Charlie Kirk’s killing on a Utah university campus last Wednesday has left a generation of conservatives without a leader, activists in the movement tell Vanity Fair. With his extensive online presence and close relationship to the White House, Kirk was a standard-bearer for young people coming to politics for the first time, and the network he created served as a haven for conservatives who felt out of sync with their liberal peers. In the aftermath of his death, young MAGA activists are grappling with what comes next.
“Charlie wasn’t just my boss; he was my mentor, my friend, and, in many ways, like an older brother,” 23-year-old Mikey McCoy, Kirk’s former chief of staff, tells VF. McCoy and his wife, 25-year-old Elizabeth, the administrative events director at Turning Point USA, the organization Kirk founded at 18, will play central roles in his commemorations going forward. Kirk’s widow, Erika, thanked McCoy by name in her livestreamed address. The couple stood by as Kirk’s casket was escorted onto Air Force Two and will no doubt be in the front row at his public memorial in Glendale, Arizona, this Sunday, where McCoy will be delivering a brief speech.
“We are no longer the silent majority,” Elizabeth says, speaking to how the shooting has emboldened young conservatives in their political ambition. “Anyone who thinks this will silence us clearly does not understand who we are and what we stand for.”
Even though so much of the young MAGA community is online, live events are a mainstay of this type of activism. They help generate content that can be repackaged for social media, allowing creators to curate short, viral moments and draw in a new audience. The lax security at Utah Valley University has raised questions about what type of protection should be in place for such events going forward. Gabe Saint, the 23-year-old president of the Turning Point chapter at the University of Wyoming, tells VF that he will continue to do live speaking events. He already held one Monday evening in Casper, Wyoming, and says he has organized a public address on his campus for Friday night. “Overall, we are not nervous,” he confirms. “God is with us.”
Saint tells me that he is taking his guidance from Kirk’s wife, Erika. “She gave us our marching orders when she addressed the nation, and like she said, we know what to do as TPUSA students,” Saint says. “We will obviously take further precautions, but our greatest tool is our faith that God will protect us in our fight for all our people, including our enemies.”
“He was an icon for my generation,” Jayme Leagh Franklin, a 27-year-old former White House staffer who founded the online right-wing women’s lifestyle magazine The Conservateur, says. Franklin believes the young MAGA community needs to continue to hold events across the country, in even greater volumes; to honor Kirk’s memory, her site has taken down the paywall on a story about him that was published in January. “Charlie would never want this movement to end with him,” Franklin says. “The best way to honor his legacy is to press forward with even greater resolve, carrying out his mission and fighting for the future of our nation harder than ever before.”
Several memorials took place on college campuses earlier this week, and Wednesday will see a rally at the University of Alabama, hosted by CJ Pearson, the co-chair of the Republican National Committee Youth Advisory Council, and featuring Savannah Chrisley, the reality TV star whose parents were pardoned by Trump following a controversial fraud case.
Emily Wilson, a conservative influencer who goes by @emilysavesamerica to her more than half a million Instagram followers, admits that she, too, will likely have to get security for events moving forward, but says that this has not deterred her from using her platform. Wilson went viral last year after appearing on a podcast with Dean Withers and suggesting that slavery, like abortion, could be a state-by-state issue. Wilson said, “If everyone in the state wants it, go ahead. What do I give a shit?”
Now she tells VF that Kirk’s killing is like “MLK or JFK to us,” saying, “If anything, this has pushed me extremely further in my beliefs.”
“Socially, politically, Republicans and conservatives are going to be pissed,” says Lou Holly, a 30-year-old content creator who makes arguably ragebait-y YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram videos. In a recent post, he dismissed free speech concerns about Trump’s executive order directing the prosecution of those who burn the flag: “If the only way you know how to express the way that you are feeling is by burning an American flag, then you’re probably not smart enough to be protesting anyways.” One of Holly’s highest-performing videos has racked up more than 17 million views. “I think a lot of Republicans are going to stop holding their punches because they just lost a friend,” he says.
Holly shares that he was previously reluctant to appear on conservative networks and at public events after experiencing aggression just from posting online, fearing what that might portend. The killing, however, has changed his mind. “This tragedy has shown me I can’t rely on others to do the hard things for me,” he explains. “It’s up to me to be brave enough to stand on the front lines and fight for what I know is right.”
While it’s not clear who will emerge as the new face of young conservatism, Kirk’s death has added fresh fuel to the youth MAGA mission and encouraged members of the movement, more than ever, to not be silent about their political beliefs.
“He’s now like a martyr to us, I guess,” Wilson says. “I think this is going to radicalize millions of Americans.”
