"President Donald Trump was the final speaker at Charlie Kirk's memorial service, capping off six hours of an intensely evangelical, borderline nationalist Christian revival. He entered with the biggest pyrotechnics of the day while Lee Greenwood himself serenaded him live with "God Bless the USA." And the moment he began to speak, I noticed something odd: people were already streaming toward the exits."
"It was curious, for up until that point, the crowd of 70,000, packed to the gills of the State Farm Stadium in Arizona, had been completely enraptured. Trump had followed pastors who'd spoken about Kirk's faith, influencers who'd exhorted the audience to put on the "armor of God" to fight the left, politicians who'd called him a "warrior," and conservative intellectuals who'd called Kirk's death a flashpoint for Western civilization."
""He always wanted to figure out how to bring the Holy Spirit to a Trump rally," said Tyler Bowyer, the COO of Turning Point USA, which is the student youth group that helped deliver the White House to Trump. And he was right after Erika Kirk, his grief-stricken widow and the new CEO of TPUSA, who brought the crowd to its feet when she said that she forgave her husband's killer."
President Donald Trump closed Charlie Kirk's memorial as the final speaker, entering to pyrotechnics and Lee Greenwood's "God Bless the USA." A 70,000-person crowd had been deeply engaged by six hours of evangelical and nationalist programming that framed Kirk as a warrior and martyr and urged spiritual resistance against the left. Pastors, influencers, politicians, and conservative intellectuals linked faith and politics, with Turning Point USA figures emphasizing bringing the Holy Spirit to rallies. When Trump began speaking, many attendees began streaming for the exits, suggesting the religious-nationalist tone overshadowed the president's vindictive messaging.
Read at The Verge
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