On the day the music died. From Bethel McGrew at Further Up:
On Wednesday, September 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk launched a nationwide speaking tour at Utah Valley University with his usual spirit of buoyant good humor: “We’re going to be here a couple hours. Bring the best libs Utah has to offer!”
To warm up the crowd, he had been distributing handfuls of red MAGA hats, tossing them out like frisbees. Someone waved him over to give one to a friend—an awkward young man juggling two copies of one of Kirk’s books. He couldn’t quite react in the socially proper way when Kirk gave him the hat, but you could tell he was happy.
Not half an hour later, Charlie Kirk was lying in the back of a van on its way to the hospital—dying, perhaps already dead.
With the news that he had been shot came footage of the shooting. Very clear, very up-close footage. Footage I and many other people clicked on, prepared for something bad, but not as bad as it was. I encourage people not to go looking for it. Without relish, I would later revisit the moment at a couple other, somewhat more distant angles, seeing whether there was anything to someone’s claim that that video was enhanced by AI. As we all know now, there wasn’t.
There was a brief window of time where people wondered if he might have miraculously been stabilized. A journalist friend in touch with his team fed me occasional updates. Then they went quiet. The official announcement followed soon.
Already, some of our best writers are contemplating the significance of this moment in the scope of American political history. It is uniquely, viscerally horrifying: the political assassination of a young husband and father who held no political office, nor was he campaigning for one. He was a political figure, true, but still a private citizen. A private citizen who, for the great crime of existing while vocally conservative, deserved to die. And not just in the eyes of his killer, as we quickly learned.
The deluge of filth was foreshadowed in a clip from the mayhem just after the shot rang out: A deranged-looking man in long hair and a beard leaps in front of the phone camera, wildly gesticulating and cheering. He’s so ecstatic in the moment that pausing to make this gesture is more important to him than saving his sorry behind. According to eyewitness testimony from the scene, he wasn’t alone. (Read more.)
From City Journal:
In explicit terms, Kirk had warned that this was coming. In April, he wrote about “assassination culture,” predicting that a political class addicted to rage and spectacle would escalate into violence. Just weeks ago, on CNBC, he argued that empowering radicals like Zohran Mamdani was fueling Luigism, an online-driven ideology of envy and class hatred that may lead to more left-wing nihilists carrying out and reveling in political violence. And unfortunately, countless such ghouls are now proving him right, celebrating his death in dark corners of social media with glee and mockery.
Kirk also understood the stakes of the ideological battle on the right: a choice between a politics of ownership and aspiration, on the one hand, or a politics defined by grievance and resentment, on the other. He fought this fight—sounding alarms about conspiratorial anti-Semitism pulling young men down online rabbit holes and urging them toward self-improvement instead of scapegoating. He wanted to build a movement rooted in purpose, not bitterness.
His death is an immeasurable tragedy for his wife, Erika, their two young children, and his parents. I am praying for them.
It is also a tragedy for the country. He built a politics that wasn’t just about “owning the libs” online—though he did plenty of that—but about showing up: on campuses, in swing states, in places where his message was met with hostility. His death is devastating not only because he was so young and had so much to live for but because he proved that no audience is unwinnable when met with courage and a compelling message.
Kirk represented a conservative movement that could inspire young people. For years, conservatives had failed to capture cultural energy. Kirk did it almost effortlessly. He gave the right a sense of swagger—his organization was something closer to a counterculture than a think tank or civic club.
He wasn’t the archetypal bow-tied campus ideologue but someone who felt like he belonged at a frat party, a peer rather than a scold. That made his presence and intellect disarming. It also made his message go farther. He was polarizing because he mattered. (Read more.)
From Ben at The Daily Wire:
Charlie’s Turning Point USA became the single most important conservative political organization in the country. And it grew because Charlie grew. He turned himself into an excellent public speaker and a talented debater. He could fundraise better than anyone in the game. He was friendly and gregarious to everyone. His drive was unmatched, because he cared about his fundamental values.
The clips of Charlie on campus — the firebrand Charlie — make for great watching, but they don’t do him full justice. Behind the scenes, Charlie was deeply thoughtful, constantly seeking ways to build and grow coalitions. That’s a messy business, and it comes with aches and pains. No one did it better. That’s how a guy who never went to college ended up as a confidant of the President of the United States, the vice president, and pretty much everyone else on the right side of the aisle.
Charlie never stopped moving. He never stopped talking and negotiating and debating and working. That infectious energy never left him. Until a killer’s bullet ripped his life from him. And there are no more words. There can be no more words. (Read more.)
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