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“President Donald Trump hailed the conservative activist Charlie Kirk as a ‘great American hero’ and ‘martyr’ during a speech to tens of thousands of mourners at a memorial service in Arizona. Trump was the headline speaker at the packed event on Sunday, which saw top officials from his administration, including Vice-President JD Vance, praise Kirk's political legacy…
“Kirk's wife, Erika, delivered a tearful speech at the State Farm Stadium near Phoenix, in which she said she had forgiven her husband's alleged killer. But the US president broke with her forgiveness message to say he disagreed with Charlie Kirk's view of wanting the best for his opponent. ‘I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them,’ he said, adding: ‘I'm sorry, Erika.’…
“Inside the stadium, the mood and atmosphere resembled a raucous political rally or megachurch service with music beforehand from Christian bands who prompted singalongs and prayer from the crowd of almost 100,000.” BBC
The left is critical of the memorial, particularly Trump’s speech.
“Charlie Kirk’s assassination was a tragedy. No one should confuse that. No one should celebrate it. A man in his early thirties, a husband, a father, and yes, a political activist, gunned down because this country is sick with rage and division. That reality deserves a pause. But what we saw at his memorial was not a pause. It was not mourning. It was not reflection. It was theater, carefully choreographed to transform grief into political fuel and one man’s death into a rallying cry for MAGA’s survival.”
Michael Cohen, Meidas Plus
“Though the service had begun with soothing gospel messages, it took a combative turn as Kirk’s political allies took the stage. Many of the eulogies, including those of administration figures, were calls to the barricades. ‘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,’ White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller said…
“Commentator and provocateur Benny Johnson cited the array of top government officials in the audience and demanded they use the power of government to avenge Kirk’s ‘martyrdom.’ ‘Right here is the State Department, the Department of War, the Department of Justice, the chief executive,’ Johnson said. He told them their ‘godly mission’ is ‘wielding the sword against evil.’…
“Those comments, and many others like it, came against a backdrop in which Trump is intensifying pressure on the traditionally independent Justice Department to prosecute his critics and has said he believes negative news stories about him are ‘really illegal.’… In another time — one that feels like another universe — it would have been unseemly to turn a religious memorial into a campaign rally.”
Karen Tumulty, Washington Post
“When I first heard Mr. Trump’s eulogy, I felt he was blurring the distinction between service to country and service to the conservative cause, between patriotism and partisanship. By my third read through, a new thought occurred to me. Maybe the president, and those writing his speeches, don’t believe there’s a distinction to blur…
“[Trump] defined ‘we’ very differently [from past presidents], seeming to limit that ‘we’ to those Americans who shared Mr. Kirk’s beliefs…
“In previous moments when tragedy threatened to tear the country apart, presidents reaffirmed that Americans — not on the left, right or center, but in general — are a good and decent people worthy of one another’s care. They took different approaches to preventing violence. All agreed that part of their job was to renew our shared faith, even when it seemed difficult to justify… It’s a shame, and maybe even a dangerous one, that President Trump couldn’t find such grace.”
David Litt, New York Times
The right praises the memorial, particularly Erika Kirk’s speech.
The right praises the memorial, particularly Erika Kirk’s speech.
“Is there anyone more clearly lost than Charlie Kirk’s murderer, drowning in the darkness of an online world of hate and radical misery?… Trans culture, such that it is, is torturing already confused young people. The isolation of online hate, kindling the flames of anger in a perverse sense of righteousness, is deadly. To oneself and to others. And to a country if it doesn’t fight back with truth in love…
“Father, forgive them for they know not what they do. That Biblical message — the Divine witness — was the takeaway from Charlie Kirk’s Sunday memorial. I just turned on MSNBC, and a panel is complaining about Donald Trump. They missed the miracle. They missed the moral of the story. They missed the headline. Erika Kirk forgives the young man who murdered her husband. This is better than anything politics or commentary can ever offer anyone.”
Kathryn Jean Lopez, National Review
“Erika sounded the exact note that so many Americans wanted to hear. She spoke with moral clarity and abiding faith. She offered unity. She presented an indelible image of strength: the courage that comes from facing tragedy with faith in God and the promise of eternal life. This wasn’t the same polarized and conspiratorial media din, the typical kayfabe posturing and arm-curl narcissism. Erika’s hurt, vulnerability, and loss were just as authentic as her devotion and belief…
“Authenticity matters… Erika Kirk’s public appearances since Charlie’s death have been raw and truthful. They were honest revelations of her state of mind, her love, her grief, her confidence in the future. Audiences instinctively respond to truth… With her powers of communication, moving story, and personal connection, Erika Kirk could end up the next Billy Graham. She could lead a generation to Christianity. She could be the first woman president.”
Matthew Continetti, Free Press
“At Charlie Kirk’s memorial yesterday, the world witnessed something different: not just a Christian politics but a political Christianity. Republican party campaigns have long had a strong evangelical dimension. But the Make America Great Again movement is producing something new: a spiritualized politics that is far less apologetic, much more strident and nationalist, and as syncretic as it is militant…
“Since its founding, America has been convulsed by at least four ‘great awakenings,’ which have bound American faith in God to the nation’s sense of manifest destiny. What we could be seeing now is a Fifth Great Awakening, but one that is more nakedly political, coming as it does from the White House down, and less explicitly Protestant, mixing as it does Catholic messages with the passionate convictions of other faiths.”
Freddy Gray, Spectator World
