Night of the Living White Nationalism

Why Charlie Kirk's legacy matters and how it will keep threatening us

Charlie Kirk hasn't died. Perhaps he did in body, but not in ideology. This is not a fawning eulogy to him, but a practical assessment of what he aimed to do while alive. In the rush to eulogize him, American media often describe his passing as the end of an era. I disagree with their assessment. That era is alive, violent, and going to try to bite us like in Last of Us or Train to Busan.

In fact, Kirk's life's work served to set up an ideology built to outlast him. That this hatred will have an afterlife is testament to the clarity, conviction and vehemence of his career in white nationalism.

What do I mean by this? How does his work have an afterlife?

Let's take a look at the scale of his work through the website of his organization, Turning Point Action. In 2024, its conference in Phoenix, Arizona was an extravagant four-day trade show that encompassed podcast recordings, panels, happy hours and other social events for people that shared Kirk's beliefs that checks notes Black people had it too good in America, and that women needed to be having children and being quiet. He spent four full days of his life hobnobbing, producing content and acting as power broker to an incoming second Trump administration who would subsequently break human rights laws in domestic and international spaces.

TPUSA's conferences and programming really sum up Kirk's approach to white nationalism, and it is bequeathed to the people that gathered for its conferences. Charlie Kirk aimed to build and maintain a stable of neoconservative talent as a scout and coach to younger, immensely online hatemongers. As the personalities he cultivated and connected flourished, he could then use them to boost his own internal notoriety in a crowded Republican political sphere. Elon has a racist AI and a broken Twitter platform. The Murdochs have radio and television. Kirk built his empire through his capacity to connect hatred networks under a common digital umbrella. That digital network is already in motion to deflect on conservatism's role in his death, blame trans people for something they had no hand in and stir up violent provocation against minorities as if Kirk hadn't taken an abrupt trip to the undertaker. They also have large banners advertising opportunities to do precinct-level work advocating for their platforms across the United States, which again speaks to the training and coaching aspects of white nationalism that defined Kirk's career.

In focusing on Charlie Kirk's life outside of the immense investment of time, labor and assets, American polite society hide the inheritance of his work by shock jocks of tomorrow. After all, centering a victim of white nationalism in America is like pulling teeth, and unfit for the patriotic age that its current leadership wants to usher in. I prefer to follow what Kirk put his money and time into to see what tries to bite us next.