What Charlie Kirk Told Me About His Legacy

""We finally meet," Charlie Kirk said to me. I'd come to a Phoenix hotel in September 2022 to see Kirk host a conference on the offenses of the "radical left." I remember that he gripped my hand, unbuttoned his suit jacket, and then eyed the long table in the drab, airless meeting room where I'd sat waiting for him. "This is like a show trial," he said."

"Kirk wanted to debate, which was his stock-in-trade. By the time we met, I'd been reporting on him for several years-about his campaign tactics, his opposition to coronavirus-vaccine mandates, and his mission to remake American education -and he didn't like my coverage. "We disagree," he told me. But he was also disarming, appreciating that we shared Chicago roots and joking that my round, thin-rimmed glasses made me look "woke." Maybe he saw me as a prospect for conversion. "So how do you view the world?" he asked me. I told him that my job as a reporter was figuring things out and explaining them to the public."

In September 2022, Charlie Kirk attended a Phoenix conference about the "radical left" and greeted an attendee with a handshake and the remark that the setting felt like a "show trial." Kirk positioned debate as central to his approach and cultivated a confrontational public persona. He combined efforts on campaign tactics, opposition to coronavirus-vaccine mandates, and a mission to remake American education. Kirk emphasized influencing an entire generation and shaping intellectual and cultural frameworks rather than concentrating solely on winning elections. He framed electoral politics as a limited part of a broader project to change how people think about labor and institutions.

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