Ken's Second Act

The left needs a counterpoint to Charlie Kirk's Turning Point USA

Charlie Kirk, the assassinated founder of Turning Point USA, had a profound impact on the younger generation during his short life.

He was charismatic and handsome, and brimmed with confidence, regularly sparring on college campuses with students who disagreed with him.

Since his murder, Kirk has achieved near-sainthood status. Politicians have called for naming roads for him. A Polish immigrant posted an image on Facebook of Kirk with Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Critics of Kirk

have faced serious consequences. For instance, Karen Attiah claims she was fired from her job as a Washington Post columnist for her social media posts about Kirk.

Like all of us, Kirk was a mere mortal. He was wrong about many issues and wanted to return America to the 1950s. He said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a “huge mistake,” questioned the intelligence of former First Lady Michelle Obama and other accomplished African-American women, made an irresponsible statement in support of the Second Amendment, doubted climate change and repugnantly compared abortion to the Holocaust. Getting more personal, he brazenly advised singer Taylor Swift to “submit” to her future husband.

However, I think his worst legacy was encouraging Generation Z, people born from 1997 and 2012, to turn out to vote to return Donald Trump to the White House. That amounted to a contemporary version of an unholy alliance. Turning Point USA also has endorsed far-right Republican politicians such as U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, an announced candidate for governor of Arizona. I met a young Turning Point representative at a campaign rally in 2024 in Prescott for Kari Lake for U.S. Senate. (She lost to Democrat Ruben Gallego. Trump later appointed the former Phoenix Fox News host to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media.)

In response to Kirk’s success in melding religious fervor with right-wing politics, the left needs to develop a counterpoint to Turning Point. I’m not alone in suggesting this. Politico wrote, “Kirk has no real equivalent on the left. A rough approximation of a left-leaning Kirk would begin with some amalgamation of gun control activist-turned-erstwhile-DNC official David Hogg with the party consensus voice of the Pod Save America crew, supplemented by the online edginess of lefty streamer Hasan Piker and the institution-building power of a George Soros.”

Whoever leads such a movement needs to create an alternative agenda for America’s present and future. Positions can include, but not necessarily in this order:

— Support for the right to an abortion.

— Acknowledgment that climate change is a real threat to the world.

— Government and private-sector support for alternative energy development.

— Support for public schools and constraints on expansion of vouchers.

— LGBTQ rights.

— Opposition to Christian nationalism.

— Term limits for the Supreme Court and federal judges.

— Humane and pragmatic immigration reform that recognizes labor needs and acknowledges that more immigrants are needed to pay into Social Security as the U.S. population continues to age.

— Safeguarding voting rights.

— Protection of the environment.

— Gun control.

— Strengthening democracy throughout the world.

In short, it would be like a platform for a political party during an election year. However, the leadership of the movement should be independent of the two-party system.

I’m making suggestions. Unlike Karl Rove or James Carville, I’m not a political strategist. I’m a retired journalist who is concerned about the growing authoritarianism during Trump’s second term.

I mentioned the suggestion to a Yavapai College student who served an internship this past summer with U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Arizona, in Washington, D.C. I also gave him a copy of a conservative manifesto for Generation Z from a Charlie Kirk acolyte, social media influencer Isabel Brown.

I’m a baby boomer. Except for Joe Biden, every president since Bill Clinton has been a baby boomer. The youngest baby boomers will turn 64 in 2028, the next presidential election year. Every generation produces its leaders. The time will come to pass the torch to the Yavapai College student’s generation.