Credit Image: © Scott Rausenberger/ZUMA Press Wire
The last time I wrote about Charlie Kirk, it was in a tone of blistering criticism. Charlie Kirk was my White Renegade of 2019. “His organization Turning Point USA could have been a real force for American nationalism, but he has led it up yet another Conservatism Inc. blind alley,” I said. I concluded:
[Young whites] need a group that puts America First. They need young people who declare, without apology, not only that It’s OK to Be White, but that it’s OK for America to stay white. They don’t need Charlie Kirk or TPUSA.
In the aftermath of someone’s death, it is tempting simply to forget everything bad he did. It is even more tempting to forget everything bad you said about him. Politically, it is often best to pretend that a martyr agreed with you on everything all along. It is unseemly, but it is effective. The dead cannot rebut you.
Many of Kirk’s critics on the Right are engaging in such historical revisionism, even to the point of speculating that Zionists may have killed him because he was about to “turn” on them. Alternatively, some of his other colleagues are claiming that Kirk’s top priority at the end of his life was combating anti-Semitism. Both seem unlikely.
Still, what someone “would” have done is ultimately unknowable. Cloaking one’s own beliefs in the blood of martyrdom is inevitable in politics. Yet what really lives on is the fame of a dead man’s deeds. Charlie Kirk’s deeds and words speak for themselves. What he said since 2019 in many ways effectively rebuts much of what I said then.
Everyone has a line that separates friends from foes, and those they consider too extreme or unhinged from those they consider productive. For me, it is simply a question of whether someone is pro-white or not. It is not mere face-saving to say Charlie Kirk had joined the “friend” camp for white advocates years ago by explicitly saying it was good to be proud of one’s identity.
Whiteness is great.
Be proud of who you are.
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) August 23, 2023
Kirk also spoke against anti-white discrimination in terms that could easily be found in American Renaissance.
What happened to white actors in commercials? They’ve completely disappeared unless they’re portraying ridiculous caricatures of whiteness or incompetence.
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) April 6, 2023
The left accuses conservatives of “racializing” the death of Iryna Zarutska, while literally making sure to capitalize the word “Black” while not capitalizing the other, inferior color of white.
They are a pack of liars who have racialized quite literally everything in America… pic.twitter.com/swvb3XwjGt
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) September 10, 2025
On his radio program in March 2024, Kirk said that Democrats were openly pursuing The Great Replacement and targeting rural whites the same way the Soviets targeted kulaks:
The great replacement strategy, which is well underway every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different. Show 159, please. 80 percent of the map is red, but that is only 20 percent of the American population. They hate that they don’t live in big cities. They hate those of you that live in rural and small America. They hate those of you that own land and have guns and believe in a better country, and they have a plan to try and get rid of you.
Left-wing sites smearing Kirk provide powerful evidence to white advocates that he was, ultimately, on our side in favoring an immigration moratorium and opposing The Great Replacement, affirmative action, and anti-white discrimination. He was not a “white advocate” in the same way as Jared Taylor, but he certainly opposed those who were anti-white.
Comparing his rhetoric in the last few years with that of 2019, one cannot help but wonder where he would have ended up. Kirk also pressured the Trump administration on immigration. Vice President JD Vance said Kirk had asked why the White House was not doing more to deport illegal immigrants. He was not overawed by power.
In many ways, he is irreplaceable because he, and he alone, was simultaneously a campaign operative, a political advisor to the President, a campus organizer, an online influencer, and a television guest who was popular with the cable news base. No other figure wore so many hats, nor accomplished all these roles so effectively, especially when he was so young.
It seems extremely likely that he could have been elected president in his own right one day. This wide appeal combined with lost promise is one reason why almost everyone on the American Right has reacted to his death with genuine sorrow, like we had lost a prince. One wonders how long it will last, but long-standing feuds between factions and prominent figures are being put aside as those on the American Right vow to face a common enemy.
Of course, unity among one faction means an even more energetic fight against another. Though progressives and their media allies have suggested Kirk’s alleged killer was a far-right “groyper,” it seems clear that the motive was opposition to Kirk’s alleged fascism and “hate.” In response, President Trump designated Antifa a terrorist organization. Conservatives have begun searching out progressives on social media who expressed jubilation at Kirk’s slaying or who suggested that more right-wingers should follow. Leftist caution about expressing such opinions seems nonexistent, perhaps because they have never experienced the climate we have existed under our entire lives. Perhaps the biggest career scalp claimed was late-night show host Jimmy Kimmel, a frequent critic of the Trump administration who suggested that Kirk’s killer may have been MAGA.
Such tactics raise questions about free speech and precedents, but many conservatives are uninterested in such debates after living for decades under the reign of “cancel culture” and the career-ending decrees of commissars and watchdogs from groups like the SPLC and the ADL. In addition, many on the Right have experienced official repression, including travel restrictions, deplatforming, and debanking from elite institutions and the federal government itself.
In short, the precedent was already set; what remains is simply to fight it out in an existential battle of Left versus Right. Mr. Kimmel’s firing is a milestone because late-night hosts themselves once were uniting figures that Americans of all stripes could watch and laugh with. In the Trump era, late-night shows now feature only grim sermons from the likes of Mr. Kimmel, Stephen Colbert, and John Oliver.
Most American cultural or political institutions have followed the same path as late-night shows. Few have crossover appeal, and ultimately this will probably spread to the symbols of the state itself. Even waving the American flag is itself a divisive political statement in most contexts. Free speech is perhaps the one thing that can allow for productive communication across the political divide, but that too may prove a casualty of the events in Utah. Kirk’s entire approach was to set up a tent on college campuses and welcome progressives to a productive debate. He was killed despite this approach, in front of the entire world, including his wife and children. Many will feel, perhaps accurately, that there is nothing more to discuss. It is no coincidence that Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene picked this moment to renew her call for a national divorce. From a strategic perspective, it seems a foolish choice at a time when the Right holds national power, but the divide within the country seems unbridgeable.
Credit Image: © Charles-McClintock Wilson/ZUMA Press Wire
Of course, the Left has time on their side. While the Trump administration has essentially stopped illegal immigration and stepped up deportations, it is doubtful it will even be able to deport the millions of illegals admitted under the Biden administration. America continues its march toward a non-white demographic majority and a permanent progressive government. One is tempted to say that conservatives should be restrained in their use of power so progressives would not be tempted to embrace autocracy if they get the chance, but that is probably foolish. Autocracy is almost certain regardless.
The position of white advocates in this existential age of absolute politics is delicate. White advocates, in theory, are not part of Left or Right. A white ethnostate would contain progressives as well as conservatives, and progressives are nowadays welcome as readers, conference attendees, and speakers. Yet in terms of political reality, the modern Left is arguably defined by anti-white animus, especially the enthusiastic cheerleading for demographic replacement. Other progressive causes including equalizing wages, environmentalism, or opposition to corporate power seem secondary to that driving impulse. White advocates are thus forced onto the American Right by default, despite the discomfort many conservatives feel in our presence.
Credit Image: © Dave Decker/ZUMA Press Wire
At the same time, Charlie Kirk’s progression shows that that discomfort was fading. While not “one of us,” he was clearly moving closer to our positions and was by no means a political opponent, let alone an enemy. This progression seems to be mirrored by the evolution of many on the American Right. Ideologically, we may not want to be lumped in with traditional conservatives, both out of deep-seated philosophical disagreements and out of a desire to remain aloof from the Trump administration and the Republican Party’s hijinks. Yet the Kirk assassination suggests such hopes may be pointless.
Identity is not entirely chosen, nor is it entirely biological. It is also a product of what your declared enemies consider you. The target placed on Charlie Kirk was placed on all of us. The shot that ended his life and the celebrations that ensued would extend to all of us too. The most painful, final lesson of the man most famous for challenging progressives to debate is that politics is ultimately not about an abstract duel of ideas. It is a brutal struggle for power, the stakes are existential, and for white Americans in 2025, they are rising all the time.
Charlie Kirk, RIP.
The post America Divided: Charlie Kirk’s Assassination appeared first on American Renaissance.
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