Charlie Kirk leaves behind big shoes to fill and a hard path ahead, according to those he inspired. They say his life and his shocking death challenge young conservatives to create a future in which civil debate and discourse, not violence, define the democracy they love.
“I don’t think anyone will be able to fill his shoes, but I hope that he will be able to inspire an entire generation of people to live more boldly, for their faith, for their families, and for their freedom, because right now, our country needs that more than ever,” said Gunnar Thorderson, a former Turning Point USA organizer at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, where Kirk, 31, was assassinated on Sept. 10.
“I hope that he inspires an entire generation to become more like him and actually live boldly in their beliefs and in their faith,” he told The Epoch Times on Sept. 11.
TPUSA now has more than 250,000 student members and chapters on nearly 900 campuses across the United States. It has a media division, hosts large-scale conferences, and has fostered a shift in political demographics that President Donald Trump has acknowledged was key to his November 2024 election win.
“Maybe somebody can do some history research, but nobody I’ve ever heard of ... [started] an organization at age 18 and [accomplished] what he did in those 13 years.
“It’s just beyond the imagination to have a [more than $100 million] organization and to spawn off other organizations and other stars who come through his network and go to other places, to change a whole generation, just start a whole movement again—all between 18 and 31 years old.
“It’s maybe unprecedented.”
TPUSA’s Phoenix-area headquarters was closed on Sept. 10, its staffers not engaging with media and the many visitors who came to memorialize Kirk. But in a statement posted to his X page, which remains online, TPUSA pledged to sustain the project he started.
“None of us will ever forget him.”
It will be a challenge for TPUSA to find its footing with the loss of its charismatic leader, according to Shackelford.
“He was obviously a brilliant organizer, in addition to being an intellect who could argue and debate in public, and yet, at the same time, be very personable and care for people and be very strong in his faith,” he said. “[There were] just so many different aspects to him that normally you would see separated into a lot of different people in order to build an organization like that.”
From 1, Many
It may take more than one person to fill Kirk’s shoes, Shackelford said.“There’s a lot of talented people underneath him, and they’re going to immediately begin looking at that talent,“ he said. ”Maybe it’s not one person who could be who Charlie was, but maybe there’s two or three people that fill a lot of his gifts and, between those people, they can continue doing what they’re doing.
“That’s my guess because Charlie was such a once-in-a-lifetime type [of] person.”
Trump is among those who believe that TPUSA will continue on the path Kirk blazed.
Shackelford said he is praying that TPUSA has the “exact combination” of people it needs, because “what Charlie started is going to only grow.”
“I think Charlie’s death is going to energize and bring many, many, many more people,” he said. “I just think it’s going to only increase the movement he started.”
That movement has fostered “all kinds of anomalies” among young Americans, he said.
“No. 1, I mean, [youth] didn’t vote Republican,“ Shackelford said. ”They were heavily Democrat, yet they voted for Donald Trump. Before Charlie Kirk, none of that happened.”
He said young Americans are attending church in numbers he cannot find a historical precedent for, citing a study documenting a 300 percent increase in Gen Z’s church attendance.
“Gen Zs and millennials have now higher church attendance than all the other age groups, all the older people,” he said. “For the first time in the history of our country, we have more young men going to church than young women.
“It’s partly because of Charlie, and partly because God put Charlie where he was at the right time because he knew this massive change was going to start occurring.”
Kai Schwemmer, 22, a Brigham Young University student and Utah Federation of College Republicans member, told The Epoch Times: “I’ve had dozens of people reach out to me already asking how they can get involved, with some even saying specifically that it was Charlie’s death that has galvanized them and motivated them to kind of keep up that legacy and they feel this personal need to do more.
“People are realizing it’s not enough to have people speak for you. ... We have to create a thousand more Charlie Kirks. We have to galvanize people in that direction. And if we don’t do so, well, we would be betraying his memory.”
David Leatherwood, 37, of St. Petersburg, Florida, a self-described gay conservative who works in communications for Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), said he did not see Kirk as someone who attacked others but as someone who defended those who felt attacked for being conservative and Christian.
“He touched people in a personal way,” he told The Epoch Times. “It was not like he was an enigmatic figure that was unreachable or unattainable. I mean, he would just talk to you, directly to your face, and inspire you and encourage you.
A Standout Who Stood Up
Leatherwood called Kirk “prolific.”“He was everywhere,” he said. “Every single person felt personally touched and inspired by him. I mean, you can see it online, in the response.”
That is how Isaac Jeter, 27, a graduate student at Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida, who is seeking a master’s degree in divinity, became aware of Kirk and found his place as a confident young Christian conservative.
“He was one of those people that I often encountered when COVID really ramped up the online presence of a lot of influencers from all kinds of backgrounds and persuasions,” he told The Epoch Times. “I definitely saw a rise in it being OK [to] be conservative and young.”
Candace Owens, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Tate, and Jordan Peterson were among others he was introduced to online during the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
“But Charlie Kirk was definitely a standout person that gave a lot of people a voice,” Jeter said. “I’ve been largely apolitical, but I am definitely conservative-leaning, and so I began to listen, and I wouldn’t say I cherry-picked, but he had some good stuff to say.”
He said what impressed him most about Kirk was not his media presence but his willingness “to go onto very liberal college campuses and other environments like that and say, ‘Hey, let’s have a discussion.'”
“He went into their territory, so to speak,” Jeter said.
Jeter, who does not have “a political affiliation,” said he does not agree with everything Kirk said.
“[He could be] a little more aggressive than I would have liked as a Christian and so that’s what I mainly disagreed with,” he told The Epoch Times. “He did a lot of arguing, which I respected, because I respected his opinions, but he was a little too aggressive and didn’t listen as much as I would have.”
He sensed that Kirk was gravitating more to the spiritual than the overtly political.
“I am really, really heartbroken that he’s dead, because more than a political voice, to me he was becoming a stronger religious voice,” Jeter said. “And had he lived long enough, in the coming years I think he could have leaned into that a lot more. I’m really sad that he’s gone.”
He is among many who fear that Kirk’s assassination will give license to more violence, which would be a perversion of his legacy.
“I want us to calm down,” Jeter said, calling out social media influencers and television commentators who “make money off making people mad.”
“Seeing how horrible it is to see a young man who now leaves behind a widow and two fatherless children, it makes me rethink political violence as a whole, and reminds me that these people are just human beings.”
Jeter said Kirk, like him, was a young man still learning and evolving in thought and faith.
“I considered him a brother in the faith and a voice I think we needed,“ Jeter said. ”He just needed a little more guidance and time to figure himself out, right?”
