I've been dreading writing this reflection for a long time. Charlie Kirk was killed a year ago today, and I still find it as hard to believe as I did in the moments after I saw that horrific video. How could such a force of life be taken from us so brutally?
Over the past year, as my team and I covered the trials surrounding his killer, reported on the conspiracy theories surrounding his death, and analyzed the political impact of his absence, the shock kept ambushing me. Each time, I'd catch myself whispering, in genuine disbelief, "I can't believe they killed him."
What Charlie accomplished by 31 was astounding. He was probably the best political fundraiser in the country. He was the best organizer, airdropping onto campus after campus, getting conservative students elected, and running statewide get-out-the-vote campaigns that outdid the RNC itself.
He was the best coalition builder, drawing the biggest names in conservative politics to his conferences. His daily podcast was in the top 10 and always climbing. And above all, he was the best at the thing that made him a household name: reaching Generation Z by walking onto college campuses, facing radicalism head-on, and debating anyone who disagreed.
Through all of it, he wore his faith more proudly than anyone around him. And in his earnestness, empathy, and in his sheer will to do good, he may have been the best among his contemporaries. That a life so powerful, so determined to do good, could be taken by someone so low, so evil, and so depraved is something I still struggle to wrap my head around.
To put it in perspective: the summer before he was killed, I was on the other side of the world, in the barren hilltop settlements of Judea and Samaria — the West Bank — surveying the land with Charlie's pastor, who was coordinating with the US ambassador to Israel. All of it was happening because a goofy kid from Chicago was realizing his dream of bringing Turning Point USA to Israel.
That shock — I still don't know what to call it, psychologically speaking. Maybe it's a lingering form of denial that comes with grief. Whatever it was, I kept feeling it, and I kept hearing about it from so many others.
In the days after his death, I printed and framed a poster of Charlie, with the words "Speak Truth" beneath his picture, and hung it in my living room. His life had been nothing but inspiring, and I wanted his memory to inspire me and everyone who saw it.
But slowly, I realized the poster was having the opposite effect. Instead of lifting me up, it weighed me down. And I came to see that his death, and the year that followed, had done the same thing to America.
Over the past year, more efforts have been made to demoralize us than ever before. In the days after his death, we watched masses of "normal" Americans on the left celebrate it. These are our schoolteachers, nurses, colleagues, neighbors, expressing ghoulish delight at Charlie’s murder.
Now we're watching students plan "Kirkiversary" events on college campuses to celebrate the anniversary of his killing. Accused assassins like Luigi Mangione and Tyler Robinson are still honored, and the people who honor them, like Hasan Piker, are embraced by prominent Democrat politicians.
We watched people who called themselves Charlie's friends use his death to push conspiracy theories for their own radical projects. They split conservatives apart when they should have been using their voices to demand justice and to organize against the extremism growing on campuses.
Perhaps the most demoralizing and frightening thing of all was watching the old idea that “the pen is mightier than the sword” vaporize in front of us. A year after his death, his political opponents are watching his coalition, his organization, and his party in disarray. And with that came the realization that Charlie, and the life he lived, could never be replaced. He was simply stolen from us.
And even afterward, there haven't been many satisfying efforts to ensure that Charlie was not killed in vain. I wish the Trump administration had led a more impactful, concerted effort to honor Charlie's memory, perhaps with statues on college campuses, or initiatives meant to educate against extremism.
I don’t say all this to paint a depressing portrait of America, or her future. Though the year has been a tough one, there have been positives: the current administration has made unambiguous leaps in securing the border, tackling the immigration problem, addressing the woke-era affirmative action discrimination, and curtailing the financial infrastructure that funds leftist extremism.
Charlie Kirk was a titan. His was a life worth celebrating and worth channeling, but this past year, America has been too busy fighting herself to do either.
The day will come when she's ready to do both. I can already see new movements rising, driven by a love of faith, of truth, and of this country. Those movements will carry the banner of Charlie's legacy, and they will fight, as he did, to keep America's heart, the heart of freedom, alive and beating.
