By News18,Reshmi Dasgupta

Copyright news18

Whether the assassin knew it or not, there was more riding on his actions at the Utah Valley University than merely the inchoate hatred of a confused young man who could not tolerate the arguments of Charlie Kirk. The turnout at Kirk’s memorial service in Glendale, Arizona on Sunday should leave no intelligent person in any doubt that he had a profound impact on America, from those in the highest offices to ordinary young people who suddenly found purpose.
From President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the reclusive but powerful Chief of Staff Suzy Wiles, Pete Hegseth Tulsi Gabbard, and the entire cabinet to youthful colleagues in the Turning Point USA movement he founded and thousands of young people in the stadium, he was a phenomenon whom many did not acknowledge or realise. But some forces did figure out what he really was on about and decided he needed to go.
Because as every speaker outlined, Kirk not only had the charisma to eloquently speak of a great America built on family values and faith in Jesus but he was an even more formidable political organiser as he realised that getting the right people into the right places was the first step. From a Republican Congresswoman from Florida to Rubio and Wiles, so many spoke of how Kirk’s Turning Point USA was the turning point in many election campaigns, beginning with Trump’s.
Every single political speaker recounted how Kirk inspired them to go out there and win, with the reassurance that he would throw his entire tireless organisation of young volunteers into getting that last possible vote to change the political map. That was a downright dangerous talent. Add to that an unequivocal faith in Jesus and the ability to attract young people away from the ideologies prevailing on campuses, and the other side certainly had to issue an urgent call to arms.
When Kirk sallied forth into the lions’ dens of liberal activism—he toured university campuses across the US, including some 25 of them before the 2024 Presidential elections under the ‘You’re Being Brainwashed’ banner—there was more to it than just his love of debate and dialogue. He was forcing a bastion to acknowledge ideas and opinions that had not found utterance there in generations. That was subversive in a way that the other side had never contemplated.
The soaring youth vote in Trump’s victory demonstrated how foolhardy it was for the Left-liberal line-up in academia and media to dismiss Kirk as a mere Bible thumping white supremacist who promoted regressive views on race and gender. Capturing the imagination of young Americans and galvanising swathes of them to believe and vote was Kirk’s true talent. Trump, Vance and a bunch of new Republicans on Capitol Hill proved it. That’s what spooked the other side.
Though the overall youth vote went 54 per cent to 46 per cent in Kamala Harris’ favour, the young male vote—Kirk’s target—did a somersault in Trump’s direction at 56 per cent in 2024; the same number had voted for Biden in 2020. Even the young female vote for Trump rose from 33 per cent to 40 per cent though his opponent was a woman and the overall youth vote was down 10 per cent from 2020—only 42 per cent of the 50 million 18-to-29 year olds eligible to vote did so this time compared to 52 per cent in 2020.
So what was Kirk and Turning Point’s contribution? In the battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the youth turnout was much higher, averaging 50 per cent, and Trump won all. As Julia Pierce, a Turning Point USA member told BBC, “It used to be that for young people it was cool to be a Democrat. But he made it cool to be a Trump supporter, wear the MAGA hat and live with traditional family values.”
The word MAGA has been spin-doctored worldwide to connote a certain kind of ugly, stupid, bigoted American but that movement is far larger and more diverse than what mainstream media, academia and the old Establishment want to acknowledge. And Kirk and his Turning Point comprised the most efficient part of the MAGA movement. Which is why Kirk could power the Trump camp to victory, despite the reluctance of the Republican Party’s old guard too.
In other words, Kirk and his youth vanguard were a secret weapon that proved to be devastatingly effective against the opponents of the Trump camp within and outside. It was clever of him to stay far away from the Washington DC snakepit even though he had direct access to the President, as Trump himself mentioned in his quasi-political eulogy at the memorial event. If Kirk called him to do something, he usually did it; such was Trump’s trust in his political acumen.
Lopping off the head of Turning Point USA—literally and metaphorically— therefore, seriously cripples the MAGA eco-system when it comes to deliverables at crunch time, i.e. elections, held every alternate year in America. It also deprives MAGA of one of its most eloquent, hard-to-counter voices. Kirk had started spouting a more overtly Christian line of late, but his political smarts would have been available for the mid-term elections in 2026. That was not to be.
His devout wife Erika is now the new head of Turning Point USA but no one knows as yet whether she has the same talents as Kirk himself, when it comes to spreading the message of family and faith to young America (especially men and boys) and having a keen political nose to suss out potential candidates to take forward resurgent Conservative values. She is certainly a very vocal and emotive Christian but Kirk’s importance was more than just as an evangelist.
Though it is less than two weeks since Kirk’s assassination, there is clearly a move within the Republican camp to keep the movement he built up on side. The younger leaders—Vance and Rubio—struck distinctly Christian notes at his memorial and vowed to carry forward his work and ideals. They also heaped praise on his wife who is the new custodian of Kirk’s youth constituency. Will Kirk’s assassination mean another turning point in US and MAGA history?
The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect News18’s views.