Kirk wasn’t Kennedy or Dr King – for some that’s the scary part
America fears it is entering a new phase in which the boundaries of political conflict, already stretched, are being redrawn with bullets as well as words.
One of the last points Charlie Kirk ever made was about the ethics of politicising violence. The 31-year-old right-wing activist was for, not against. In what would turn out to be his last post on X, Kirk referenced the murder of Iryna Zarutska, a white Ukrainian woman who had been fatally stabbed on a train in Charlotte, North Carolina, in August by Decarlos Brown, a black man with 14 prior convictions. Her story made headlines after Elon Musk and other right-wing commentators accused major media organisations of not covering the killing.
Kirk argued that it was vital to speak plainly. It was a system failure that allowed her killer to be on the streets in the first place, he said. “If we want things to change [it was] 100 per cent necessary to politicise the senseless murder of Iryna Zarutska.” He posted a picture of Zarutska and wrote: “America will never be the same.”
Little did Kirk know that his own death, a few hours after the post, would set in motion a similar chain of events.
America will never be the same. pic.twitter.com/Wd2AJsn0W0
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 10, 2025
The confirmation of his death - delivered by President Trump on social media - became the only story in town. In Washington and beyond, Kirk’s assassination has sent many Americans into mourning, with grief swiftly hardening into anger.
A polarising figure as a result of his political activism, sections of the hard left who viewed him as a dangerous force have celebrated his death online. Co-founder of the conservative youth organisation Turning Point USA, Kirk amassed a huge online following with videos and podcasts in which he described transgenderism as a “mental disease”, argued against abortion even in the case of rape, and said some gun-related deaths were necessary to preserve the Second Amendment.
Around the world, millions who had never heard his name are now learning for the first time about the man Trump credited for delivering him a generation of new young conservative voters that helped him back into the White House.
Few doubt that this assassination will be historic. “It reminds me of 9/11 - when the world just changes overnight,” said one Republican. In other words, as Kirk said of Zarutska, America will never be the same again.
Both murders are being taken by the Make America Great Again movement as proof of the case for radical change. With Kirk, they’ve lost a free speech champion who, as they see it, was slain by the liberals he was trying to engage with in peaceful debate. Zarutska was seen as a beautiful victim of liberal criminal justice policies, killed by a man who should never have been released on cashless bail. It came amid general complaints about immigration and lawlessness - even if, in this case, it was an immigrant killed by an American.
MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd blamed Kirk’s rhetoric, and the conservative movement he lauded, for inciting the assassin. He was later axed. “At least now they get fired,” said one Republican. “A few years ago that wouldn’t have even happened.”
The American right has been comparing the coverage of both stories to the death of George Floyd, a black man killed by a white police officer in 2020, sparking nationwide protests. They feel the media that lionised Floyd has been indifferent, if not cold, in response to Kirk’s death. In the case of Zarutska, the initial pick-up by mainstream news organisations was low. “The point is the complete double standard,” said one MAGA figure.
The two murders are being seen as emblematic of a wider sense of political disorder in America. They come against a backdrop of rising violence and a growing share of the public willing to justify it. According to the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, nearly 40 per cent of Democrats recently said force would be acceptable to remove Trump from office, while 25 per cent of Republicans backed using the military to stop anti-Trump protests. Both numbers have doubled in less than a year.
Parallels are being drawn with the late 1960s – a period in which Martin Luther King was assassinated, followed by Robert Kennedy two months later. “What people felt then, I think, is what people feel now, which is that something is seriously wrong with the United States,” said Kevin Boyle, author of The Shattering: America in the 1960s. “A huge percentage of the population then thought that the nation had lost its way, that [it] was in the grip of something horrific. All of that’s really similar.”
But there are some major differences. Kirk was an activist, not a politician. “The US crossed the Rubicon with the assassination of the most gifted political organiser, media figure and activist under 40 in the nation,” the American historian Victor Davis Hanson said. “America can be a violent society, but we usually do not murder major media figures. Now we do. And no one knows what follows next.”
Boyle added: “In the 1960s, the extreme, the language of violence, the willingness to play with the possibility of violenceas a political tool was very much on the fringe of American politics. Mainstream politicians – Johnson, Nixon, the Kennedys – wouldn’t have imagined talking about their political opponents in the sort of extraordinarily polarising way that politicians now do. The demonisation of people who just disagree with you has reached a level that would have been incomprehensible in mainstream politics in the 1960s.”
You don’t have to look far on social media to see this play out. Elon Musk, owner of X, told his 225 million followers “the Left is the party of murder”.
The Left is the party of murder https://t.co/qN1oToUHNc
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 10, 2025
He is a provocateur but Nancy Mace, a Republican congresswoman, concluded that: “Democrats own this, 100 per cent.” A social media campaign has begun, saying anyone who called Trump a fascist is complicit in Kirk’s death.
The President didn’t go quite that far. But he pointed the finger of blame at the “radical left” for their rhetoric. It became a big theme: those on the left who referred to critics as fascists had legitimised violence.
“Charlie was the nice one,” said a seasoned MAGA figure. “He would go out and speak to the other side.” For some it was always a questionable endeavour - why bother? Now their ally has paid the ultimate price: fatally shot while in the act of reaching out.
Many in the Maga base are out for vengeance rather than hand-holding. As Steve Bannon put it on his podcast: “We’re not going to have a group hug and sit down with Democrats.”
Kirk’s widow Erica has made it clear that Turning Point USA is here to stay. Several of Kirk’s longstanding friends are calling for calm - his former colleagues have spent this week celebrating his life.
“Everyone is shell-shocked, unsure of how to go forward,” said one Maga figure of the mood in the movement. “But everyone is united in thinking this event means redoubling political efforts and fighting for the basic ideas Charlie stood for - most notably the value of open, at times heated debate, without violence.”
A contemporary of Kirk added: “We’ve always known it was a risk. A bullet in the back of the head. He knew it. The way we get this back is 500 Charlies, all making the argument.”
As for managing to avoid a return to the Sixties, Hanson said: “The killers of King and Kennedy changed America by creating chaos and sabotaging their movements. King’s death left the civil rights movement leaderless and it was soon radicalised by militants. After Kennedy’s death, the rudderless Democrat Party would only enjoy the White House for four years (under Carter) of the next 24 years.
“But Kirk’s death will have the opposite effect, empowering and energising his followers to step up the efforts of young people to embrace fully conservative traditionalism, in the manner Kirk more or less won Trump the White House in 2024.”
The killings of King and Kennedy created vacuums others struggled to fill. The expectation among Kirk’s allies is the reverse: that Turning Point and youth-driven conservatism will now harden, multiply and radicalise. Whether that produces 500 Charlies, or something darker, is yet to be seen. What is certain is that America fears it is entering a new phase in which the boundaries of political conflict, already stretched, are being redrawn with bullets as well as words.
The Sunday Times
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