Socrates of the Trump movement: They hated Charlie Kirk because he turned students into Republicans

Charlie Kirk was guilty of a monstrous offense. He refuted one of the central political certainties of the progressive establishment: youth are left-wing. For decades, leftists had taken for granted the glory of youth, of awakening, of extravagance, and the promise of a better life. Conservatives were old, white, yesterday's men. But Charlie Kirk knew better. The left never forgave him for that.

He set up his tent (literally, he usually sat in a tent) on hundreds of university campuses across the US and engaged in debates with students. Anyone who wanted to could argue with Kirk about abortion, gun ownership, slavery, minorities, Israel, transgender people, freedom of speech, 9/11, the coronavirus, Epstein, and, again and again, Donald Trump. No topic was taboo. Thousands came. This was also the case on Wednesday, September 10, on the grounds of the University of Utah.

Donald Trump on Charlie Kirk: “Great and legendary”

Then, at 12:20 p.m., a gunshot tore his carotid artery, blood gushing from his neck. Kirk collapsed. The crowd fled in panic. A few hours later, President Trump announced: "The great, even legendary, Charlie Kirk is dead. No one understood or had a better sense of the youth of the United States of America than Charlie."

When Charlie Kirk entered the political scene in 2012 at just 18 years old, America was deep in the Obama throes. But five months before the re-election of the United States' first Black president, Kirk founded Turning Point USA. His youth organization stood for everything the Democrats opposed: border closures, abortion bans, the fear of God, civil liberties, and criticism of immigration. The organization grew rapidly: By 2025, TPUSA reportedly had over 3,500 chapters at high schools, colleges, and universities.

Kirk played a significant role in driving the political attitudes of young American men with college degrees sharply to the right over the past decade. They were crucial to Trump's first and second presidential elections.

But Democrats didn't just hate Kirk because he turned students and schoolchildren into Republicans with his public debates. He also made their blood boil because he uncompromisingly placed dialogue at the center of his strategy. He never indulged in insults or calls for violence. They couldn't accuse him of hate speech. While hate speech is protected by the First Amendment in the United States, threatening people or inciting crimes is also prohibited in the United States.

It was this crude, yet clean, and above all, effective Socratic method, in which he sought to confront his counterparts with contradictions in their own attitudes through constant questioning and thus change their attitudes. It is an irony of history that the Greek philosopher also had to die for allegedly "corrupting the youth."

Kirk trusted that his arguments were superior and that his rhetorical skills would do the rest. He succeeded time and again, as countless videos prove. And these videos of the college debates eventually reached millions of people via his social media channels.

Twice, assassins attempted to assassinate Trump during the last election campaign. The first time, a bullet narrowly missed him. The assassin was a radicalized leftist. And even though the perpetrator hasn't been found yet, some evidence points to a similar motive in this murder.

Now, Democratic politicians, without exception, regret Kirk's assassination and call for a peaceful resolution. That's the least they can do. But anyone who looks at the social media posts celebrating the death of the 31-year-old activist and father of two young children will find hundreds of thousands of likes. Even staff members of left-wing politicians approve. Many of the Democrats who portray Trump as Hitler and pose as resistance fighters have rhetorically targeted Kirk for years.

But it's a fallacy to believe that political movements can be intimidated or even disappear by the killing of prominent figures. They are, above all, radicalized by it. And so, one of the most shared memes from the right-wing camp these days is an image of a right-winger whispering in the ear of a left-winger: "Charlie was the moderate voice. Now we come."