(David Smith’s post from The GUARDIAN UK 23September 2025.)
Democrats silent as Republicans galvanised after
Charlie Kirk memorial: Democrats trod carefully in responding to event attended
by nearly 100,000 that blended politics with religion.
Democrats maintained a wary silence on Monday as
Donald Trump’s Republican party appeared galvanised by a memorial service for
the late rightwing activist Charlie Kirk that was part religious revival, part
political rally.
Nearly 100,000 people filled an American football stadium and overflow arena in Glendale, Arizona, on Sunday to pay tribute to Kirk, according to his his organisation Turning Point USA. The 31-year-old staunch Trump ally was shot dead on 10 September.
The service was a show of force that blended
politics with religion, putting Christian nationalism at the heart of Trump’s
“Make America great again” (Maga) movement. It also cast Kirk as a martyr who
could be a rallying point in future elections. “Today is the day democrats lost
2028,” posted Meghan McCain, the daughter of the late Republican senator John
McCain.
Kirk’s widow, Erika, earned widespread praise for a
tearful address in which she said she forgives the man charged with her
husband’s killing. She told the crowd: “My husband, Charlie, he wanted to save
young men, just like the one who took his life. I forgive him.”
Erika Kirk is taking over as leader of Turning
Point USA, which was crucial in mobilising young voters for Trump in last
year’s election. The organisation has received a wave of support from big
donors and Trump allies since Kirk’s death, along with young conservatives
pledging to start new branches.
The memorial featured leading Christian rock artists, giving it the air at times of a megachurch Sunday service. As music filled the arena, some mourners dressed in red, white and blue closed their eyes and swayed with their arms in the air, tears rolling down their cheeks.
But there was a mark shift in tone with Trump and
other political figures took the stage. They cast Kirk‘s death as a pivotal
moment in the conservative movement, exhorting followers to finish the work he
began in sometimes aggressive and ominous language.
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of
staff, said in a fiery speech: “We will carry Charlie and Erika in our heart
every single day, and fight that much harder because of what you did to us. 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 the republic.”
Closing out the five-hour service, Trump insisted
“the violence comes largely from the left”, without citing any evidence and
leaning into campaign-style grievances. He quipped that Kirk “didn’t hate his
opponents. He wanted the best for them. That’s where I disagreed with Charlie.
I hate my opponents and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry.”
< Mehdi Hasan, a leading political broadcaster and
commentator, posted in response: “Donald Trump is the most openly and proudly
divisive president in modern American history.” The speech was unlikely to
quell fears that he intends to use Kirk’s murder to intensify a crackdown on
political opponents. Last week Walt Disney’s ABC network pulled late-night host
Jimmy Kimmel off the air after Trump’s head of the Federal Communications
Commission threatened the network over comments Kimmel made about Kirk’s death.
Democrats trod carefully in responding to the
memorial service, aware that any hint of criticism might be misconstrued and
exploited. But Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman who now
co-hosts a prominent politics show on the liberal MSNBC network, told viewers:
“There were two beats and it did sound, when the politicians got up there, very
discordant.”
“Instead of a celebration of a life and talking
about Jesus’s words and Jesus’s commandments of us to forgive others, at times
there was another tone that was taken. So I found that to be discordant.”
On the same edition of Morning Joe, presidential historian Jon Meacham touched on the political dilemma for Democrats, a party that has been accused of being out of touch with America’s Christian heartland. Meacham urged viewers not to feel “reflexively uncomfortable” about the religious outpouring.
He added: “There was a feeling, particularly with
Mrs Kirk, that it was something that had what appeared to be a genuinely
religious component. And then came the president who spoke the way President
Trump speaks. And that should be considered on its merits.”
Kirk, 31, was a provocateur who at times made
statements that were racist, misogynistic, anti-immigrant and transphobic. He
was killed with a single bullet as he answered an audience member’s question at
a campus event in Utah.
A 22-year-old technical college student has been
charged with Kirk‘s murder, and investigators say he told his romantic partner
in text messages that he killed Kirk because he had “enough of his hate”. Tyler
Bowyer, a Turning Point executive, recalled of Kirk on Sunday: “He always said
to me: ‘If we could just figure out how to bring the Holy Spirit into a Trump
rally.’ Think you’ve done it.”
