The Second Death of Charlie Kirk

"At the close of 2025, just a few months after Charlie Kirk was assassinated, thousands of his followers came together in Phoenix for AmericaFest, the annual convention of Turning Point USA. A casual observer might have expected this gathering to serve as an opportunity for conservatives to regroup, celebrate Kirk's legacy, and recommit to his fight against the left. Instead, one by one, MAGA's leading lights took the stage and began shivving one another in public."

""Today, the conservative movement is in serious danger," warned Ben Shapiro, a co-founder of The Daily Wire. He lambasted right-wing "charlatans" who "traffic in conspiracism and dishonesty." And he named names. Shapiro slammed Tucker Carlson, perhaps the most popular conservative commentator in America, for mainstreaming pro-Nazi sentiment, and dubbed the former Trump strategist Steve Bannon "a PR flack for Jeffrey Epstein," the convicted sex criminal (fact-check: mostly true). "These people are frauds, and they are grifters, and they do not deserve your time," Shapiro said."

""Ben Shapiro is like a cancer, and that cancer spreads," retorted Bannon the next day from the same podium. "I just got here, and I feel like I missed the first part of the program," quipped Carlson, who went on to accuse Shapiro and his allies of practicing "the style of debate where you prevent the other side from talking or being heard," conflating the latter's criticism of his conduct with censorship."

Thousands of Turning Point USA attendees gathered at AmericaFest months after Charlie Kirk's assassination, expecting unity but encountering public infighting among prominent conservative figures. Ben Shapiro warned that the conservative movement faced danger, denounced right-wing charlatans and named Tucker Carlson and Steve Bannon as frauds and grifters. Bannon and Carlson retaliated, with Bannon likening Shapiro to a spreading cancer and Carlson accusing critics of silencing opponents. Some conservatives initially believed Kirk's death would galvanize the movement, but the loss of a central organizer instead helped destabilize the broader Trump-aligned coalition.

Read at The Atlantic