Disunite the Right

(Give this post a quick like if the spirit strikes.)

This piece first appeared in The New Republic.

After the assassination of Charlie Kirk in September, Christian nationalists were expected to unite for their martyr. Indeed, the global right wept. Argentinian President Javier Milei, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, former Hungarian P.M. Viktor Orbán, and an Afrikaner lobbying group all sent condolences.

Netanyahu called Kirk a “lion-hearted friend of Israel.” Right-wingers variously blamed the “progressive-liberal left” (Milei) and “radical Islamists” (Netanyahu) for his death.

Donations poured in to Turning Point USA, Kirk’s right-wing youth organization. The small-donor support excited MAGA leadership. For 13 years, only elite megadonors—libertarians, Birchers, the Heritage Foundation—had kept TPUSA in business. Finally it had popular support from young conservatives, whom it purported to speak for and who, now, would surely support Trump.

In The New York Times, Ezra Klein helped canonize Kirk for a more moderate audience, admitting to having “envied” him as “one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion.”