Editor's Letter

As we were finishing this issue, Charles James Kirk was assassinated while answering questions from college students on the campus of Utah Valley University. A generation of Americans publicly witnessed a man’s life snuffed out in a moment that will forevershape their understanding of American political and cultural life.

Charlie was murdered just as he had achieved the height of American political and cultural influence. And he was only 31 years old.

We are all witnesses to his witness. This is the way of martyrdom. It’s what the word “martyr” means.

But to what did he bear witness—what did he testify?

Early on, many, including myself, saw him from afar as a well-meaning, if naïve, kid and did not take him seriously enough, or even wrote him off. In part, this was due to our ignorance, and in part, it was because of what at first glance seemed like an aura of goofy naïveté. But mainly because, at the time, so many of us were trying to reform a political movement, and we assumed Charlie was a kid parroting old mantras and tropes. “Normiecon” stuff, as I said then.

“But what does Turning Point USA actually do, anyway?” people (including myself) would then ask.

Still, we had to acknowledge that this Kirk kid could raise money and was a consummate builder of a growing organization. Since the few people who can do this are rarely also thinkers and expert political strategists, Charlie was still typecast by many on the Right.

During the first Trump administration, after clips leaked from an impromptu debate on stage with Tucker Carlson at one of Charlie’s events, we thought our suspicions were confirmed. He didn’t know what time it is, as we used to say. Great, the kid built a large organization, but he didn’t understand where the Right needed to go.

Charlie Kirk’s life was a nonstop blur of building. But what we didn’t know yet was that he also never stopped learning. My first clue was when Tucker Carlson told me that instead of becoming angry during that debate, Kirk kept talking to Carlson and asking questions, and they had become friends.

Over a year later, he insisted on taking time out from his busy schedule to join the Claremont Institute as a Lincoln Fellow in 2021. I then directed that program (and still teach in it), and by that time, we were happy to give him a shot. Upon meeting him, all our presuppositions faded away instantly, as they would for virtually everyone over the next few years, as he skyrocketed to influence until his untimely death. He devoured all the readings on the American Founding and the early Republic to how the Progressive Era remade it. He relished the vigorous discussions about what we should do next to save America.

Many were wrong about Charlie because they were too jaded and cynical. He was not naïve; he was humble.

But he pursued truth to put it into action just as purely and relentlessly, whether that had to do with how he lived his life or grew his organization or what he put into words to persuade the public or world leaders. He was trying to build a movement, not himself. He consistently helped others succeed and worked daily to build momentum that propelled the movement forward.

This is why he became a true friend to a presidential administration and millions of young people alike.

Few people possess the talent to excel in so many areas: building, leading, speaking, learning, and advising. There are even fewer who hone all those skills, continually seeking to improve at each of them. And only a handful consistently seek to use those talents for the good, without envy or guile.

None of this would have been possible, as he himself told us, without his faith in Jesus Christ, for whom he often testified publicly, no matter what the audience or topic, and for whom he died.

This time is not like the times before.

In no small part because of the reformation in politics and culture that Charlie himself led.

While he once called me his teacher, I will never stop learning from him.

We all need to be as courageous as Charlie.

We all need to be as humble and never stop learning like Charlie.

We all need to be less cynical and more ceaselessly productive like Charlie.

We all need to pray more and let our faith shine out more like Charlie.

We all need to be more like Charlie.