A wicked reign ends with the assassination of a tyrant, but a moral idea does not die with the assassination of the messenger. Rather, a martyr is born and his movement soars as if lifted by God.
Anonymous
It is my humanity – not my politics – that saddened me upon learning of Charlie Kirk’s death on Wednesday, because a husband and father should be able to speak freely and return safely to his family. To my core, I believe the right to life is paramount in a civil society. Not some gal’s right to an abortion. Not some guy’s right to self-select his gender. Not the Democrats’ right to defend “their” democracy. Because…Thou shalt not kill!
Still, when I learned Charlie Kirk died in a political assassination, I could not stop thinking about Martin Luther King and Bernie Sanders. The former because his assassin created a martyr, ensuring King’s social-justice movement dominated liberal politics in America. The latter because of the Sanders For President lesson; HOW one talks to young voters is just as important as WHAT one has to say.
I was an infant in 1955 and unaware of Martin Luther King’s first bus boycott in Montgomery (AL), and a pre-teen when his movement found victory in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965. Too young to understand the need to overturn America’s longstanding consensus about race, and too cloistered to see how King’s success sowed bitterness among many whites. But, I was 13 on April 4, 1968, and remember watching Walter Cronkite report the assassination of Dr. King. What I learned thereafter is etched upon my mind.
That summer, the decent adults in my Southern orbit spoke openly of white resentment expressed publicly by George Wallace (D-AL) and condemned the verbal violence of the KKK. In the following years, I learned that the assassin, James Earl Ray, had a “racist” past, and shot Dr. King to (allegedly) collect a $50,000 bounty offered by a racist organization (the White Citizen’s Council). I heard the racial slurs that were forbidden in my mother’s home.
No question, the prevailing view in academia from 1968 to 1976 – even at Virginia Episcopal School and Washington & Lee University – was that laws were needed to wrest white privilege away from its white gatekeepers and protect America’s black minority from its white majority. 50 years later, I still believe that was the “enlightened” view, and those laws were well intended in spite of their abuse (Asians denied spots at elite universities by Affirmative Action). That it took 50 years to reverse the unintended consequences speaks to the power of martyrdom.
I don’t know what Dr. King would think of Turning Point USA, but I know he’d recognize Charlie Kirk’s evangelical approach to advancing societal change. And, I’m pretty sure King would admit that a helping hand for black students should not have morphed into the multicultural chaos that is dogma in today’s academia (no way the Baptist preacher would support transgenderism).
It is folly to dismiss how Bernie Sanders attracted so many young voters to his campaign in 2016. A typical Sanders debate soundbite: “You might disagree with me, but this is what I think…” That is exactly how college kids want to be treated; don’t talk down to me or tell me what I have to think or deny me permission to disagree. It is also folly to dismiss the liberal-elite reaction to Sanders’s success; they cheated in 2016 to ensure Hillary Clinton’s nomination, and did a backroom deal in 2020 to ensure Biden’s nomination.
Turning Point USA appealed similarly to young voters with Charlie Kirk going onto (hostile) college campuses, sitting behind a table emblazoned with PROVE ME WRONG, and handing a microphone to abortion-on-demand advocates, angry transgenders, black activists, and pro-Hamas supporters. He engaged in civil debate, silencing the boo-birds so the woke-liberals could be heard. That’s how Sanders attracted young voters, and Kirk delivered the 18-to-29-year-old male vote to Donald Trump in 2024. Thus, there’s a lesson in Bernie’s words after Kirk’s death:
“A free and democratic society depends upon the basic premise that people can speak out, organize, and take part in public life without fear, without worrying that they might be killed, injured, or humiliated for expressing their political views. In fact, that is the essence of what freedom is about and what democracy is about. You have a point of view—that’s great. Let’s argue it out. We make our case to the American people, at the local, state, and federal levels, and we hold free elections in which the people decide what they want.”
Sadly, Sanders is the exception, because of the similarities between James Earl Ray’s 1968 assassination of “liberal” crusader King and Tyler Robinson’s 2025 assassination of “conservative” crusader Kirk:
- Just as racist Dixiecrats responded to King’s success with verbal violence, woke Democrats responded to Kirk’s success with verbal violence.
- Ray and Robinson could have easily interpreted that verbal violence as tacit approval for their political assassinations.
You might disagree with me, but that is what I think.
Robinson is, of course, entitled to the presumption of innocence, but credible media now report evidence that he targeted Kirk to silence an anti-transgender voice, and that it was a pre-meditated assassination. It sure looks now like 22-year-old Tyler Robinson has “released the whirlwind” that Chuck Schumer (D-NY) predicted for justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh. Because…this just in.
Within 48 hours, Turning Point USA had received 32,000 inquiries to open new campus chapters. On Saturday, thousands held a candlelight vigil for Kirk in Seaford, New York, and millions marched in London (UK) to honor Kirk and his message. Over the weekend, similar events were repeated in Australia, South Korea, and all over the USA at college and professional sporting events.
And, if it is vengeance you desire – – many employers are severing ties with employees who chose to celebrate Kirk’s assassination on social media.