Not many people ascend to the level of an American hero upon their premature demise. The list of our nation’s political assassinations turned national martyrs is short yet distinguished:
- Abraham Lincoln
- John F. Kennedy
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Malcolm X
- Robert Kennedy
- Charlie Kirk
September, 10th, marked the one-year anniversary of Charlie’s untimely assassination while doing what he felt called to, namely speaking to a crowd of college students, challenging them to think outside of the proscribed narrative pervading campuses across the United States. It is a narrative that assaulted our nation, its founding fathers, the institution of marriage, the sanctity of life, even the Bill of Rights by which we are assured our civil liberties.
What made those men’s memories worth preserving among the short list of American heroes is their courage to stand against an onslaught of enemies both open and subversive to the American people and their God-given freedoms. Lincoln opposed half of the country bent on keeping otherwise free men and women enslaved; Kennedy opposed a powerful intelligence and military-industrial complex willing to defy the Commander in Chief to wage wars; Martin Luther King Jr. stood defiantly against hypocrisy of institutional racism; Robert Kennedy turned the federal arm of law enforcement against the machinations of the underworld mafia who wielded enough power to elect presidents; and Charlie Kirk bravely stood in the gap against the onslaught of Marxist ideology unleashed against America’s youth and our institutions of learning.
Charlie’s rise to prominence was meteoric and born out of his indefatigable will. Armed only with a high school education and the genius spirit of an autodidact who loved America, he set out to build the most powerful conservative political machine dedicated to preserving the values inherent to the Constitution and the republic for which it stands – one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
His method was simple yet not easy. Go to campuses, concert halls, rallies, and airwaves and use the cherished American right to freedom of speech to encourage debate. Where the left impugned America as a nation worth dissolving, Charlie challenged the notion; it was worth saving. While the educators pushed godless communism, Charlie reminded them our rights are inalienable because there is a God who grants them to all. The weapon of division by dialectic fostered black versus white, straight versus LGBTQ, men versus women, feminism versus the patriarchy, transsexual versus biological sexes, Democrat versus Republican, yet Charlie’s response was to find common ground. As the left employed cancel culture and silenced dissent, Charlie refused to cancel or be canceled by exercising his right to assemble and keep speaking into the storm sent to sweep away dissenters. The social justice warriors set their eyes on selective justice, while Charlie maintained that true justice is blind to race, sex, religion, political affiliation, and status.
Though he was accused of being hateful, the videos and transcripts proved otherwise. If he was guilty of hatred, it was only toward lies, deception, and a set of ideas that were robbing his generation of their inheritance as Americans.
Charlie’s popularity among the younger generations grew bilaterally, as was seen the day he died. After having been credited by many with his organization, Turning Point USA, being the catalyst for Donald Trump’s election in 2024, his political and cultural influence was palpable. Despite the success of Trump’s election, Charlie was brought to tears. They were not tears of joy but of relief, knowing his political enemies were likely to try to have him imprisoned. Sadly, his relief would be short-lived.
One of Charlie’s axioms in life was to be a cheerful warrior, which he exhibited daily on his podcast and in interviews. Another he shared with an audience came from his observations during COVID where he reasoned to “you better keep asking questions, because that is the only thing that keeps us free”. Among those who kept asking him at his rallies was a group who questioned such things as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIPAC) influence in American politics. They asked why the Epstein files hadn’t been released as promised. They challenged his stance as a Zionist or supporter of Israel who appeared to be waging a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Gaza with the funding and blessing of the Trump Administration. Questions turned into accusations, and accusations oftentimes were characterized as anti-Semitism.
Charlie gamely defended America’s relationship to Israel on both geopolitical and religious grounds; however, his interlocutors increased, coming from both the left and the right. Among those challenging his views were long-time friends and co-combatants such as Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson. Suddenly, the calls to cancel both came from inside the camp. Just a few months before his assassination, one man asked him about his relationship to Candace out of concern for her stance on Israel. Charlie remained principled and defended the friendship, stating, “Candace is a great friend with a lot of fun opinions…we disagree, but what I don’t do is I don’t stop being friends with someone because people are trying to morally blackmail me…. That’s a left-wing tactic, and we should rise above it.” He took the same stance with Tucker by inviting him to speak at a TPUSA event days later, encouraging him to “go max” with whatever he was going to say that day, even if it was criticism of Israel’s government.
As a result, the power of the Israeli lobby was stirred and began to question Charlie’s loyalty to Israel. In a now-famous interview on the Patrick Bet-David podcast, Charlie questioned the narrative of October 7th. Rumors had begun to surface regarding the lengthy response time of the IDF to Hamas’ invasion and subsequent slaughter of some 1.200 Israeli citizens. Charlie asked, “Was there a stand-down order? I’ve been to the Gaza border. It takes 45 minutes to fly there by helicopter from Jerusalem. It took them eight hours? I don’t buy it.”
Famous for asking questions and changing minds, he now appeared to be rethinking America’s influence regarding Israeli foreign policy.
He then came out and demanded the Epstein files, followed by asserting the Marxist movement in America had been largely bankrolled by Jewish donors, such as George Soros and others. He said these things, expressing concern for both President Trump and Jews being targeted by those same Marxist forces.
Suddenly Charlie’s Jewish donors, many of whom had helped build TPUSA with financial support, came calling and asked for an intervention. They met at Bill Ackman’s house in the Hamptons, after which Charlie spoke publicly about the pressure they applied to rein in his current line of questioning. On the Megyn Kelly show, Charlie vented about being called an anti-semite for simply asking questions. His support for Israel was waning and was captured in a text exchange where he wrote: “Jewish donors have lived up to all of the stereotypes leaving me no choice but to leave the pro-Israel cause.”
Shortly thereafter, on X, a tweet from InfoWars co-anchor Harrison Smith read, “I’m not going to name names, but I was told by someone close to Charlie Kirk that Charlie thinks Israel will kill him if he turns against them.” The tweet went out August 13th of 2025. Charlie was assassinated less than a month later.
Of course, the official story to date is that Tyler Robinson, who had been radicalized by the left, killed Charlie from the rooftop of the Losee building on the Utah Valley University campus. However, the questioners are bifurcating yet again, with many asserting Israeli involvement. The MAGA movement Charlie once led is now post-MAGA America First versus MAGA loyalists, with the future of the Republican Party and conservatives now in limbo.
Thankfully, the spirit of debate that Charlie cherished remains alive and well. A recent debate between MAGA loyalists such as Gerald Morgan Jr. and new TPUSA debate coach Andrew Wilson versus America First champions Alex Jones and Joe Kent sparked lively back and forth over the hot topics currently dividing the base – namely Israel, AIPAC, the Iran war, the Epstein files, and a potential third party forming with now post-MAGA figures like Carlson, Kent, Massie, and Marjorie Taylor Greene.
We know where Charlie would have stood – keep asking questions and fight for America’s future as the republic for which it stands – one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
