Anyone who wants to understand the rise of Donald Trump among young voters has to understand Charlie Kirk, dubbed a “youth whisperer” of the right, who was shot on Wednesday at an event at Utah Valley University and died afterwards.
Kirk was only 31 and had never held elected office but, as a natural showman with a flair for patriotism, populism and Christian nationalism, was rich in the political currency of the era.
In 2012 he co-founded Turning Point USA to drive conservative, anti-woke viewpoints among young people, turning himself into the go-to spokesman on TV networks and at conferences for young rightwingers.
The activist, author and radio host had used his huge audiences on Instagram and YouTube to build support for anti-immigration policies, confrontational Christianity and viral takedowns of hecklers at his many campus events.
An important gravitational tug on the modern Republican party, his career had also been marked by the promotion of misinformation, divisive rhetoric and conspiracy theories, including 2020 election-fraud claims and falsehoods around the Covid pandemic and the vaccine.
Kirk expressed openly bigoted views and was an unabashed homophobe and Islamophobe. As recently as Tuesday of this week he tweeted: “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”
His evangelical Christian beliefs were intertwined with his politics. He argued that there is no true separation of church and state and warned of a “spiritual battle” pitting the west against wokeism, Marxism and Islam.
During an appearance with Trump in Georgia last fall, he claimed that Democrats “stand for everything God hates”, adding: “This is a Christian state. I’d like to see it stay that way.”
He also referenced the Seven Mountain Mandate, which specifies seven areas where Christians are to lead: politics, religion, media, business, family, education and the arts, and entertainment.
On Wednesday Kevin Cramer, a Republican senator for North Dakota, posted on the X social media platform: “Charlie Kirk made it cool to be young and faithful.”
Kirk was raised in a politically moderate household in the affluent Chicago suburb of Prospect Heights, Illinois. His father was an architect and his mother worked as a mental health counsellor.
Kirk went to a school where, during the course of his childhood, white students went from the majority to the minority. His conservative awakening came during Barack Obama’s presidency, amid the 2008 financial crisis and policies such as bank bailouts, which he later cited as fuelling his resentment toward liberal economics.
He was involved in the Boy Scouts of America, earning the rank of Eagle Scout, and in high school he emerged as a vocal conservative. He volunteered for Mark Kirk’s successful 2010 Senate campaign and led a student protest against a proposed price increase for school cafeteria cookies, framing it as government overreach.
Reportedly described by classmates as “rude” and “arrogant”, Kirk clashed with teachers he accused of “neo-Marxist” bias, drawing on influences that included Ronald Reagan’s economics, Milton Friedman’s free-market ideas and second amendment rights.
He wrote an op-ed for Breitbart News alleging liberal indoctrination in US textbooks, which led to his first media appearance on the Fox Business channel at the age of 17.
Kirk briefly attended Harper College, a community college in Palatine, Illinois, but dropped out after one semester in 2012 to pursue full-time political activism. His rejection from the US military academy at West Point, New York, that same year reportedly deepened his turn toward rightwing causes.
At the age of 18 Kirk co-founded Turning Point USA with Bill Montgomery, a 71-year-old Tea Party activist he met at a local event. The organisation aimed to counter liberal higher education campus groups such as MoveOn.org by empowering conservative students through debates, events and activism.
By his own account, Kirk had “no money, no connections and no idea what I was doing”, but TPUSA grew rapidly, establishing chapters on more than 3,000 campuses and raising millions annually. Kirk expanded his empire by launching Turning Point Action, a non-profit for political advocacy, and Turning Point Faith to mobilise evangelical Christian voters by blending worship with conservative politics.
At 23, he was the youngest speaker at the Republican National Convention in 2016. He assisted with Donald Trump Jr’s travel and media during the campaign. In 2019, he became chairman of Students for Trump, launching a youth mobilisation effort for Trump’s failed 2020 presidential re-election attempt.
Kirk organised but did not attend the so-called “Stop the Steal” protests after Trump lost the 2020 election and helped coordinate buses for the 6 January 2021 rally led by Trump near the White House, where the outgoing Republican president urged the crowd to “fight, fight, fight” to overturn his defeat by Joe Biden.
This event quickly progressed into a violent insurrection by thousands of Trump’s supporters at the US Capitol. Kirk invoked the fifth amendment during testimony to a congressional January 6 committee.
For Trump’s 2024 campaign, Kirk’s You’re Being Brainwashed tour visited 25 college campuses to boost gen Z turnout, while Turning Point Faith’s Courage tour partnered with evangelical leaders to frame the election as a spiritual battle.
After the election, Kirk conducted loyalty tests for Trump’s administration hires and advised on cabinet picks. In March, Trump appointed him to the US Air Force Academy board of visitors, a role overseeing curriculum and instruction. He was also an early investor in 1789 Capital, a venture firm backed by allies of the president, such as his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
Kirk hosted The Charlie Kirk Show, a three-hour daily radio programme syndicated since October 2020; ran Turning Point Live, a streaming show for young audiences; and joined TikTok in April 2024, amassing millions of views on campus confrontation videos. He wrote several books promoting far-right ideology.
His views had consistently baited and provoked the left. During the pandemic he decried mask mandates and called vaccine requirements “medical apartheid”. TPUSA’s “Professor Watchlist”, targeting liberal academics, has been denounced as a form of harassment comparable to a McCarthyite witch-hunt.
Kirk denied the climate crisis, supported fossil fuels and opposed DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) programmes. He had also called white privilege a “myth”, labelled the Civil Rights Act of 1964 a “huge mistake” and criticised Martin Luther King as overrated.
In 2021, Kirk married Erika Frantzve, a podcaster, businesswoman and former Miss Arizona USA. The couple’s daughter was born in August 2022 and their son in May 2024.
