Breitbart passed away from heart failure on March 1, 2012, tied to hypertrophic cardiomyopathy with focal coronary atherosclerosis, which he had been diagosed with the year before.
Kirk stated that he was in high school the year Breitbart passed away, adding that he had kicked off his political career by volunteering for political campaigns in northern Illinois. He went on to mention that he was taken by Breitbart at the time, calling him an "incredible, magnanimous, just life force of a man."
"He was winsome, clear, cutting edge. And he was everything I loved about where the conservative movement was headed. It had a rebellious spirit, it was free-thinking, it was entrepreneurial, it was in your face."
"I remember, eleven years ago today, I got the push notification on my phone from Fox News. Andrew Breitbart dead. I never met Andrew Breitbart, and he was dead at 43, and it sent shockwaves, for good reason, throughout the entire conservative movement."
Kirk showed to his viewers what he believes to be the final speech that Breitbart gave, which was at CPAC in early 2012.
Breitbart begins, "Ask not what the candidate can do for you, but what you can do for the candidate...I will march behind whoever our candidate is, because if we don't, we lose. There are two paths. There are two paths. One is America, and the other one is Occupy."
"Anyone that's willing to stand next to me to fight the progressive left, I will be in that bunker, and if you're not in that bunker, because you're not satisfied with this candidate, more than shame on you. You're on the other side."
The Republican nominee would be Mitt Romney, who ultimately lost to former President Barack Obama in the 2012 presidential election. There were a number of individuals within the Republican Party who believed Romney to be too moderate, which gave rise to polarizing figures, such as President Donald Trump, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, Texas Governor Rick Perry, and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.
Breitbart is credited with what is known as the Breitbart Doctrine, which suggests that politics is downstream from culture. In order to change the political landscape in a meaningful way, the culture that gives rise to a given political landscape needs to be changed first. And in order to change culture, the beliefs and attitudes of the populace must be changed.
