Mark Halperin reflects on the legacy of assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk and why he resonated with people.

MARK HALPERIN: My new reporting on Charlie Kirk put aside the day-to-day headlines of what’s happened since his assassination. I think the bigger thing here is what Charlie represented. The person and his death of course matters extraordinarily to the people in his family, his friends, business associates, colleagues, but I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means more broadly and talking to a lot of people in the conservative movement who can explain this so well. MAGA folks who I’ve talked to in the last few days reflecting on Charlie’s life and why this has been so impactful. You hear about the impact not just from the president and the vice president, people who knew Charlie personally, but I’ve been struck on two way in other conversations as I’ve traveled the last few days, how much people who never knew Charlie and weren’t even particularly aware of what his day-to-day activities were, how much they’ve been struck by this. Now, part of it is just the horror of what happened and the horrible images of his murder that resonate with any human being, but a lot of it is for people in this country who supported President Trump, even in many cases when they didn’t like him. Why? Why is this so powerful? I think Charlie biographically and in terms of what he did in his career has so many of the elements that have caused the MAGA movement to grow. Donald Trump, it’s often been said, didn’t lead this movement so much as figure out it was there and get to the front of the line, in front of the parade, and lead folks, organize folks. What’s happened here, I believe, is that Charlie’s life, Charlie’s biography is so resonant with folks because of the strands that it represents. For decades, conservatives in this country have felt aggrieved, alienated, shut out from so much of what is sometimes called the mainstream because liberal institutions, the media, universities, big corporations in many cases, Hollywood, news, so many of the big institutions have not just alienated people on the right, but often hurt them, kept them from job advancement, kept them from having rewarded times in college, kept them from getting fair media coverage if they were in politics. Charlie represented so many of the themes, so many of the specifics that people in MAGA have reacted against. His death, his murder has made them feel like one of their champions, one of their great success stories was eliminated as a symbolic pushing back regardless of who actually pulled the trigger. Charlie was not in his life given credit by the establishment that he should have been. Had Charlie Kirk been a Democrat and done what he’d done in service of, say, Barack Obama, he would have been one of the most venerated, celebrated, profiled, championed people in America. Now, Charlie got plenty of credit in certain circles. This program certainly paid respect to what an extraordinary life he had, but he was not treated the way he’d been. He wouldn’t have been a Democrat. What are these themes? What are these elements of Charlie’s life that the establishment, the liberal establishment in particular, did not celebrate, did not feel a closeness to? I’d start with his education. Not only did Charlie not go to an Ivy League school or some other fancy school, Charlie didn’t graduate from college. The establishment, again, the liberal establishment, I’ll use them interchangeably, they don’t respect that. They don’t like that. They don’t identify with that. For a lot of folks who knew Charlie’s story, the fact that he was so successful running a $ 100 million company, friends with presidents, vice presidents, other leaders, didn’t graduate from college rubbed some people the wrong way, kept him from being seen the way he should have been seen. For people in this country, less educated, of course, a huge reason Donald Trump was elected president twice and almost won a third time was that education divide. There’s no more important demographic divide in America now between red and blue than education. President Trump, historically, you see it in the polls today, does better with less educated voters. Charlie represented that, got a life education in the real world, but didn’t graduate from college. Next, religion. The Democratic Party has become the secular party, and this is not a subjective judgment. The polls show it. Charlie wore his faith on his sleeve. Charlie had Jesus Christ as his savior. Charlie didn’t shy away from that. He didn’t pull his punches. When he spoke in secular locations, like in some universities, he didn’t hide from it. He didn’t shy away from it, nor did he judge others because of it. By being a man of faith, by saying, I am doing this to make the world a better place to do the Lord’s work here on earth, the liberal establishment doesn’t get that. They don’t identify that. The fact that Charlie was religious and that that kept him from achieving the approval of people on the left, again, that’s a theme you hear time and again from religious conservatives. You see it in the fights over school curriculum. You see them for some fights that occurred around COVID. People of faith are not treated the same by the liberal establishment. They’re looked down on, they’re scorned, they’re discriminated against. Charlie rose above that, but that theme very resonant. He was well aware of his ability to use that to his advantage, to rally people of faith around him. He lived in Arizona. There’s another example of the bias. Great place, loved it in Arizona, but the East Coast liberal media establishment, they just don’t credit people achieving things that aren’t in the bi-coastal space. Charlie also achieved his success without the help of the left. You look at all the great things that have risen up. Again, Donald Trump, Exhibit A, all the extraordinary stories of success from MAGA. Charlie and the president, first and foremost, I would say, as president, getting elected president, bigger deal, but to develop that kind of power, that kind of following without the help of the left, going around the liberal media, not needing the money of people on the left, not needing the help from universities or Hollywood. Establishment doesn’t like that. It’s a threat to their power. Charlie’s success occurring that way really undermined people on the left. It’s a great source of inspiration to people in MAGA. Charlie started a popular show, a popular video podcast. He didn’t need CBS News or NBC News or the New York Times to help him do that. That ability was a great source of pride for Charlie, great source of pride for his followers, but again, it’s another way in which here’s a guy, rises up, develops a successful show on his own, and then he’s eliminated. Another one, related. Charlie was not chummy with the establishment media. He was respectful to them. You can find probably as much for Charlie as any leading MAGA figure, you will find lots of liberal reporters who had dealings with him. He was friendly with, who he often agreed to do interviews with, sometimes surprised me, but he didn’t need them. He didn’t really associate with them. There’s some people, even some conservatives who will fly to Washington DC or New York and do editorial boards or go out to dinner with reporters. Charlie didn’t do that much because he didn’t need to, and he didn’t really want to. He’d rather be home with his family and long flight from Arizona, but that’s different. The fact that someone without being chummy with the establishment press could succeed and then be eliminated, that’s another one that has really inspired people while he was alive and frustrates people now that he has been killed. Threat to their power, right? You think about Charlie, threatened university’s hammerlock hold on their students, going on university campuses and telling conservatives, you don’t need to listen to the establishment, you don’t need to listen to the administrators, you don’t need to listen to the liberals on this campus, you can do what you want. Threat to their power, starts a popular commercially successful video program, doesn’t need the establishment to do that. Says, I’m going to help President Trump get elected by figuring out how to register people to vote and turn him out. Again, a threat to the establishment. All of these things, all of Charlie’s achievements, whether his turning point, whether it was voter registration, whether it was his show, whether it was his capacity to influence Congress, all those things he did, not only without the help of the establishment, he did it by undermining the establishment’s hold on power. They hated that, to the extent they thought about it. A lot of them were too naive to understand just how effective he was, and ignorant. But all of those things were a threat, and that’s why he got all this negative coverage, the extent he was covered when he was alive. Now that he’s passed, now that he’s been killed, you see some positive coverage of him in places like the New York Times and CNN. Makes my stomach turn that only because he’s dead, that they’re giving him some positive coverage, not universally so to say the least. But all of these things being a threat to their power. But in the end, all those things that I’ve listed are super important. They’re super important to why Charlie was so beloved, and so many people were proud of him in the conservative movement. But they also speak to why his death, his murder, has made so many people in MAGA upset. There’s the personal reason. But the symbolism of someone who did all of those things, who overcome all of those biases, all of those prejudices, was a success. Now to have his life ended, it makes them sad, and it makes them angry. But the two biggest factors are the fact that he was a conservative, and that he was pro-Trump. Right? And this is where the decades of history of all these institutions being biased against conservatives and Republicans changes, when Donald Trump comes on the scene. Again, make no mistake, you can go back to Nixon and Reagan and the Bushes. Extraordinary bias against Republicans and conservatives. But Trump made it different. Donald Trump’s rise on the scene, even though again, ironically, his whole career, including his 2016 presidential campaign, featured Trump’s close relationship with a lot of these cultural institutions that are liberal. They like Trump. He used to be a Democrat and a liberal. But as they turned on him, after he beat Hillary Clinton, as they turned on him, anyone in this country, pro-Trump and pro-conservative, is discriminated against by these liberal cultural institutions. And I’ve heard it for 10 years now. People saying they can’t wear a MAGA hat. They can’t say on a Zoom call in their workplace, I’m for Trump. Now, since he’s been reelected in 2024, that’s changed somewhat. It’s been one of the most, I think, under-discussed, under-understood, maybe misunderstood developments, where you see it in the changes in the DEI programs. You see it in the willingness of some people to be way more outspoken about supporting Donald Trump. But from 2016 to 2024, and even now, all of the things that I’ve listed about Charlie that set him apart from the establishment approval matrix, they’re front and center. And again, to be a conservative, to be openly for Donald Trump, even now, in many places, is to court big trouble and to risk hurting your career. Charlie’s legacy is multifaceted, right? There’s so many things he achieved that people will remember him for.

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