Journalist Mark Halperin shared the incredible impact Charlie Kirk had on American politics and, as we have seen, his impact across the world.
Halper noted on his podcast Next Up that if Charlie Kirk had been a Democrat and done what he did in the service of a radical leftist like Barack Obama, “he would have been among the most venerated, celebrated, profiled, championed people in America.”
“My new reporting on Charlie Kirk, put aside the day-to-day headlines of what’s happened since his assassination. I think the bigger thing here is what Charlie represented, the person and his death, of course, matters extraordinarily to the people in his family, his friends, business associates, colleagues,” he began.
“But I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means more broadly and talking to a lot of people in the conservative movement who can explain this so well. MAGA folks who I’ve talked to in the last few days reflecting on Charlie’s life and why this has been so impactful. You hear about the impact not just from the President and the Vice President, people who knew Charlie personally.”
“But I’ve been struck on two way in other conversations as I’ve traveled the last few days. How much people who never knew Charlie and weren’t even particularly aware of what his day-to-day activities were, how much they’ve been struck by this. Now, part of it is just the horror of what happened and the horrible images of his murder that resonate with any human being. But a lot of it is for people in this country who supported President Trump, even in many cases, when they didn’t like him.”
“Why? Why is this so powerful? I think Charlie, biographically, and in terms of what he did in his career, has so many of the elements that have caused the MAGA movement to grow. Donald Trump, it’s often been said, didn’t lead this movement so much as figure out what’s there and get to the front of the line, in front of the parade, and lead folks, organize folks. What’s happened here, I believe, is that Charlie’s life, Charlie’s biography, is so resonant with folks because of the strands that it represents.”
“For decades, Conservatives in this country have felt aggrieved, alienated, shut out from so much of what is sometimes called the mainstream, because liberal institutions, the media, universities, big corporations in many cases, Hollywood, news, and so many the big institutions have not just alienated people on the right, but often hurt them, kept them from job advancement, kept them from having rewarded times in college, kept them from getting fair media coverage if they were in politics.”
“Charlie represented so many of the themes, so many of the specifics that people in MAGA have reacted against, and his death, his murder, has made them feel like one of their champions, one of their great success stories was eliminated as a symbolic not pushing back, regardless of who actually pulled the trigger.”
“Charlie was not in his life given credit by the establishment that he should have been. Had Charlie Kirk been a Democrat and done what he done in service of, say, Barack Obama, he would have been among the most fetted, celebrated, profiled, championed people in America.”
“Now, Charlie got plenty of credit in certain circles. This program certainly paid respect to what an extraordinary life he had. But he was not treated the way he had been. Hey, he wouldn’t have been a Democrat. So what are these themes? What are these elements of Charlie’s life that the establishment, the liberal establishment in particular, did not celebrate, did not feel a closeness to.”
He continued, “Charlie’s success occurring that way really undermined people on the left, and it’s a great source of inspiration to people in MAGA. Charlie started a popular show, a popular video podcast. He didn’t need CBS news or NBC news or the New York Times to help him do that. That ability was a great source of pride for Charlie, great source of pride for his followers. But again, it’s another way in which here’s a guy, rises up, develops a successful show on his own, and then he’s eliminated.”
“Okay. Another one related. Charlie was not with the establishment media. He was respectful to them. And you can find, probably as much for Charlie as any leading MAGA figure, you will find lots of liberal reporters who had dealings with them, who he was friendly with, who he often agreed to do interviews with, sometimes surprised me, but he didn’t need them, and he didn’t really associate with them. There’s some people, even some Conservatives, who will fly to Washington, DC or New York and do editorial boards or go out to dinner with reporters. Charlie didn’t do that much because he didn’t need to, and he didn’t really want to.”
“He’d rather be home with his family and long flight from Arizona. But that’s different. And the fact that someone without being chummy with the establishment press could succeed and then be eliminated.”
Halperin concluded, “But the two biggest factors are the fact that he was a conservative and that he was pro-Trump. And this is where the decades of history of all these institutions being biased against Conservatives and Republicans changes when Donald Trump comes on the scene. Again, make no mistake, you can go back to Nixon and Reagan and the Bush’s extraordinary bias against Republicans and Conservatives.”
“But Trump made it different. Donald Trump’s rise on the scene, even though, again, ironically, his whole career, including his 2016 presidential campaign, featured Trump’s close relationship with a lot of these cultural institutions that are liberal. They like Trump. He used to be a Democrat and a liberal. But as they turned on him after he beat Hillary Clinton, as they turned on him, anyone in this country, pro-Trump and pro-conservative, discriminated against by these liberal cultural institutions. And I’ve heard it for 10 years now. People saying they can’t wear a MAGA hat. They can’t say on a Zoom call in their workplace, ‘I’m for Trump.’ Now, since he has been reelected in 2024, that’s changed somewhat. It’s been one of the most, I think, under-discussed, under-understood, maybe misunderstood developments where you see it in the changes in the DI programs.”
“You see it in the willingness of some people to be way more outspoken about supporting Donald Trump. But from 2016 to 2024, and even now, all of the things that I’ve listed about Charlie that set him apart from the establishment approval matrix, they’re front and center. And again, to be a conservative, to be openly for Donald Trump, even now, in many places, is to court big trouble and to risk hurting your career. Charlie’s legacy is multifaceted. There’s so many things he achieved that people will remember him for.”
Watch Halperin’s full remarks: