The easiest way to understand Charlie Kirk’s death is to state the facts: Kirk was a political entrepreneur at the zenith of his influence during a very dangerous time for the business of American politics.
That straightforward accounting will be no less elucidative (and may well be more so) regardless of who assassinated Kirk this week.
In the hours after his murder — which took place in full view of the public at a campus political event in Utah — top Republicans and Democrats largely sang from the same hymn sheet. The business of American politics isn’t supposed to be dangerous, let alone murderous, they declared, in unison.
One of the basic tenets of any democracy says political differences are settled through debate and ultimately at the ballot box. (Don’t tell Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.)
It’s a noble idea and like all noble ideas, it’s worthy of aspiration. Some nations strive accordingly, which is to say the body politic earnestly endeavors to manifest a commitment to the peaceful adjudication of ideological disputes. America in 2025 simply isn’t such a nation.
Kirk was a lot of things. And Donald Trump wasn’t wrong, necessarily, to call him “legendary.” One thing Kirk wasn’t, though, is a part of any solution to the problem of inflammatory political rhetoric in America.
To be clear, I’m not “blaming” Kirk for his own assassination. In the strictest (narrowest) sense of the term “blame,” there’s no question as to who was at fault for the murder: The person who pulled the trigger.
That’s as far as we can and, more importantly, as far as we should, go when it comes to fault-finding. Because from there, things get disputatiously contingent and in a helluva hurry. The same way they do in all but the most categorical acts of random violence.
Whatever you want to say about Kirk’s murder, it wasn’t random. Kirk was killed in connection with his political beliefs and, it must be noted, his political comport, both of which were unapologetically and deliberately provocative.
Kirk was MAGA booster extraordinaire. A conservative organizer par excellence. And an influencer with few, if any, peers on the new American right. He was, in a word (or two), a savant. But he was also a preeminent culture warrior who tacked to the rightward extremes on virtually every major sociopolitical issue.
Kirk traces his political awakening in part to the late Rush Limbaugh, who eventually became a friend and a large donor to Turning Point, Kirk’s conservative youth league-turned organizational juggernaut. I don’t doubt his conservative bona fides, but it was never clear to me (and still isn’t) whether Kirk was a true MAGA believer or simply the most adroit and polished among an otherwise motley collection of opportunists who recognized in Trump a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
Kirk got his start in Republican circles evangelizing around Tea Party talking points and pushing the sort of vacuous, intellectually lazy bluster that passes for libertarianism among today’s conservatives. Like a lot of other Tea Party acolytes, Kirk embraced MAGA only after Trump won the GOP nomination in 2016. His immersion in the movement grew commensurate with the scope of the Republican party’s capture.
By and by, Kirk ingratiated himself with Trump such that he became a kind of unofficial adviser and, ultimately, a powerbroker with the capacity to make or break entire political careers on the Republican side of the aisle. At the same time, he grew ever closer with the Trump family, particularly Don Jr., and accepted every facet of MAGA as one might the Gospel, including the movement’s Christian nationalist streak and everything that goes along with it.
By 2024, Kirk was among the most recognizable, outspoken personalities in the MAGAsphere and, as I wrote in the short editorial accompanying Wednesday evening’s mailer, he was far more instrumental than Trump when it came to generating political engagement among conservatives under 30. Indeed, Kirk was credited by some with delivering the 2024 election to Trump via the youth vote.
Kirk, then, was much more than “a prominent figure” among young conservatives. He was, arguably, the most important character in the MAGA universe other than Trump himself, despite having never held elected office nor occupied any official role in any administration.
By every account, including and especially his own, Kirk relished his position as undisputed leader of the young American right, and even more so the informal mantle of chief propagandist for a schismatic political movement animated first and foremost by antagonistic demagoguery, although he wouldn’t describe MAGA in those terms.
Kirk had every intention of expanding his influence such that Turning Point might one day supplant the Koch network and Rupert Murdoch’s media empire as the agenda-setter for American conservatism. Some would argue he achieved that goal already, at least on some vectors.
The language of far-right populism — the rhetorical tricks of the trade — isn’t especially difficult to master. And youth are famously impressionable. Kirk was directly responsible for the indoctrination of millions of young Americans some of whom were doubtlessly radicalized this week by what many on the right were keen to describe as martyrdom.
Whether he was a true believer in the beginning, Kirk probably was by the end. There’s only so long you can propagandize before you start to believe your own rhetoric. On September 10, 2025, Kirk became a victim of his own success in a very literal sense of the phrase.
What happens next is anyone’s guess, but we’d be dangerously remiss to ignore the possibility that Kirk’s murder will be exploited by those who called him a friend in the same fashion he might exploit the situation had they met their end under similar circumstances — namely by instrumentalizing the tragedy to advance the very same agenda which, uncouth as this may sound, contributed to it.
The last paragraph here presents–in more cynical, more complex (more honest?) terms–what Matthew Dowd of MSNBC said of the Kirk murder in the heat of the moment. Dowd was immediately taken out (of his job)…..
I don’t think what I said is comparable to what Dowd said at all. What I said in that closing paragraph is a fact. The reactionary right — and really just political actors in general — tends to leverage tragedies in a very cynical way. That’s just the truth. I think Dowd deserved to be fired, frankly, if only because it’s an idiot who doesn’t realize that saying what he said, when he said it, was likely to jeopardize his career. I can’t suffer someone who’s that oblivious, and if it wasn’t obliviousness on his part it was emotion, and that’s even worse. The whole reason I waited a day to write about this is because I wanted to produce something mostly neutral and totally free of emotion. That’s very important to me. It’s why people trust me: Readers know, when I write something, that I’ve given it due consideration. That’s why on the (increasingly rare) occasions I employ blatant sarcasm and abrasive satire in the political context (e.g., in “NSFW”), people give me the benefit of the doubt.
The man was a charlatan who built an empire out of “owning the libs”. We can condemn the violence without feigning surprise. In fact, some would say the potential for violence like we saw yesterday is one very good reason NOT to travel around the country begging people to argue with you in public settings about hot button issues.
If you are grief-stricken over the gun shooting of Charlie Kirk, just pretend he was a kid in an elementary school, and you’ll probably forget about the whole thing.
How right you are. It says so much about this country’s general character and maybe humankind as well. As an aside, one doesn’t account for more than a statistic outside your circle of friends and family unless you have a social following.
+1
Not just ‘thoughts’ and not just ‘prayers,’ but ‘thoughts and prayers.’ Fixed it!
Trump, by his own words yesterday, is using Kirk’s killing the way he uses everything – to promote his authoritarian agenda. While this event might have served the country by pulling us back from the edge, Trump will make sure it creates the divide and hate of ‘other’ that he needs.
His $100,000,000 annual revenue stream was built on statements like, “I think it’s worth some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.” When asked about the number of annual school shootings, he flippantly replied, “Counting or not counting gang violence?”
He will be remembered for his use of words that often wounded, and more often, divided. “Democrats hate America” was a phrase uttered at most of his rallies and became his siren call to ignite the tinderbox of racial and class resentment. That’s his legacy.
Our legacy should be to demonstrate a higher purpose in America’s rapidly disappearing democratic Republic.
“That is a prudent deal.”
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
The last paragraph, it’s incisive.
I found it ironic yesterday, the 25th anniversary of 9/11, that we found ourselves witnessing a panicked populist government advocating for violence in response to a violent act that they had practically no information about.
Poetic.
One more thought, when the law ceases to apply equally to everyone and the general population lose faith in its ability to be properly applied as the bedrock of a nation, vigilantism increases. When people feel that the law is an empty promise they feel that they must take matters into their own hands, often violently, in order to obtain equal justice.
The Supreme Court created the mess we are in now, and actions like Kirk’s assassination become more likely, not less, the further that body gets from being able to apply established law.
Also, how far we have fallen as a nation that Brazil… BRAZIL, is a more capable democracy than we are? What a terrible time to be an American, the supposed bastion of freedom for the world.
Last paragraph spot on. Some of those in power will attempt to exploit CK’s death in ways that make the current autocracy appear tame. Look for trumped up reasons to seize assets and otherwise freeze activities of non-Far Right nonprofits and PACs. Enemies of the State may be arrested in ways that make Bolton’s arrest appear justified. Which is consistent w/ the MO: keep pushing the norms so whatever happened two days ago looks ‘ok’ compared w/ what happened yesterday.
This week I have discovered how out of it I actually am in my own world of thoughts and ideas because before this week I have never heard of Charlie Kirk. Nor have I seen his name or heard his preaching. Under the circumstances I have decided there is no need for me to catch up on this front, so one less thing to do. Trying to avoid as much MAGA propaganda as possible has apparently worked in my case so I’ll catch up here if it looks worthwhile.
+1
I, too, had no idea who he was. Nor was I aware of his killing until my online gun groups were overrun with “everyone needs to arm up now!” messages . . . including the “left-leaning” gun groups . . .
Tangentially, there aren’t a lot of stock plays on the arming of America.
The exploitation mentioned in the last paragraph is a sad truth but is unfortunately what happens in today’s political environment. Tragedies are exploited for political gain on all sides as long as it fits the narrative. I am not sure where America goes from here. Seems like a dark place but maybe that’s how it felt in the 60’s and 70’s. Time moves on
If the person in custody is indeed the assassin, we have an example of the infighting on the far right. The ‘groyper’ folk think maga isnt ‘right’ enough when it comes to nativism, and national Christianity. One can see this in Fl. Desantis v Trump. On deck for gov is Byron Donalds vs Desantis preference for his own wife. They fight for who can ‘own the libs’ or get further out to the right….the result of gerrymandering and a closed primary system.