The Void Charlie Kirk Left Behind: Where Does the Conservative Movement Go From Here?

A reflection two months after September 10, 2025

The Shot That Changed Everything

On September 10, 2025, at 12:30 PM Mountain Time, a single bullet ended the life of my friend Charlie Kirk. He was 31 years old, speaking to a crowd of 3,000 young conservatives at Utah Valley University, doing what he loved most: engaging with students who disagreed with him at his signature “Prove Me Wrong” table.

The shot that rang out in Utah broke my heart.

But it didn’t break my spirit for this country.

I took a break from writing. From organizing. From everything. When you lose someone who showed you what real commitment looks like, someone who became a friend through the work, the grief hits different.

But I knew what Charlie would say if he could see me sitting on the sidelines. He’d tell me to get back to work. He’d tell me that the fight doesn’t stop because we took casualties. He’d tell me that if we quit, then his assassin wins.

So as the Political Director of WAGOP, I threw myself into the 2025 elections. I personally worked 43 days straight. Hitting doors. Making phone calls. Organizing teams. Training volunteers.

And we won. WAGOP candidates won 51 out of 84 school board races in one of the bluest states in America. We won city council races. We built infrastructure that will deliver more wins in 2026.

That’s what Charlie would have wanted. Not grief. Not paralysis. Work.

Who Charlie Was

Let me be clear about something: Charlie Kirk wasn’t just another conservative talking head. He was the real deal.

Trump got it right when he said “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.” That wasn’t political flattery. That was fact.

Starting Turning Point USA at just 18 years old, Charlie understood something that establishment Republicans were too cowardly or stupid to grasp: you can’t win a culture war by surrendering the culture. While the GOP was writing off college campuses as lost causes, Charlie was building an army there.

His “Prove Me Wrong” tables became iconic because they were revolutionary. The left controls academia, the media, entertainment, and big tech. They’ve spent decades telling young people that conservatives are racist, sexist, hateful bigots. And what did most Republican leaders do? They whined about it from safe distances.

Charlie showed up. He sat down in the middle of enemy territory. He invited their best arguments. He debated them with facts, with humor, with respect they often didn’t deserve and never reciprocated. And millions of young Americans watched him absolutely dismantle their professors’ lies with a smile on his face.

By 2024, Turning Point USA had become one of the most powerful grassroots organizations in Republican politics. The ground game Charlie built in swing states delivered Trump’s victory.

And now he’s gone. Murdered for his beliefs.

The Socialist Problem

Two months after Charlie’s assassination, the 2025 elections delivered a gut punch.

Katie Wilson was elected mayor of Seattle. Zohran Mamdani was elected mayor of New York City. Both are self-described socialists. The very campus radicals Charlie spent years debating are now running two of America’s largest cities.

These aren’t “progressive Democrats.” These are actual socialists who openly campaign on dismantling capitalism, defunding police, and implementing the Green New Deal at the municipal level.

And here’s what that tells us: we can’t wait for another Charlie to save us. Katie Wilson and Zohran Mamdani won because the left built infrastructure, trained organizers, and never stopped working. They didn’t need one charismatic leader. They had an army.

We need to build our own army. In every city. On every campus. With or without Charlie, the fight continues.

The Self-Governance Lesson

Here’s what Charlie understood better than anyone: you build a movement by training people, not by fighting for them.

Charlie was extraordinary. But the real genius of what he built wasn’t just his own platform. It was showing millions of young conservatives that they could engage, debate, and win. He didn’t create followers. He created leaders.

The Founders understood that a republic requires citizens capable of self-governance. People who don’t need a single leader to do their thinking for them. Charlie embodied that. He taught young people to think critically, to defend their beliefs, to engage in the arena.

Now it’s our turn to prove he succeeded.

As WAGOP Political Director, I saw firsthand what happens when people stop waiting for someone to save them and start doing the work themselves. Our school board strategy worked because we had clear targets, dedicated volunteers, and relentless execution.

We’re going to multiply that. In every county. In every city. In every race that matters. Charlie showed us how. Now we show him we were paying attention.

What We Do Now

If we actually believe in the principles Charlie fought for, liberty, limited government, free speech, individual responsibility, then here’s what we need to do:

Build institutional resilience
Turning Point must become an organization that develops many leaders. Charlie built the platform. Now it needs to outlive him. Erika Kirk and her team need our support, not our pity.

Distribute the workload
Charlie’s daily show, campus tours, debate appearances, social media presence. This was inhuman. No one person should carry that again. We need ten people each doing a tenth of what Charlie did.

Create participants, not spectators
Charlie was brilliant at creating content. Millions watched. Now we need those millions to become thousands of activists. WAGOP candidates won because volunteers showed up and did the work. That’s the model.

Get aggressive about winning
While we were mourning, Katie Wilson and Zohran Mamdani won two of America’s biggest cities. That cannot happen again. The enemy doesn’t care about our grief. They’re organizing. We need to be organizing harder.

Protect each other
Charlie was killed at an event that lacked basic security. Witness Tyler McGettigan told NBC News he was surprised there were no metal detectors. That cannot happen again. Every conservative event needs proper security. We’re at war, even if only one side is willing to use violence.

The Challenge

If you’re reading this and you benefited from Charlie’s work, if you watched his debates, listened to his show, attended his events, you have a responsibility now.

You can’t just consume conservative content anymore. You have to create it.
You can’t just watch campus debates anymore. You have to participate in them.
You can’t just share viral videos anymore. You have to make the case yourself.
You can’t just vote anymore. You have to organize.
You can’t just sit on the sidelines, we need you to learn how to self-govern.

Charlie made it look easy, but it wasn’t. It required courage, preparation, and relentless effort. He can’t carry that burden alone anymore because he’s not here. Now it falls to all of us.

Conclusion

I knew Charlie. I can tell you what he’d want from us now.

He wouldn’t want us stuck in grief. He wouldn’t want the movement to die with him. He wouldn’t want us seeking revenge or becoming bitter.

He’d want us on campus quads having conversations. He’d want us knocking on doors for school board races. He’d want us building local chapters, hosting events, engaging with people who disagree. He’d want us living out the principles of liberty, faith, and free speech that he spent his life promoting.

Most of all, he’d want us to pick up the work he can no longer do.

The void Charlie left is real. It’s massive. It cannot be filled by any one person.

But it can be filled by all of us if we choose to step up.

President Trump proclaimed October 14, 2025, what would have been Charlie’s 32nd birthday, as a National Day of Remembrance, and awarded Charlie the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously. That’s beautiful. That’s deserved.

But honors don’t win elections. The work continues, and it falls to us.

The 2024 elections delivered the victories Charlie worked for. The 2025 elections showed us what happens when we lose our best organizer. Katie Wilson runs Seattle. Zohran Mamdani runs NYC. We won school boards in Washington but lost major cities to socialists.

Mixed results. Clear lessons. The fight continues.

Charlie showed us how to fight for what we believe in. Now we have to show that his work lives on through what we do next.

He can’t be here to lead it anymore.

So we lead it ourselves.

That’s what self-governance means. That’s what liberty requires. That’s what Charlie would want.

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Rest in peace, Charlie. We’re taking it from here.