Charlie Kirk’s murder has ignited the greatest conservative youth uprising in history

Some felt that it was a step closer to widespread political violence, perhaps even as a predicate to civil war. Conservative commentators announced that the time for speaking was now over; many observed that Kirk was a mainstream conservative who prioritized engagement with his ideological opponents. The public rejoicing from many prominent leftists has triggered justifiable rage on the Right.

It is now clear that Kirk was killed for his Christian views on LGBT ideology. The assassin was sending a message to America: Speak against the LGBT movement at your own risk.

But Kirk’s murder has not cowed the young conservatives who held him as a hero. Instead, his death has triggered an unprecedented surge in young people rallying to his cause. Turning Point USA has been flooded with applications for both jobs and TPUSA college and high school chapters over the last ten days. The day Kirk was killed, TPUSA had 900 university chapters and 1,200 high school chapters.

By the time Erika Kirk – who has now been unanimously appointed as her husband’s successor by the TPUSA board – gave her speech memorializing her husband, the organization had been swamped by 18,000 chapter requests. By September 14, they had received over 32,000 inquiries. By September 19, TPUSA had received over 62,000 student signups to join an existing chapter or start a new one. If TPUSA was a force under Charlie Kirk, his assassination has proven a staggering force multiplier.

The producer of the Charlie Kirk Show and one of Kirk’s closest friends has described the outpouring of support as nothing short of “miraculous.”

Indeed, Charlie Kirk’s lifetime goal was a TPUSA chapter in every high school – 32,000 of them – as well as a massive expansion of the college chapters. This goal once seemed extraordinarily ambitious. Mere days after his death, it may now be within reach. Kirk’s death may prove to be a catalyst not for violence, but for his already incredible movement to morph into an unstoppable, culture-changing force operating in tens of thousands of leftist strongholds.

As I detailed in Chapter 2 of my recent book How We Got Here: A Guide to Our Anti-Christian Culture (titled “Weapons of Mass Instruction”), the sexual Left colonized the minds of several generations on college campuses and public schools. In addition to hijacking curriculums, one of the key methods that the Left utilized was “Gay-Straight Alliance” clubs and other LGBT organizations, while conservative and Christian students were either censored or cowed into silence.

What will happen if suddenly, overnight, thousands of these educational institutions suddenly have conservative clubs on campuses and in schools pushing back against these narratives utilizing the same well-researched, winsome, and dialogue-oriented methods that Charlie Kirk used? What would happen if the countless students who hold Christian beliefs and pro-life views decided to speak up, with a massive movement at their backs to defend their right to do so?

What if Charlie Kirk’s horrifying assassination is the catalyst for breaking the LGBT movement’s vise-grip on our institutions of learning?

In his short 31 years on this earth, Charlie Kirk became a historical figure in his own right. President Donald Trump credited him as being a significant contributor to his 2024 election victory. No less a progressive than Ezra Klein of the New York Times credited Kirk with turning young people toward conservatism. If this wave of courageous enthusiasm results in an explosion of the movement he began, the full extent of his legacy may prove to be far greater than we can yet imagine.

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Jonathon’s writings have been translated into more than six languages and in addition to LifeSiteNews, has been published in the National Post, National Review, First Things, The Federalist, The American Conservative, The Stream, the Jewish Independent, the Hamilton Spectator, Reformed Perspective Magazine, and LifeNews, among others. He is a contributing editor to The European Conservative.