcasters, the pundits, get from attacking one another? From in-fighting? Charlie spoke daily on his show about how key it was to not get bogged down in the little trivialities, that the work of saving the country was about big picture, not petty details. Every one of the issues tearing conservatives apart are problems, sure, but they’re not worth sacrificing elections to the socialists over.
Yet here we are, verging on an election where socialist candidates have gained a foothold because the conservative movement is not offering the young people of this country anything tangible. The socialists offer free housing, free education, free buses, free healthcare, and conservatives say, “Hey, liberty is great, wouldn’t you rather have that?”
Charlie knew that more had to be done, that there was no time for in-fighting and rancor, that American youth must be embraced, lifted up, and given a real, tangible path toward a better future. If there’s any conspiracy that’s made itself plain this year, it’s that the conservative right would rather quibble over minutiae than find a way to give the kids a fruitful way forward with faith, family and real meaning. Charlie knew that competing against the empty promises of socialism was hard but necessary and small disputes must be sacrificed to that mission. Do you?
