Charlie Kirk was a loving and dedicated husband and father; a pious, learned, and evangelizing Christian; and a hero, inspiration, and mentor to millions of young Americans trying to make sense of our turbulent political times. Many knew him much better (and for much longer) than I, but in recent years he had become my friend. He was always on the move, and yet I found he still managed, over and over again, to be generous with time he didn’t seem to have. He was a patriot—a vital and irreplaceable part of the Right in America. Because he was tireless, passionate, inspiring, and, above all, effective, he was a target. Now, he’s gone.
Charlie was a Lincoln fellow, supporter, and passionate defender of Claremont. When he attended our Lincoln fellowship in 2021, he was already one of the most famous men in American politics. His security detail was always close. And yet, busy and renowned as he was, he was a model Claremont fellowship participant. He was there to learn because he wanted to continue to hone his understanding and arguments on behalf of America and her founding principles.
His murder has affected the Claremont family in a profoundly personal way. I know the same is true throughout the movement he was a pillar of and the country he so loved. One of our senior staffers yesterday asked me, “What do we do?” I had nothing of my own to reply in the moment, but I think Charlie would have said, “Get back to work.” Yet not work as usual. He would have advised unflinching realism about what this means for America and the Right going forward.
We must face some ugly truths about our degraded civic bonds in recent years. I have urged friends not to overread the ugly gloating on display from some of the more nihilistic and fetid sectors of the online Left. An overwhelming majority of Americans, ordinary citizens and leaders alike, are horrified by Charlie’s murder.
But we must be clear-eyed about the sentiment at the fringe of the Left in America. It’s the same ethos that has always lurked in the Left’s revolutionary iterations and evolutions, whether communist, anarchist, socialist, woke, antifa, or tran-tifa. “For our friends and fellow travelers: mutual moral and financial support, rhetorical cover, coalitional power-sharing, celebration; for our enemies as we define them, at home and abroad: tyranny, war, and death.”
The left-of-center media, or parts of it, are trying to conceal, for as long as possible, the nature of the shooter’s motivation. We do not yet have a suspect in custody, and details are murky, but the Wall Street Journal has reported that there are etchings of pro-trans and anti-fascist messages on the unused ammunition in the assassin’s gun. Here are CNN’s version of those alleged facts: “Federal officials probe rifle and ammo scrawled with cultural phrases after Charlie Kirk killing.” The coy mendacity of that headline speaks for itself.
Trump ordered flags at half-mast through the weekend. There are likely a substantial number of people in America who regard that gesture with scorn and contempt. If a mere 0.5% of the American population celebrates, condones, or excuses this political assassination, that’s still over a million people.
Bridging America’s deep divisions and advancing the cause of civic friendship and harmony is a tall order. This is the very project that Charlie was undertaking the day he was shot, speaking in a public forum to anyone who cared to engage him. Nothing is fated, and public-spirited attention to the restoration of regime health is always a work in progress. It’s work we all should continue to pursue in good cheer. We should not, however, be too sanguine about the looming threats to American survival. We must give stern attention to the financial, intellectual, social, and cultural sources of violent left-wing extremism. President Trump announced his administration’s commitment to disrupting the networks that incubate and enable such extremism. This should not be a controversial policy and should be defended and assisted.
Charlie’s friends, allies, and admirers can honor his memory by doing what they are able, in their different spheres of influence across the country, small and large, to continue his work to return America to her ancient love of liberty, constitutional propriety, and greatness. May his life’s work and its powerful example of active patriotism inspire this generation and many hence to get back to work, with dedication and courage, on Charlie’s project of saving America and Western civilization.