The Meaning of Charlie Kirk
By 
For those of us trying to get a grip on what Charlie Kirk meant to the various factions of the Right, Tanner Greer’s essay is quite helpful:
Charlie Kirk was not just a piece of internet bombast; his main field of action, in fact, was not on the internet. Kirk was one of the most effective institution-builders and coalition-crafters in the United States. He was less an influencer than a power broker; everyone in MAGAland acknowledged the leadership role he played in building and holding together Trump’s coalition. No man save Trump himself did more to pioneer the electorally viable conservative populism that now defines the Republican Party—not just in terms of its ideas and aesthetic style, but also in terms of its institutions, leadership, money flows, and personnel networks. Kirk’s assassination was not just an attack on a certain point of view; it was an attack on a pillar of Republican power.
I barely knew who Charlie Kirk was; the name was familiar but I doubt I could have picked him out of a lineup of 30ish white dudebros. I was somewhat familiar with his politics but had never really intellectually distinguished between Turning Point and various other right wing NGOs hostile to higher education. When a colleague texted the news that Kirk had been shot, I had to take a second to remember who he was.
But as Tanner suggests, to several factions of the American Right Charlie Kirk was ubiquitous and incredibly influential. This explains much of the reaction to his death on the Right; there was real affection that went beyond just sticking it to the libs.
Point of Caution: Tanner is a conservative and he is writing about Kirk from a conservative perspective. If that’s not your thing then don’t click the link. Whatever you do, don’t come back here and complain that I sent you somewhere without giving you a good sense of what you’d find.
Photo Credit: By Gage Skidmore from Peoria, AZ, United States of America – Charlie Kirk, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=83372051