Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Is a Turning Point for America

As the nation grapples with the news that conservative activist and commentator Charlie Kirk was gunned down in cold blood while conducting one of his signature campus debates at Utah Valley University, it is of paramount importance for our political leaders both to recognize the political moment we are in and to try to defuse a potentially combustible situation. While conservatives will be tempted to demonize whoever the deluded shooter turns out to be, and liberals will undoubtedly call for more ineffective gun control legislation, neither reaction can hope to lead to anything productive.

Another tribute is in order to honor the memory of Kirk, who was one of the first to recognize that the radicalization of the left has been driven largely by economic disenfranchisement, a point that often goes unacknowledged by leading intellectual voices on the political right. There is a particular ideological bias that one notices in conservatives above a certain age (let’s say 45) who tend to dominate the positions of leadership in the right-leaning political organizations and think tanks now often referred to as “Conservative, Inc.” This bias is characterized by a certain disdain for the materialism and softness of young people who, having grown up in the wealthiest nation in the world with a prosperity unrivaled in human history, are simply unable to grasp the value of commitment, hard work, and the importance of moral virtue as the path to success in life. Spoiled, coddled, and ignorant of the struggles of previous generations, they feel like they are entitled to a prestigious position in the professional world and a valued social status without having to work to attain it. The problem is, according to this view, the collapse of a strong, coherent moral code and the older understanding that the sequence of success is one that demands self-denial and the deferment of gratification. These damn young people think the world owes them a living.

Kirk was uniquely clear-eyed in seeing this as not only a disastrous political analysis but also as a whitewash of the terrible policy choices that have caused so many Americans, particularly young people, to give up on the American Dream. While it is certainly true that the collapse of traditional Christian morality and the institutions that support it over the last 50 years has significantly eroded the stability of marriage, family, communities, and other mediating institutions that have historically served as bulwarks against tyranny, the Conservative Inc. caricature of Gen Z as rich, lazy, and entitled is hardly a complete—or fair—assessment of the political and social reality we face. The truth is that Gen Z, by a whole variety of measures, faces a much tougher socio-economic reality than any other American generation in memory. The decision to get married and form a family is not only negatively affected by the decline of the Christian ethic, but it is discouraged by an economy and a social structure that is no longer working for young people. The reality is that America, circa 2025, is not conducive to affordable family formation, and Gen Z is well aware of this. Even many of their parents are waking up to the fact that the American Dream of providing the next generation with greater prospects of professional achievement and material wealth than the last seems to be on life support.