Sunday was Charlie Kirk’s memorial. Attended in person by 200,000 people and watched on television and livestreamed by an estimated 25-30 million more on YouTube, X, Twitch, and Facebook, the Kirk memorial’s viewership rivaled major events.
To put this in perspective, consider that most network airtime was dedicated to NFL broadcasts. In fact, despite almost no network support, viewership met or surpassed President Ronald Reagan’s funeral.
More than any other event in recent U.S. history, Kirk’s tragic assassination presents a chance to change America for the better. Splintering Republicans, divisive as the crucial 2026 midterms approach, may be unifying behind Charlie and Erika’s message for harmony. The handshake between President Donald Trump and Elon Musk may symbolize old wounds healing. Only the most obtuse Democrats could miss the effect that Kirk’s urging for hope, love, and patriotism has on generations that yearn for an end to the old corrosive politics and to replace it with an approach that helps, rather than demonizes, average Americans.
MSNBC and CNN hosts acknowledged the power behind Charlie’s widow Erika’s 30-minute speech. On CNN, former Democratic National Committee communications director Xochitl Hinojosa said that Erika “came to the moment” and that “when our country needs leadership, when our country needs to hear those messages of coming together, it was the widow who did it.”
Nearly a quarter-century ago, following 9/11, many Americans felt confident that the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, Pennsylvania, would jolt entrenched Washington into taking national security more seriously and, by extension, prioritize Americans’ safety over special interests. But nothing changed; swamp conditions worsened.
In 2002, the Department of Homeland Security, an encouraging sign was soon dashed. DHS was led mostly by immigration expansionists. The department’s first secretary, former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, was a President George W. Bush-style amnesty proponent.
Michael Chertoff (D), a DACA cheerleader, followed Ridge. Then came President Barack Obama’s choices — Janet Napolitano (D) and Jeh Johnson (D), both unabashed immigration expansionists. Finally, under President Joe Biden, the DHS secretary position was given to the Cuba-born Alejandro Mayorkas, who threw the border open to 10 million or more illegal immigrants that included Iran-backed Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists.
In the days immediately following 9/11, powerful California Sen. Dianne Feinstein suggested that F-1 student visas should be suspended for six months — her reasonable and modest proposal. But University of California administrators, whose institutions would lose millions in out-of-state tuition fees if student visas were frozen, influenced Feinstein to drop her idea. Then Feinstein worked with immigration aficionado and Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy to write the “Enhanced Border Security and Visa Entry Reform Act,” which required all visa applicants from countries that sponsor terrorism to undergo background checks. More than two decades later, the F-1 is one of the most abused visas, second only to the tourist visa. About 40% of the illegal alien population of 15-20 million post-Mayorkas arrived with visas and then overstayed or otherwise abused them.
Today, since 9/11, the foreign-born F-1 and M-1 student population has reached 1.6 million. No one — neither Congress nor college administrations — knows if they should be treated as friends or foes. Multiple historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs, went into lockdown this year on 9/11 after threats were directed at their campuses. The Muslim population residing in the U.S. has more than doubled since 9/11. Birthright citizenship and chain migration mean that their populations will increase exponentially. Anti-American sentiment across college campuses and in Congress has intensified.
Charlie Kirk was successfully encouraging Americans of all ages, especially the country’s youth, to realize the blessing that “America First” represents. Perhaps the young Americans who understood Charlie’s message will run for office themselves or, at least, elect politicians more like Charlie than the self-serving elitists in Congress who pretend to serve the national interest.
But no one should get ahead of himself. Remember that not even the 9/11 terrorist attack that killed 3,000 innocent citizens was frightening enough to motivate Congress to protect vulnerable Americans. The enthusiasm that Charlie and Erika Kirk’s Turning Point USA generates, plus the hundreds of thousands more who, after turning up this week in Glendale to pay tribute, will be the start of a unified citizens’ quest for better government.
But remember the cautionary adage: there’s many a slip between cup and lip.
Joe Guzzardi is an Institute for Sound Public Policy analyst who has written about immigration for more than 30 years.