The Make America Great Again movement is scarcely more than a decade old so only time will prove Donald Trump’s providential claim that Sunday was the day when Charlie Kirk, “our greatest evangelist for American liberty, became immortal”.
But the tens of thousands – or 200,000 according to the New York Post – who began arriving at State Farm stadium, in the desert suburb of Glendale, Arizona, at dawn to pray, and to wait and listen, took the president’s message to heart.
It was their day of remembrance and rapture. A long procession of speakers reached its apotheosis when the US president took the stage at around 4pm, west coast time. “This is like an old time revival, isn’t it?” Trump mused as he gazed out across the arena.
“Like an old-time revival.”
RM Block
Notably, it was one of the few moments when he allowed his mind to wander from a sharply scripted speech. And it was an apt comparison. Trump, of course, is old enough to remember the storming days of Billy Graham, whose 1957 New York Crusades series of talks culminated with a gathering of some 125,000 in Times Square, a landmark more often associated with sinners than saints.
Now, with the appalling killing of Kirk, the Maga movement has, as Trump declared, its “martyr for American freedom”. Nothing over the course of the long day could touch the emotional still point of the memorial service than the address given by Erika Kirk, the late activist’s widow, who looked to the heavens as she made a direct link between her late husband and Tyler Robinson, the 22-year- old Utahan who has been charged with his murder.
“My husband Charlie – he wanted to save young men. Just like the one who took his life. That young man ... on the cross our Saviour said: ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ That young man ... I forgive him.”
Her voice had lowered to a whisper when she delivered those words, which produced an awestruck response on the faces of those captured by the television cameras. There followed a standing ovation, free-flowing tears and genuine wonderment.
“I forgive him, because it was what Christ did,” she continued.
“And it’s what Charlie would do. The answer to hate is not hate. The answer we know from the gospel is love and always love. Love for our enemies, and love for those who persecute us.”
As a Christian message, it carried a lightsabre bolt of power. And it was broadcast on many of the major television networks, along with the litany of Sunday afternoon NFL games, where Kirk’s memory was honoured by several teams.
For a significant percentage of the American population, the memorial for Charlie Kirk represented a historic day. And for an equally significant percentage, it was an event that was faraway, and mystifying, involving someone of whom they were previously either scarcely or not all aware.
One poll, released by YouGov shortly after Kirk’s murder, which took place on September 10th, found that about one in four Americans were “very familiar” with Kirk. Another 43 per cent responded that they were “not very familiar” or ‘not at all familiar’ with him.
The diabolical circumstances of his murder, and the gruesome footage that was, shockingly, distributed and remained on social media platforms afterwards, meant that over the following week, Charlie Kirk’s name became known around the world – something that registered with Trump as he spoke in Arizona.
“He’s bigger now than ever before. And I just wanna say that we love him. He’s looking down on us right now and he is saying: ‘wow, that’s a great crowd’.”
What was a revivalist gathering had the effect of drawing the Maga movement closer together than ever before. The Christian evangelical element of the Republican Party moved front and centre. The narrative around Kirk, in the days after his death, was that he was the invisible architect behind this administration, persuading the Trump clan to believe in JD Vance, brokering a meeting between Robert F Kennedy Jr and Trump and, most crucially, delivering millions of young conservative votes in the November election.
Trump, and others, have contended recently that Charlie Kirk was a Maga Republican US president in waiting, a future healer: the Maga equivalent of Bobby Kennedy himself.
And so, all of the senior members of the cabinet, many of whom regarded Kirk as a personal friend, made the trip out west. Also there was the prodigal son: Elon Musk was in the arena and seated beside president Trump for the first time in many, many months.
As the Democrats continue to warn about the more blatant authoritarian noises and signs emanating from the Oval Office, they struggled to make their message land against such blazing Republican emotion and mourning and prayer.
On Friday, dozens of Democratic representatives opted to abstain or vote against a House resolution honouring Kirk’s memory. Speaking in the chamber, New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez felt compelled to voice the objections that many Americans held towards the viewpoints that Kirk had advocated and argued from a position of influence.
Condemning his assassination, she described the late Kirk as “a man who believed that the Civil Rights Act that granted Black Americans the right to vote was a mistake; who, after the violent attack on Paul Pelosi, claimed that ‘some amazing patriot’ should bail out his brutal assailant; and accused Jews of controlling ‘not just the colleges – it’s the non-profit, it’s the movies, it’s Hollywood, it’s all of it’. His rhetoric and beliefs were ignorant, uneducated and sought to disenfranchise millions of Americans – far from the ‘working tirelessly to promote unity’ as asserted by the majority in this resolution”.
The resolution passed. The division in the House is total. And while Erika Kirk offered what was a striking message of forgiveness towards her husband’s killer, the tone of other messages delivered from the lectern struck a more ominous note as autumn asserts itself. At last, Stephen Miller, White House deputy chief of staff, had found an occasion to match his revolutionary language.
“They cannot imagine what they have awakened,” he told the crowd.
“They cannot conceive of the army that they have arisen in all of us because we stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And to those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us, what do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You have no idea the dragon you have awakened. You have no idea how determined we will be to save this civilisation, to save the West, to save this republic.”
As ever, Miller was vague as to who this “you” is. The television audience for the memorial was invariably limited to those in America and elsewhere who admired Kirk and his message and are in true mourning this week. In New York, in Donald Trump’s native city, it was like any other Sunday in Manhattan.
There is no doubt that honouring Charlie Kirk was a genuine national event. But in mirroring the impossible state of the US body politic right now, it was rapturously received by one half of the country – and mainly unseen and unheard by the other.
Still, as the afternoon deepened in Arizona, president Trump had a clear message for both sides of the chasm. The coin has flipped.
“Some of the very same people who spent the last eight years sitting in moral judgment of anyone who disagreed with anyone about politics suddenly started cheering for a murder,” the president declared, in full sermon mode now.
“Some of the very people who call you a hater for using the wrong pronoun were filled with glee at the killing of a father with two beautiful young children.
“And the same commentators who this week are screaming fascism over a cancelled late night TV show where the anchor had no talent and no ratings last week were implying that Charlie Kirk deserved what happened to him. No side on American politics has a monopoly on disturbed and misguided people, but there is one part of our political community that believes they have a monopoly on truth, goodness and virtue and believes they have also a monopoly on power, thought and speech. Well: that’s not happening any more.”
