The shot murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk during a conference at the University of the Utah Valley on September 10, 2025 generated a generalized conviction and renewed attention to the climate of political violence in the United States. For many, Kirk was not a simple partisan commentator.
He was one of the most visible leaders of the young conservative movement. Kirk contributed to mold republican policy on university campuses, in the media and within the coalition of President Donald Trump.
To understand the importance of the attack – and why the reactions were so strong – it is useful to know who Kirk was, what defended the organization he built and the role that he and his allies played in the national debates.
Founder of Turning Point USA
Charlie Kirk was a conservative activist, author and media personality who jumped to fame unusually early.
Raised in the suburbs of Chicago, national headlines monopolized at age 18 for founding Turning Point USA, a conservative youth movement. Kirk only briefly attended the university. Instead, he decided to devote himself completely to the conservative organization.
That decision became a central element of the myth that surrounded it: it represented the option of young people promising for not studying higher studies in protest of the alleged leftist bias of universities.
During the following decade, Kirk became a national figure. As of 2016, he frequently spoke on Trump’s rallies, which helped him forge a wide media presence.
In 2020 he published “The Maga Doctrine”, a book Superventas that advocated nationalism and the “First United States agenda” of Trump. His homonym podcast, “The Charlie Kirk Show”, was downloaded more than 120 million times in the last 10 months, according to Turning Point.
Kirk’s program included political comments and interviews with prominent republican personalities and politicians; Among their guests were Tucker Carlson, Missouri Senator Josh Hawley and Florida Governor Ron Desantis. These conversations expanded the scope of Kirk far beyond the student audience.
Do not miss: Trump, Republicans and Democrats react to Charlie Kirk’s fatal shooting
Connecting university students with the Republican Party
Turning Point USA was founded in 2012 by Kirk and Bill Montgomery. Kirk met Montgomery, a retired businessman, after Kirk gave a speech at a summit of conservative young people in Kansas. Montgomery urged him not to study university studies, but to devote himself completely to building a conservative youth movement.
Kirk described his first days as solitary: leading to the campus, distributing brochures and trying to recruit students to talk about the free market and the limited government.
Turning Point obtained an important financial support from high -profile conservative donors, such as Foster Friess, the Wyoming Financial; the Richard and Helen Devos Foundation; and Illinois Richard Uihlein businessman and his family foundation.
By 2024, Turning Point had delegations in more than 1,000 campus, used more than 400 people and had increased its annual budget to more than 8 million dollars.
Today, Turning Point is known for organizing large -scale conferences. Its student action summit in Florida regularly attracts between 4,000 and 5,000 students and has the participation of key figures of the Republican Party, such as Donald Trump Jr. and Senator Texano Ted Cruz. An event in Phoenix in 2022, called Americafest, attracted more than 10,000 attendees.
The most controversial thing is that the website of the list of teachers in surveillance of the group publishes the names of academics to which it accuses of having prejudices against conservatives.
Turning Point also created subsidiaries with related ideas, such as Turning Point Action and Tpusa Faith. These organizations expand the reach of Turning Point to electoral policy and the organization of Churches. The TPUSA media division produces a constant flow of popular videos, live broadcasts and podcasts, a legacy that should guarantee that Kirk’s influence lasts despite his death.
Expanding the national tour of turning point
Kirk and Turning Point provided important connections for conservative young people and the Republican party. In 2016, Turning Point mobilized thousands of students for Trump’s campaign, and Kirk was invited to speak at the Republican National Convention.
By 2020, the organization played a more open political role. Turning Point Action conducted voter registration campaigns in key states, and the group sponsored buses and advertising to bring supporters to Washington, DC, before the demonstration “stop the theft” of January 6, 2021. Kirk then tweeted that Turning Point would send “more than 80 buses full of patriots” to the event.
Although he subsequently erased the message and distanced himself from violence, he stressed the involvement of the group in the most controversial moments of the Trump era.
Kirk also acted as a Trump crucial representative in the media. He used his podcast, social networks and conferences tours to amplify Trump’s message and attack his critics. He was one of the first and persistent promoters of Trump’s unfounded statements about electoral fraud in the 2020 elections, helping to translate them for the younger conservative public.
Disinformation diffusion, fueling tensions
Critics argued that Kirk was nourished by indignation and intimidation instead of the debate.
The list of teachers in surveillance was denounced by associations of teachers as a blacklist that undermines academic freedom. Journalistic investigations of media such as The New Yorker raised doubts about Turning Point’s finances, including accusations of a blurred line between non -profit educational work and partisan campaigns.
Kirk was criticized for spreading misinformation, as false statements of electoral fraud in the 2020 elections and deceptive statements about vaccines against COVID-19 and the mandatory use of masks. He suggested that public health measures were a form of government control, a rhetoric that, according to public health experts, undermined trust during a crisis.
In more general terms, their acute attacks on their political opponents – they presented not only as wrong, but also as dangerous – generated accusations that it foster polarization and exacerbated tensions on American university campus and beyond.
*Stephanie A. (Sam) Martin It is a chair of public affairs at Boise State University, Frank and Bethine Church.
This text was originally published in The Conversation
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and do not miss our content
