Charlie Kirk’s campus tour continues. Will students carry on his legacy?
While the students spread in an auditorium of Virginia Tech, moving through metal detectors and police, they went through a replica of the tent that conservative activist Charlie Kirk was seated at Utah Valley University two weeks ago when he was shot. Several participants posed for photos under the canopy sporting Mr. Kirk’s slogan “Prove me contrary”, next to a photo of him.
The empty tent and police dogs were immediately reminders of the difference in this USA turn -point event compared to so many previous collegial debates that Mr. Kirk has held in his life – and the challenges that await us while the GOP tries to rely on his success with young voters.
“The question that has been asked many times” who will be the next Charlie? “” Said Virginie Glenn Youngkin’s governor when he punctuated the scene in khaki pants and a blazer. “You will be the next Charlie,” he told the public, who almost filled the 3,000-seat auditorium.
Why we wrote this
The supporters of the conservative activist killed Charlie Kirk swear to extend his conservative movement for young people. While the Turning Point USA Campus Tour resumes, Virginia Tech students share their vision of the cause he built.
Since the death of Mr. Kirk, Turning Point has known that he has received more than 120,000 requests from new chapters on college and secondary campuses, and a rotating list of conservative influencers and politicians – such as Governor Youngkin and the Podcastor Megyn Kelly here in Virginia Tech – have registered to welcome the nine stops of the next two months.
“There is a huge ecosystem of people similar to Kirk and who can resume where he had stopped,” said a GOP agent, who asked anonymity to speak freely. “There will be a whole range of people who enter the field in the coming months that may have so much influence.”
Story Hinckley / The Christian Science Monitor
But when Mrs. Kelly opened the room for questions, it has become clear that Mr. Kirk ‘university visits – or at least it would not exist in the way they had done it before.
All the questions, except two, were asked by conservative colleagues or, at the very least, fans of Mrs. Kelly. There was not the kind of “proving wrong” that Mr. Kirk made viral in his social media clips. There was also no kind of back and forth conversations between two sides that Mr. Kirk congratulated. It was perhaps due to the change of place. The dark and warm auditorium with safety layers was not as accessible as Mr. Kirk’s previous events when he was sitting on campus lawns that students passed. Maybe that was due to the headliner. Left students may not feel the same draw to debate Ms. Kelly as Mr. Kirk.
Or perhaps this was due to this political moment, when the partisanry and the bitter accusations sharpened after the death of Mr. Kirk, which raises a question on the opportunity of appetite for the same kind of robust debate that he defended.
Instead of provocative moments, the public offered largely user-friendly questions like: what influence does Israel have on our policy? What is your Starbucks order? How can I coexist with the Liberals as a conservative Christian?
A version of this last question has been asked several times.
“I don’t think you should talk about politics,” said Kelly, telling the public a story about how she makes an annual trip with two friends, a liberal and an independent. The trip works for them because they don’t talk about politics. “Unless you really love yourself, really and you feel safe to try … But there is no reason to start debating, I think, people with whom you have diametrically opposite opinions.”
But for Mr. Kirk, that was precisely the point, as several clips sewn together for a commemorative video played at the start of the event points out.
“The courage and inspiration that we have obtained from this moment, it will inspire many other future Charlie Kirks,” explains Ariel Schlosser, senior at Virginia Tech. “Maybe it will be enough if we all do our part to continue the movement.”
More than a dozen students interviewed by the instructor before the event share similar feelings: no one could or should replace Mr. Kirk. But maybe remembering him would be enough.
“I want to continue his inheritance,” said Chase Wampler, who started a chapter turning in his high school in the southwest of Virginia three days after the death of Mr. Kirk. “I think it will be replaced by a movement and not by a singular person.”
But if there is a singular successor for Mr. Kirk at the moment, it is probably his wife, Erika, who was recently appointed CEO and president of the board of directors of Turnage Point USA. Her message of forgiveness in the commemorative service of her husband during the weekend attracted bipartite praise.
During a recent episode of Charlie Kirk’s show, Mr. Kirk’s chief of staff, Mikey McCoy, recently said he spoke with Ms. Kirk about the way they could “continue Charlie’s inheritance” and “really 10x this organization”, and he became emotional because he had the impression that he was talking to Mr. Kirk himself.
“She knew everything,” said McCoy. “The way she sends SMS to the way she speaks, I can say with confidence that I have the impression that Charlie is still leading this organization.”
