My Charlie Kirk effect

People often reduced Charlie to politics, but he wasn’t a politician. He was a public servant. Our public servant. 

I remember him most for the way he spoke about his wife and kids. He loved them so loudly, with warmth, gratitude, and a humility that softened the edges of public debate. He grounded his public life in private love, and that mattered. It made his arguments feel less like combat and more like stewardship. He was just a father who wanted a freer country for his children (and for us) and a husband mindful of the vows that ordered his priorities. He modeled how “God first and family close behind” is a compass we can trust.

What set him apart for my generation was how he showed up. He was there on our campuses – not to chase applause, but to guard something fragile in us. He protected us. He protected our innocence, our freedom, and, in ways that are hard to articulate, our souls. 

Many of us never met him, but it felt like he knew us and loved us anyway. He listened. He heard the anxieties behind our questions, the pressure to conform, the slogans that tried to replace arguments. He gave us the tools we didn’t even know we needed: How to spot a loaded premise, how to separate assertion from evidence, how to ask for definitions before agreeing to conclusions. He reminded us that critical thinking isn’t rebellion. It’s fidelity to the truth.

Charlie understood that we were being influenced and, at times, indoctrinated. He didn’t tell us what to think, he taught us how to think – how to question the status quo without becoming cynical, how to hold convictions without losing compassion. 

He called us to love both God and country not as idols or afterthoughts, but as anchors: with a faith that humbles us, and a nation that invites us to serve something larger than ourselves. Gratitude and courage belonged together for him, and his reverence and rigor made us better citizens.

Above all, he wanted a country where disagreement and coexistence weren’t opposites. He believed in a public square where we could argue vigorously and still love our neighbor, where respect wasn’t weakness but the precondition of persuasion. He was there for us, not for himself. Even though we didn’t know him personally, we could feel that. We could feel his love for us and his desperate need to save us. His presence said so loudly: You matter. Your mind matters. And your country needs to hear your voice.

So, I’ll carry forward with what he taught me: 

That conviction without understanding is brittle, and understanding without conviction is empty. 

That listening is a form of love, and truth is worth the awkward question, the long debate, or the lonely stand. 

That to debate well is to maintain integrity, respect, and humility. 

That our first mission is to protect the innocent, and to lead with courage.

Our grief is real, but so is our gratitude. The campus sidewalks he walked are still here. The minds he awakened are, too. We will keep asking the hard questions. We will think for ourselves. And we will keep the faith – in God, in country, in one another, and in the hope that disagreement can be a bridge, not a wall. 

He protected what was best in us. Now it’s on us to protect it, too.

Thank you, Charlie, for loving us.