Charlie Kirk’s assassination will change American politics forever by prompting a long-overdue crackdown on the radical left.
Had this horrific event taken place under a Democratic administration, we would expect that attention would focus on gun control.
Because it has taken place under a Republican administration that has already taken aim at the bastions of the institutional left, we can expect a dramatic law enforcement response.
Gone are the days when then-FBI Director Christopher Wray would waffle when asked to explain the riots of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, or claim Antifa was not something one could do anything about.
The FBI under Kash Patel is going to expand the department’s focus on violent extremism to include a wide variety of left-wing groups, including so-called “anti-hate” groups that put targets on conservatives’ backs.
The FBI has been reluctant to pursue the radical left ever since the COINTELPRO scandal of the 1980s, when it was revealed that J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI had exceeded its mandate to monitor communists, and had spied on civil rights organizations and leaders.
But it is abundantly clear that while right-wing extremism is a real threat, left wing terrorism can no longer be ignored, whether out of historical guilt or political correctness.
This will not be, as the January 6 prosecutions were, a vehicle for suppressing political opposition. Rather, it will be a necessary effort to establish clear boundaries for political discourse in America.
The American flag on the North Lawn at the White House in Washington, is lowered to half-staff after Charlie Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was killed at an event in Orem, Utah, Wednesday, Sept. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
A two-party system cannot be stable if one of the two is led by revolutionaries who hate, and wish to overthrow, the system itself. As I suggested in The Agenda, there must be RICO prosecutions of violent left-wing groups and their donors.
We might hope that Kirk’s shocking death would prompt some degree of self-reflection within mainstream media, which have demonized Trump supporters and conservatives for decades, as well as by Democratic Party leaders who have ratcheted up their violent rhetoric, as if the attempted assassination of President Donald Trump had never happened. Based on reactions to Kirk, no such reckoning appears on the horizon.
However, there will be a backlash within the media audience, and among the voting public, even stronger than the backlash that steadily grew during the Trump era. The assassination will not silence Kirk’s views; rather, it will amplify them.
And conservatives will hew ever more strongly to their own media sources, particularly to Internet news and podcasts, defying the mainstream’s media’s effort to set the agenda.
One unfortunate consequence of Kirk’s murder will likely be that different factions emerge within the movement that he led, each claiming to be the true bearer of his legacy. Turning Point USA, Kirk’s great organization, will have to rely on wise leadership to endure the turbulence that is ahead, and to retain the sense of optimism that Kirk embodied. More will be demanded of Kirk’s young colleagues than ever before.
Yet perhaps the most profound political effect of Kirk’s assassination will be an abiding sense of loss. People who lived through the JFK assassination remember where they were when they found out; people living through Kirk assassination talk about how they knew him, or learned about him. He touched that many people’s lives.
Kirk’s death could darken the worldview of his generation — or inspire it to fulfill his vision.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Zionist Conspiracy Wants You, now available on Amazon. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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