I never met Charlie Kirk. Yet, like many conservatives, I feel as though I did. Exceptionally bright, articulate, and personally engaging, he was a generational talent whose ability to win the hearts and minds of young Americans was unmatched and helped to sway the 2024 election toward President Donald Trump.

Still, as inspirational as he was, I suspect even Kirk himself would have been surprised by the sheer magnitude of the response to his death. Not since the death of Princess Diana have we witnessed such a global outpouring of love and compassion.

Had Kirk died after a serious illness or a car crash, the effect would not have resonated nearly as strongly. But his death by an assassin’s bullet transformed him into a symbol, a figure whose significance will burn ever brighter with the passage of time. This point is illustrated by a Tuesday evening announcement from Turning Point USA, the organization he founded, that it had “received 54,000 requests from high school and college students nationwide to start a chapter or get involved with an existing chapter” over the past six days. 

The shot that ended Kirk’s life did far more than that — it jolted ordinary Americans back to reality. It sparked a collective cry of “Enough.” Coming on the heels of two attempts to silence Trump, the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, the anti-ICE riots, the murders of two Israeli Embassy staffers in Washington, D.C., the attacks on Tesla dealerships, Tesla drivers, and the vehicles themselves, Kirk’s political assassination marked the moment it became clear that the Left was no longer satisfied with waging a propaganda war against the Right. Aware they were losing the political debate, they had upped the ante to violence. 

While the evidence indicates that most political violence in recent years has originated on the Left, Democrats continue to push the disingenuous narrative that both parties are to blame. That’s just not true.

© Washington Examiner