Last summer, the nearly successful attempt to assassinate Donald Trump took my mind back to April 1968. Today, when I heard the terrible news that Charlie Kirk had been shot and killed, I thought again of Martin Luther King Jr.
Don’t get me wrong. King and Kirk lived in different times and held very different beliefs. My point is this: Both men represented movements that were upending the status quo.
The civil rights movement triggered a revolution in American public life. It overturned a longstanding consensus about race, and thankfully so. However, the movement’s success led to disbelief, anger, and bitterness among many whites. I was a child in those years. But I was aware enough to sense the resentment, and on more than one occasion, I heard adults utter ugly sentiments that amounted to verbal violence.
We are living through another revolution in American public life. The multicultural, open society consensus that has dominated for many decades is being challenged. (In Return of the Strong Gods, I explain how that consensus had deep roots in postwar liberalism.) A growing majority demands borders and national reconsolidation—America First.
In this revolution, it’s not Southern whites who are outraged. Instead, the disbelief, anger, and bitterness are expressed by educated elites, especially Baby Boomers, who have known no other consensus than the one now losing its grip. I urge readers to skim some recent issues of The Atlantic. The magazine regularly publishes urgent and increasingly desperate warnings by Anne Applebaum and others that Donald Trump is the second coming of Hitler.
Kirk’s organization is Turning Point USA. His ambition was to turn young people away from the left’s agenda and toward a conservative outlook. In recent years, he was pushing on an open door. Polling suggests a rightward tilt in Gen Z attitudes. And his arena was the university, the implacable Vatican of the now-dying multicultural and open society consensus. I’m not privy to private conversations among Ivy League professors, but I’d be surprised if they are not characterized by horror and disbelief about the “vibe shift,” which is affecting every sector of society, especially their students.
Many commentators have observed (and rightly so) that violent and hysterical rhetoric creates an atmosphere in which disturbed individuals will act violently. James Earl Ray, King’s killer, was that kind of person. I don’t doubt that his disordered soul was influenced by the profoundly hostile attitudes of those who opposed the civil rights movement, of which King was the most powerful symbol.
Perhaps Kirk’s killer was similarly influenced, seduced by the outrage and anger of today’s left, which is the custodian of the old and dying open society consensus. Those on the left cannot believe that Trump and his movement are not just in the White House. MAGA is taking strong and bold action to institute a very different national consensus. Take, for example, a recent article in Harper’s by Chris Lehmann, Washington bureau chief for The Nation. He writes of the “lickspittle MAGA lieutenants like Johnson and Thune.”
I don’t blame Applebaum and Lehmann for Kirk’s death. They believe in the old and dying consensus, seeing it as the indispensable bulwark against countless evils. Of course they defend it fiercely. And I commend Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris, and other Democratic leaders for strongly condemning this terrible act.
Instead of pointing fingers in this way, it’s better to recognize that, in our history, assassinations are symptoms. They are the dark fruit of passionate conflict over the future of our nation. We should certainly do everything we can to bring civility to this conflict, which is well underway in the United States (and elsewhere in the nations of the West). But we should not temper our convictions.
After all, Kirk was right, and we should not be shy about saying so. As most of us feel in our bones, we are at a turning point. It’s not just a matter of economics and foreign policy. Many—and I count myself among them—don’t like the American society created by open borders, multicultural ideology, LGBT advocates, and Black Lives Matter. We want a society anchored in faith, family, and flag.
And like Kirk, we don’t plan to riot to get that kind of society. He was committed to open debate. He knew that the multicultural project had failed. He was aware that most Americans resented the 24/7 policing of opinions by the left. He was confident that the deliberative and democratic process will allow like-minded Americans to forge a new and better future for our country.
I mourn for Kirk and his family and friends. The death of a loved one is a heavy blow, especially under circumstances so evil. But I take some small consolation in this fact: Assassinations are sometimes more than symptoms; they can become catalysts. Innocent blood is a powerful reality. It turns the wheel of history. I believe Kirk’s murder will have this effect.
The evil deed of September 10, 2025, will expose the desperation of the old and failed consensus that Kirk opposed. The consensus he hoped to turn us toward, one that restores faith, family, and flag, will triumph.
Image by Gage Skidmore, licensed via Creative Commons. Image cropped.
