The assassination of Charlie Kirk

I wanted to allow some time to pass since this tragic event to see how things would unfold.

PERSONAL ANECDOTES

Like many people I heard that Charlie Kirk had been shot from a social media alert. Having recently visited Salt Lake City to referee at a rugby 7’s tournament, at the end of my time in Utah, I was asked to ref a Touch Rugby clinic for a team that was the defending US Touch National Men’s Open champions at playing fields at Utah Valley University or UVU. A couple of the Touch players were students there and I was impressed with their facilities. A couple of LDS (Mormon) former players on the High School rugby team I help coach were unable to get a place at the then US college championship Brigham Young University (BYU) rugby team and settled for a place on the UVU team. Since then, probably a dozen of our alumni has gone to UVU since the academic admission criteria to get into the LDS Church owned BYU are now so stringent. When I heard that Charlie Kirk had announced the commencement of his Fall College Campus Tour at UVU I thought two things: first, of the students I knew who are attending UVU who would be excited to go to the rally and second, of the relatively easy run Charlie would get at a place like UVU. Whilst undoubtedly neighbouring BYU would have an even higher percentage of conservative students, nonetheless the cities south of Salt Lake City that comprise Utah County are some of the most conservative in the nation. Salt Lake City itself is quite liberal, as is the campus of the University of Utah located near downtown SLC (anther location I have reffed at a few times), and the Mormon population in the actual City of SLC is now quite low, whereas the towns and cities of Utah County (including Orem where UVU is) are around 90% LDS and Mormons are a group who vote Republican heavily even if there are some who are a little less enthusiastic about Donald Trump.

Charlie still would’ve faced some hostile liberal questioning even at UVU because one of the features of his college tours is he sets up a tent and a table on a square or grassed common (or any large open space) in the middle of campus and after delivering a quick stump speech, he opens the floor for questions about anything and he specifically asks for liberals and Democrat voters to come to the front of the queue. Charlie’s interactions with mostly hostile or anti-conservative students and his sharp, succinct, passionate yet respectful debating has become the stuff of legend, so legendary in fact that many of the viral clips of these interchanges on Instagram, Tik Tok and You Tube have been viewed in aggregate billions of times! There was an additional potential frisson local to Orem – Charlie is an avowed evangelical Christian speaking on a campus with a high number of Mormon students and there are some evangelicals who openly oppose Mormonism and campaign against the religion from pulpits and online. Charlie does not do this and appears respectful of other people’s religions and he has said on his show that half of his inner circle is LDS but commentators were expecting Charlie to get some stick from Mormon questioners tired of evangelical attacks on their church. That said, Charlie ought to have gone to UVU expecting strong local support from a mostly sympathetic audience.

I listen to Charlie’s podcast and when he is touring college campuses, usually once a week he broadcasts the highlights of a particular campus visit. I also follow his Instagram channel where clips of his more intense exchanges are posted. He also gives good summaries of the campus visits on his shows, giving his views of the political temperature on each campus. Always of particular interest is when Charlie visits campuses of state universities in liberal cities and in liberal states because the seeds of the massive rightward shift of 18- to 30-year-old voters in 2024 (especially males) became apparent to Charlie on these particular visits because he has been doing this for a decade and he could sense the trend.

Hearing that he’d been shot at UVU came as a huge shock – my first thought was, of all places ….. Utah County! The first footage was from far back from the tent and it was hard to gauge the seriousness. I began watching cable news for updates and at first there was little of substance about his condition. Then children of friends at the event who happened to be close in and got footage (or received it from others) sent the more shocking close up shots that were so graphic that I had to admit that he was a goner. But then media were reporting that he was in a stable but critical condition. Minutes later my cousin in Salt Lake forwarded me a text from her son who lives in Alpine much closer to Orem. His friend was part of the operating theatre nursing team at Timpanogos Regional Hospital prepped to receive Charlie and they had just been told to stand down because he had died on the way from UVU. In reality, it is clear now that he died instantly. And yet for another staggering 2 hours, the live media footage had no update other than Critical but Stable. This was to allow time for his wife Erika Kirk and his parents to be informed and for her to come to the hospital to do the formal identification. The two students I know who were at the rally, their parents say they are understandably traumatised and the one former player who is at UVU and who was so much of a Charlie Kirk fan that in 2016, he formed the first chapter of Turning Point USA at his local high school, he was at work but he is shattered by the news.

I give this detail to try to personalise what has become an internationally recognised tragedy. I have never met Charlie Kirk and I’ve not been to his conventions or rallies as I’m not the target age but I have been an avid follower and I do know people close to those who move in his inner circle and they have seen Charlie up close and personal and say that he is the same in person as he is in public. What can be said about someone so unique as Charlie Kirk?

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE LIFE OF CHARLIE KIRK

• He only ever attended one semester of university at Harper College, local to his native Chicago and instead he focused on setting up his college outreach operation Turning Point. From this time on, Charlie often spoke negatively of the time and money spent obtaining a degree from liberal state colleges and Ivy League schools, outside of specific profession-based degrees like engineering, law, accounting etc., as being a scam and many of his famous viral videos were of Charlie debating entitled liberal college kids on this topic.
• His early mentors were Rush Limbaugh, Andrew Breitbart, Glenn Beck and James O’Keefe, three of whom he met (plus meeting those in Breitbart’s inner circle) all at a young age. Charlie combined Breitbart’s outspoken clarity of the true nature of the left with Rush’s eloquent media savvy, Beck’s attention to detail and history and O’Keefe’s bulletproof investigative journalist tenacity. All of these men who were his mentors all said they saw greatness in Charlie even as a nerdy teenager.
• Charlie began touring campuses during Obama’s 2^nd term when liberalism was in the ascendency and, as you can imagine, his first forays were poorly attended but he was able to hone and refine his debating skills for years with mostly hostile audiences.
• Charlie was raised Presbyterian but became a born-again evangelical Christian. In addition to his formidable campus visit schedule, he was a powerful advocate in Christian conservative circles hosting numerous Christian outreach events targeting particularly young people.
• Charlie moved from Chicago to Arizona siting Turning Pont USA’s HQ in southeast Phoenix. TPUSA now has 450 employees with revenue of just under $100 million annually and has 1,200 High School and 900 College Chapters.
• Combined views of all media clips of Charlie’s debates during the 2024 campaign were estimated by Tik Tok researchers, looking at total reach as well as views, at a staggering 13 billion!
• He would give out over 35,000 red MAGA or white 47 hats on each campus tour. At the peak, he was giving away 3,000 to 5,000 per visit! The logistics of getting that many hats made and shipped are formidable.
• He met his wife Erika at a TP Conference and she is a strong willed and committed conservative Christian like Charlie. He is survived by a 3-year-old daughter and 1 year old son. She has been appointed as the CEO of Turning Point to carry on his legacy.
• Charlie was the person most instrumental in persuading JD Vance in 2021 to run for the US Senate in Ohio in the 2022 midterm elections and he was also influential in persuading Donald Trump to choose JD as his 2024 Vice Presidential running mate against very strong mainstream Republican advisor opposition.
• Charlie’s podcast and radio show, The Charlie Kirk Show, regularly ranks in the top 5 of political podcasts listened to. When you add the penetration of the various clips of his debates and speeches across social media, his total engagement is the highest of any political commentator.
• Charlie was largely self-taught being a voracious reader and also of being mentored by professors like Dr. Larry Arne (founder of conservative Hillsdale College) and such luminaries as Professor Victor Davis Hansen and Cambridge Professor James Orr who spoke at one of his rallies and who has a photographic memory and has memorised all the major works of English literature. Charlie persuaded him to spend an entire Sunday with him after his rally teaching him a compressed summary of the great literary works.
• Charlie is 6’ 4” tall and was very fit and active fastidiously adhering to eating healthy, not drinking alcohol and being strict about sleep and proper rest. He would have a digital Shabbat by switching off all media and electronics on Saturdays to spend the time with his family away from the limelight.
• He was patient, kind, obliging and accessible. As his fame grew, it became more and more difficult for him to go anywhere without being recognised and so his staff would sometimes try to find remote hole-in-the-wall isolated restaurants to attempt a meal without interruption. One time they did this in a small rural town in Southern California and managed to have a meal with minimal interruptions. However, as they went to leave there were two boys aged about 14 or 15 who were riding past on bikes as the party left the restaurant and they were yelling at Charlie as the car drove off. Charlie asked the driver to turn around and go back just so some random teenagers could have a quick chat and get a selfie.
• In recent years he became internationally famous and was recognisable in all major cities he visited, like a recent trip to the UK he was greeted constantly by well-wishers on the streets of English cities. A measure of his fame was highlighted by a recent meal at a restaurant in liberal New York City with recognisable and also famous Fox News hosts and in the 90 minutes that they were there, 150 people asked the Fox News people to take a selfie with Charlie and he politely obliged everyone who asked.
• He regularly interviewed the most powerful and influential people in the conservative movement including Trump, Vance, senior Senators and Congressman, fellow conservative media stars like Megan Kelly. Glenn Beck and Tucker Carlson. He interviewed many up-and-coming new media stars, podcasters, researchers and experts on a variety of fields. He championed the cultural war warriors like Matt Walsh and others and on Sundays, he would interview a range of pastors and Christian commentators.
• Many people are unaware of how adept Charlie was at navigating the complex and vicious swamp that is Washington DC. Charlie’s connections and almost encyclopedic knowledge of the intricate procedures of actual governing meant Charlie’s lobbying on behalf of Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees was seen by White House insiders as crucial to the success of getting his nominees confirmed.
• Charlie was friends with everyone and his amiable good nature meant he was able to bridge the various sometimes contentious factions inside the GOP (e.g. the foreign policy realists vs the war hungry neo-cons). Because he liked and was respected by his ideological opponents and by never making it personal, it meant those inside the party with opposing views were more likely to listen to Charlie. Accordingly, he was instrumental in helping heal rifts that could’ve torn the GOP apart.
• Trump’s victory was not just greatly assisted by the huge swing of Gen Z voters to Trump thanks to the hundreds of campus outreach “Prove Me Wrong” tours but Turning Point’s massive GOTV operation, especially early ballot collecting, across the 7 battleground states. And yet despite this herculean effort, Charlie would deflect the credit to others and to his team and be very reluctant to be seen as the main catalyst that he was.
• Charlie was single-handedly instrumental in brokering the relationship between Trump and RFK Jr thus bringing millions of MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) voters to vote for Trump.
• Most of his college questioners did not become confrontational ideological flashpoints but were from nervous young conservative students seeking help on how to navigate life on largely liberal campuses and young Christians on how best to live their faith. Often young people would ask big stage-of-life questions as they saw Charlie as a successful articulate Christian conservative and happily married family man who could show the way to their own success if life.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT HIS ASSASSIN?

The shooting occurred at 12.23pm Mountain time on Wednesday September 10^th only 3 minutes into his question time after a standard 20-minute stump speech. By the evening of the 10^th, law enforcement (the US accesses multiple layers of law enforcement in large cases like this beginning at the most local jurisdiction so the UVU Campus Police, then the Utah Department of Public Safety which is their State Police then the FBI) released grainy and distant CCTV footage of the shooter. At 10am on the 11^th a closer but still grainy picture of an early 20’s slender male dressed in dark jeans and a T-shirt with a stylised eagle on a US flag wearing sunglasses. By early evening of the 11^th a series of even closer, more defined pictures were released along with surveillance footage of his escape from the campus. These latest photos were detailed enough for the shooter’s family to identify him as 22-year-old student Tyler Robinson from Hurricane, a small town adjacent to St George in southern Utah. Tyler’s father was influential in persuading his son to turn himself in and he did so from where he was hiding in Orem and after surrendering is booked into the Utah County Jail at around 10pm on the 11^th – amazingly a mere 33 hours after the assassination!

It was clear from comments made to media by friends of the family and perusal of their various social media accounts that Tyler grew up in a practicing Mormon home and both parents and family are registered Republicans and Trump supporters and, as is common conservative rural American communities, are gun owners. These early facts gave license to left wing influencers and some in the media to wrongly claim that Robinson was MAGA. But pretty quickly and as the investigation progressed, the profile emerged of a once happy contented teenager from a religious home who became progressively radicalised to hard-core left-wing causes the most prominent being trans activism:

• Since he began a semester at the University of Utah (a typical very liberal state college), his family noticed a distinct sharp leftward turn in his political leanings.
• Investigators have found that Robinson frequented extremist left wing chat rooms and groups on the Dark Web and those on 4 Chan, Discord and Reddit.
• Early clues to his leanings came from what was engraved on the casings of the bullet fired and the bullets recovered when the hunting rifle used to kill Kirk was found in woods near the UVU campus: “hey fascist, catch” – a common meme used by violent Antifa thugs referencing the Helldiver 2 video game and its bomb dropping controller moves , “Oh Bella ciao, bella ciao, Bella ciao ciao ciao.” – this is another commonly used Antifa meme and references the famous Italian song that was popularised by the Italian resistance to Mussolini’s fascist regime, “notices bulge, oWo, what is this” – this is a Gen Z reference to people in the furry community (a bizarre subgroup of the wider trans community) and finally, “if read this you are gay, LMAO” – references a belief widespread amongst extreme anti conservative groups that Trump and his supporters are secretly gay.
• Then it was revealed that his roommate Lance Twiggs was actually his trans transitioning lover, a man trying to become a women, cementing his deep sympathy for the trans community who have proven in recent years to be extremely violent and antagonistic towards a conservative Christian like Kirk.
• The released Discord and text messages between Twigg and Robinson confirmed his involvement in the assassination and give some further light to his motives: “I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can’t be negotiated out”.
• As more information comes out, and as the FBI burrow deeper into the networks that radicalised Robinson, it has become clear that a number of people knew in advance of his plan. What law enforcement are currently focusing on is to what extent Robinson was helped in his quest to kill Kirk.
• There is a wider context being the announcements by Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel of the Department of Justice beginning a RICO (Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organization) investigation into left wing NGOs such as George Soro’s Open Society Foundation, the donations of radical left billionaire Neville Singham, the Ford Foundation and various others alleged to be the funding masterminds behind Antifa and many other radical organizations driving the attacks on ICE officers and the bombing of Tesla dealerships. Various senior Trump Administration officials have indicated their desire to winkle out those who fund and foment the kind of radical extremist views that was the cesspool of radicalism that Robinson clearly marinated in and this has culminated in Trump declaring Antifa a domestic terrorist organisation.

LIBERAL VERSUS CONSERVATIVE REACTIONS

Floyd vs Kirk

The death of George Floyd, who became an icon to the liberal left, gives us a stark contrast with the death of Charlie Kirk who was an icon to the conservative right. Floyd’s death in police custody in Minneapolis in May 2020 led to a veritable orgy of violence, rioting and looting in all the major cities across the US with the rioting in key liberal run cities in blue states that was left only partially checked because the police forces were more defanged from properly dealing to the rioting. This lead to billions of dollars in property damage of shops, businesses and even a police precinct, most particularly in Minneapolis where Floyd died. Even in better policed cities, inner city business owners still had to bear the cost of boarding up their premises.

When the news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination spread, there was not a single business in any city, let alone in very conservative Utah County where the killing occurred, that ever even had to contemplate boarding their frontages. Across the nation, angry and hurt conservatives did not take to the streets and riot, they gathered in large respectful vigils where prayers and speeches of patriotism and gratitude for Charlie were given. There was no body count and no need for a protestors bail fund. Cars had processions on roads and freeways with American flags flying and people who had not ever, or rarely, been religious showed up to churches in droves. Despite the provocation of such a heinous act, the right has not sought to retaliate with counter violence nor have any of its prominent leaders called for violent revenge other than to bring to justice the killer and any who may have aided and abetted him. Indeed, at Charlie’s massive Memorial Service in Glendale, Arizona, his grieving and weeping widow Erika dramatically embodied the Christian ideal of turning the other cheek and forgiving your enemies by publicly and emotionally forgiving her husband’s killer. As our esteemed host eloquently stated in his 22 September Post on the Memorial, it was a riveting moment! If ever there was a contrast between how the two main sides of our fractured political divide handle the violent death of someone dear to their cause, this was it.

The MSM lie ….yet again

The legacy media and Democrats predictably lied about the assassination to deflect any blame from their preferred side of the political fence. As soon as word of Robinson’s family background was released, Yahoo News, NBC, Associated Press and others announced breathlessly that Robinson was MAGA. Even a cursory glance of the initial evidence of who Robinson was and what his beliefs and motivations were would inform the average sentient human being that whatever ideology was present in his youthful upbringing, he was now the polar opposite of a conservative Trump lover. Kirk was Trump’s most vocal and public defender and promoter and Tyler vowed to kill him for his “hateful” speech. And sure enough, on social media, lefties and progressives harped on about how the killer was MAGA or “nothing to see here, there was no left leaning indoctrination”. Other reliably left leaning MSM commentators would spew their own version of obfuscation by saying with a straight face that it was not possible to discern any motive of the killer!

Cancel culture in reverse

Cancel culture is the insidious and destructive tactic employed by the left to enforce wokeness, speech codes and their extreme ideology by seizing on the social media comments (some posted decades earlier written in a flush of youthful indiscretion) of conservative leaning people. If a comment opposing the trans madness, or against climate change or in favour of conservative positions was uttered by a high-profile academic, complaints would rain down and people not supporting the new radical orthodoxy were at best publicly humiliated and shouted off the public stage but more often than not, dismissed from jobs, had fellowships withdrawn and banished from polite society. I could write a long Post on all the hundreds of conservatives across the First World who were brutally subjected to the left’s cancel culture.

So, when thousands of Kirk hating liberals took to social media to post their unrestrained glee at his death, some with the most vile and disgusting comments, they ran headlong into a series of conservative influencers sending their Kirk hating posts gloating over his murder (many of them in video form) to their shocked employers many of whom fired them for their bilious nastiness. Suddenly the left are shocked shocked when there are real world consequences for their hateful violence condoning rhetoric and suddenly have all become free speech absolutists. Across America over 1,500 teachers, academics, doctors, nurses and administrators have learned the hard way that rejoicing in the death of a person who holds different political views to you is an awful stark demonstration of a lack of empathy and humanity that some employers cannot tolerate in their workers. Perhaps the most dramatic illustration of this came from the fate of Jimmy Kimmel, the ABC late night comedian who promulgated the lie that Tyler Robinson was MAGA. Broadcast TV channels in the US who use the public airwaves are subject to stringent FCC regulations that require fairness and that material broadcast is seen as being for the public good. Cable channels and internet-based providers have no such restriction and can legally express more sharp-edged opinions. Two of the largest media companies (Nexstar and Sinclair who between them controlled over 60 ABC affiliate local TV stations) told ABC corporate that unless Kimmel publicly apologised for his blatant insensitivity and lie, they would no longer broadcast his show and that left ABC no choice but to suspend the show indefinitely because Kimmel apparently refused to apologise and doubled down. Kimmel has returned after a massive left wing freak out but it is highly ironic to watch the left screech loudly about one of their own being subject to the same cancel culture they cheered on for a decade AND to react more viscerally about Kimmel’s so-called loss of free speech than they ever did about Charlie Kirk’s death.

WHAT WILL BE THE IMPACT OF THIS AWFUL EVENT?

The outpouring of grief from this assassination was like nothing that anyone could’ve predicted and if those who opposed him, or who are sympathetic to what Robinson did (even in their hearts) thought that silencing Charlie somehow would diminish his impact, the events since his death have gone in the opposite direction to what anti conservatives would have hoped. Here is a summary of the extraordinary events:

• My social media algorithm likely skewers towards pro conservative content but I was stunned by the sheer number of clips of young people talking about the positive impact of Charlie had on their lives, of those who have vowed conservative focused activism in the aftermath of his death and of all the people who told of going to church for the first time ever, or the first time in decades. Then there are the reports of dozens of activists and influencers of a Christian bent who reported a massive influx of new people at their churches after the assassination.
• Within 24 hours of the assassination, Turning Point says they fielded 24,000 new requests for chapters, which is incredible given right now they have 900 college chapters and 1200 high school chapters. This figure has swollen to over 60,000. Now TPUSA acknowledge that young people from multiple schools and colleges are in this total as there are only 23,000 high schools and 6,000 colleges total in the whole country but it is a measure of the massive impact this killing has had.
• TPUSA’s management are veterans of many Trump rallies and were very familiar with the numbers attending, the logistics and the management of the press. They say the total numbers in attendance in and around the September 21^st Memorial service far exceeded the largest Trump rally they’d ever attended (the one at Madison Square Garden in New York City). The State Farm football stadium was filled to its maximum non-game capacity of 75,000 and the neighbouring Desert Diamond ice hockey arena held another 20,000 and TPUSA staff had a device that could detect cell phone pings in the immediate area around the two arenas and said that a total of 270,000 people were there for the live Memorial even if watching on screens. They also said that the media rack (the name given to the dedicated media area at a large event) was the largest they’d ever seen at any event and that space limitations meant some media couldn’t be accommodated in the State Farm Stadium. They were stunned at the huge numbers of foreign media requesting credentials.
• Unique live views of the Memorial across all live media that broadcast or streamed the event were assessed by TPUSA at 100 million and, given the massive reach of Charlie’s social media platform and the amount of views his debates and speeches get when broken into sound bites, they believe that over time, the number of total views of key clips of eulogies posted will mushroom into the billions like Charlie’s biggest most viral clips did.
• The viral highlight of the Kirk Memorial was the brave speech given by his widow Erika who personified the Christian ideal of “turning the other cheek” by publicly forgiving Ryan Robinson for the murder of her husband. It was brave and powerful and has helped set a tone on the right of not trying to seek violent retribution.

Finally, it is hard to find in recent US history an equivalent deliberate murder of a high-profile figure like Kirk that had such an impact. 1960’s civil rights campaigner Martin Luther King is perhaps the closest. He was high profile, spoke eloquently to large crowds and, at the time, his preaching of racial equality was unpopular with Southern whites. Certainly, MLK’s niece was admiring of Kirk and favourably compared him to MLK. Others point to JFK and RFK but, IMO, those assassinations were of a magnitude bigger and more consequential as they were occupiers of, or a candidate for, the highest political office in the land. Furthermore, their assassinations were greeted with ubiquitous shock, horror and sadness whereas Kirk’s has seen a very modern partisan divide of reactions. Regardless, his death is going to have wide ramifications. Electoral numbers ‘nerds’ like Captain Seth Keshel (who has analysed voter registration trends across every US county for decades), has seen a surge in Republican registration above and beyond a trend that was already happening right after Charlie’s death. The repeated nasty hate filled rhetoric of the left can only be hastening this trend as Independents and moderate Democrats have grow tired on the extreme polemics coming from left leaning influencers and even prominent Democrats. There will be somewhat of a litmus test of the partisan political waters in November as two states (Virgina and New Jersey) elect their statewide office holders (Governor and state legislators) off the regular 2- and 4-year US election cycle held in even numbered years. On the religious front, the revival in Christian worship, especially amongst the young, has massively accelerated since Charlie’s death. Turning Point posted a 5-minute video of a montage of dozens of people on social media attesting to greater religiosity since the assassination and anecdotally, this is still borne out in my own social media feeds. Let us hope that the ongoing law enforcement investigation and the trial of the killer will bring some closure. I have friends that live in Orem and Provo and also Salt Lake City who are aghast, embarrassed, saddened and sickened that such an act of political violence could occur in a community that is renown for low crime rates. Let us hope that the angry political rhetoric can cool somewhat so that we can more fully engage in what Charlie openly and enthusiastically stood for, that the respectful and frank verbal debate of our differences is better than resorting to violence.