The Morning Briefing: Charlie Kirk’s Memorial Was a Hope-Filled Clarion Call – PJ Media

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The Morning Briefing: Charlie Kirk’s Memorial Was a Hope-Filled Clarion Call

Stephen Kruiser

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12:07 AM on September 22, 2025

AP Photo/John Locher

Top O’ the BriefingHappy Monday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. Dehrenzöl liked to wind up his health nut neighbors by asking if he could bring beer into their ice baths. 

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Because of my background both as a longtime activist and my years in conservative media, I’ve had people from all over this side of the aisle reaching out to me since Charlie Kirk was assassinated on September 10. In uncertain and frightening times, people tend to gravitate towards the elders of the village.I didn’t know Charlie Kirk. I’ve recently found out that he was a volunteer at more than a few Tea Party events that I spoke at back in the day, but he would’ve been 18 or 19 then, so we wouldn’t have hung out or anything. I was, however, aware of the great work that Turning Point USA does, or I thought I was. In my defense, TPUSA’s ascendance coincided with my withdrawal from activism. The impact that Kirk and his organization have made on younger conservatives has just gotten clear to me in the last week-and-a-half. It’s nothing short of stunning. People telling me that they’ve been crying for days. People telling me that they know people who have been crying for days. People telling me that their first experience with activism came through TPUSA and that they’re more inspired than ever. My 87-year-old mother and relatively non-political loved ones have been consumed by the tragedy and talking to me about the news. What we saw at Kirk’s memorial service in Glendale, AZ on Sunday was huge in so many ways. First, there was the sheer size of it. “Five O’Clock Somewhere” producer Jim flew in from Rhode Island for the memorial. He arrived at the stadium around 5:40 AM and the lines were already insane. He sent me several pictures from the early hours of the day and — I kid you not — it looked like people gathering for a rock festival. All of this was going on four or five hours before the event was scheduled to start. 

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The list of luminaries in attendance was headed by President Trump and Vice President Vance. The guest list looked like something one would see at a funeral for a beloved head of state who had died after a long, storied career.It was so much more than that, though. The impact of Kirk’s assassination on the future of activism could be immeasurable. TPUSA has gotten tens of thousands of requests to start new chapters or get involved. As Matt wrote in a VIP, the Dems are sweating this. Many of the people who I have talked to recently keep expressing sentiments along the lines of “I hope the Republicans don’t screw this up.” Here’s why I don’t think that will happen. Although Charlie Kirk ran in some lofty GOP circles, he was smart enough to make sure that the movement he built had its headquarters 2000 miles away from Washington, D.C. It’s almost impossible to overstate how important that is. It’s a huge, highly-functional grassroots organization that isn’t in danger of being polluted by a bunch of backstabbing Beltway social climbers. The distance from that toxicity bodes well for TPUSA.Yes, we could chalk up a lot of the activism zeal that we’re seeing to the intense emotions everyone is experiencing right now. That’s valid. That take on the situation ignores what Kirk had already built and made sustainable, though. It’s a youth based organization, but the youth know what they’re doing. All day Sunday, I kept seeing ads on Instagram that began with something like, “If you’re watching Charlie’s memorial service right now…” and urged people to register to vote or update their voter information. The ads allowed people to plug in their ZIP codes, be taken to their state portals, and get it done right then. 

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Trust me, that’s the kind of clue that the stodgy D.C. types never get. As I wrote the morning after Kirk was assassinated, this feels different. There has also been a lot of talk about Charlie Kirk’s Christian witness and the people who have been moved to go back to church or begin praying again since his death. I’ve got a lot of anecdotes about this too. People going to church for the first time in 10 or 15 years. Standing room only at services. A friend reached out and asked me about a study Bible that we briefly discussed a few months ago. Rabbi Barclay asked yesterday in a headline if we just witnessed “…the Largest Single Conversion to God in Human History?” This is from Catherine’s post about Stephen Miller’s speech at the memorial (she covered a lot of the speeches, by the way, in cased you missed any of them):Miller is Jewish, Posobiec and Mrs. Erika Kirk are Catholic, Gabbard