Is Fournier about to make Kirk look like a moderate?

The activist's assassination leaves a gap in the Maga arena. Will a more extreme figure fill it, asks Alex Hannaford

- Alex Hannaford

Hey everybody, JD Vance here, live from my office in the White House complex," the vice president said, staring straight into the camera. He was, he said, "filling in for somebody who cannot be filled in for, but I'm going to try to do my best".

Vance was helming the latest episode of The Charlie Kirk Show, a popular right-wing talk show that had been running since 2020.

Five days earlier, on 10 September, Kirk, its 31-year-old host, was shot and killed with a single bullet while addressing a young crowd at an event at Utah Valley University. The next day, his coffin was carried onto Air Force Two, and accompanied by Vance to Arizona, Kirk’s home state.

Vance said of Kirk, “Charlie was the smartest political operative I ever met. And,” he said, “he’s irreplaceable.”

But is he? Kirk was, arguably, the face of conservative youth in the US. Born in Chicago, Kirk dropped out of college at 18 and, at the encouragement of retired marketing entrepreneur and Republican activist Bill Montgomery, founded Turning Point USA, a grassroots charity advocating for conservative politics on school and college campuses.

Over the years, he built a multimillion-dollar media empire and was recognisable to anyone under the age of about 30 on both sides of the political spectrum. His death has unquestionably left a vacuum. On Thursday, Turning Point’s board announced that Kirk’s widow, Erika, had been elected as its CEO and chair, but the question remains if there is anyone else who can fill Kirk’s shoes and has the ability to excite young people in the way he did?

This week, The New York Times said many conservatives now view Kirk’s death as a galvanising force; that not only is Kirk a martyr, but his assassination “could be a watershed moment that will propel their cause and cement both conservative and conservative Christian values in American life.”