RIP American Comeback Tour

A Turning Point USA chapter at the Utah Valley campus promoted Charlie Kirk’s visit:

Join Charlie Kirk on campus for a lively discussion of Freedom & America! Don’t agree with Charlie? Great, you go to the front of the line. See you there!

Charlie Kirk, 31, founder of the conservative political group Turning Point USA, was shot fatally yesterday. Kirk was in Orem, Utah. on stage for one of his signature campus events at Utah Valley University. Charlie. Kirk. was scheduled as part of the tour to visit college campuses throughout the fall. The Utah campus was the first stop on Mr. Kirk’s American Comeback Tour.

Charles Kirk, a married father of two, was one of the first to recognize that the radicalization of the left has been driven largely by economic disenfranchisement, a point that often goes unacknowledged by leading intellectual voices.

Kirk’s shooting happened in the wake of other killings that rapidly became politicized after the fact. For example, the murder of Brian Thompson, a United Healthcare executive in Midtown Manhattan in December 2024, allegedly by Luigi Mangione, a newfound leftist folk hero.

Recently, the stabbing death of a woman on a train in Charlotte, N.C., has garnered ample news coverage on conservative media outlets, which framed it as an example of bad policies by Democrats..

Kirk, a prolific podcaster, regularly held public events on college campuses, where he exemplified a willingness to speak openly and debate ideas, viewing them as a foundational virtue of the United States. His next stop after Utah was to have been Fort Collins, CO.

Speaking of Kirk, Victor Davis Hanson warns in American Greatness:

“We don’t realize that we’re in the middle of a revolution. … We think that we’re still playing within the same sidelines or parameters, and it’s not. …  Everything’s under negotiation, whether it’s the Senate filibuster, the Electoral College, new states coming in, the size of Supreme Court.”

“I think we’re every naive,” warns Hanson. “We don’t realize that we’re in the middle of a revolution.”

“We think that we’re still playing within the same sidelines or parameters, and it’s not,” VDH added. “Everything’s under negotiation, whether it’s the Senate filibuster, the Electoral College, new states coming in, the size of Supreme Court.”

Hanson also expressed grave concerns about the future, especially should a Democrat win the next presidential election.

If that happens, according to VDH, it could destabilize America’s democratic framework, especially given the Leftists’ actions in the 2020 election.