What Would Charlie Do? The Path Forward After Darkness

President Trump wrapped up his speech at Charlie Kirk’s memorial by embracing Kirk’s widow Erika.

It was a moment of paternal tenderness after Trump vacillated between extolling Kirk as a “martyr for American freedom” and not so subtly suggesting he and his administration would avenge the murder.

In his 42 minutes of wide-ranging remarks, the president described Kirk, who mobilized the youth vote and is credited with helping deliver the electoral victory for Trump, as a “giver much more than a taker” and “master builder of people.”

But Trump also embodied the conflicting spectrum of emotions – outrage, anger, sorrow, and admiration – of Kirk’s friends, colleagues, and millions of supporters as they grapple to make sense of the gruesome assassination of the 31-year-old father, husband, and Christian evangelist killed for speaking his mind on college campuses.

“The gun was pointed at him, but the bullet was aimed at all of us,” Trump told a packed State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, blasting what he called the “radical left” for the violence across the country. Trump, also in trademark style, couldn’t resist the opportunity to use the platform to score political points. The president teased an autism announcement, slammed Joe Biden’s mental acuity, and boasted about his crack down on crime in D.C., noting that Kirk wholeheartedly backed his focus on cleaning up Chicago, the slain conservative’s hometown.

Unlike Kirk, Trump said he didn’t wish his enemies well, although he suggested Erika Kirk might be able to help him overcome his vindictiveness.

“That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent[s], and I don’t want the best for them,” he said.

Just a moment earlier, Trump noted that “Charlie’s killer” has been charged with capital murder and faces the death penalty.

“God willing, he will receive the full and ultimate punishment for his horrific crime,” he argued. “You can’t let that happen. Can’t let it happen to a country.”

“The Department of Justice is also investigating networks of radical left maniacs who fund, organize, fuel and perpetrate political violence, and we think we know who many of them are,” Trump continued. “But law enforcement can only be the beginning of our response to Charlie’s murder.”

The comments, though jarring amid the uplifting tributes, were classic Trump, and the largely MAGA crowd appeared to embrace the president’s fierce honesty, often applauding his harshest lines.

But it was Erika Kirk who gave the most powerful eulogy, right before Trump’s, and it couldn’t have offered a starker contrast. Kirk lauded her husband’s focus on helping transform young men “wasting their lives on distractions” and “consumed with resentment, anger and hate” by giving them direction and purpose. He did this by defending masculinity, promoting American exceptionalism and healing them through Christianity, she said.  

“He wanted to save young men like the one who took his life,” Kirk said. “That man. That young man. I forgive him. I forgive him because it was what Christ did, and it’s what Charlie would do.”

“The answer to hate is not hate,” added Kirk, who is taking over Turning Point USA, the organization that her husband co-founded and built into a conservative powerhouse focused on college-age Americans. The statement drew the audience to their feet for the longest standing ovation of the day.

Erika Kirk’s heartfelt grieving, remarkable composure, and message of love juxtaposed against Trump’s vow of vengeance underscored the tension between MAGA’s hardball politics and the Christian values of forgiveness and redemption the Kirks espouse. 

The uplifting messages by Erika Kirk and other speakers also provide a positive path forward for the MAGA movement, the GOP, and the entire country in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s death.

“These past 10 days after Charlie’s assassination, we didn’t see violence. We didn’t see rioting. We didn’t see revolution,” she said. “Instead, we saw what my husband always prayed he would see in this country. We saw revival.”

Some of the most senior leaders of the Trump administration also used their remarks to embrace and uphold Kirk’s message of civil discourse and to eschew the country’s partisan divides. Secretary of State Marco Rubio openly lamented that Americans are “moving into neighborhoods with other people that agree with them politically.”

“The irony in all this is that what our nation needs, one of the many things it needs, is the ability to discuss our differences openly, honestly, peacefully, respectfully, and Charlie Kirk did that,” Rubio said.

Vice President JD Vance, who considered Kirk a close friend and carried his casket to Air Force Two when transporting his remains to Arizona last week, marveled that he has “talked more about Jesus Christ in the past two weeks than I have my entire public life.”

Vance, unlike Trump, pledged to carry on Kirk’s legacy by following his Christian model of respectful dialogue and loving enemies.

“He would tell me to pray for my friends but also for my enemies,” Vance acknowledged. “He would tell me to put on the full armor of God and get back to work.”

“He would tell us to commit ourselves to telling the truth and to fight for that truth each and every single day,” Vance added. “He would tell us to talk about God’s love, and the fact that that love applied to everybody across the whole human family.”

Early in the service, Frank Turek, Kirk’s Christian mentor, referred to the often-cited Christian maxim that God would turn the evil of Kirk’s assassination for good.

“With every evil, God brings forth some ripples of good,” Turek told the crowd. “In this case, he’s bring a tsunami of good. Look around, you’re seeing it.”

Just a few hours later, while Kirk’s service was still in full swing, that spirit of Christian charity already appeared to be at work within the stadium walls.

Trump and Elon Musk put aside their vitriol and personal differences long enough to reunite, smile, and clasp hands while honoring their mutual friend.

Later Sunday, Musk posted a photo of himself and the president together on X on Sunday with the words, “For Charlie.” Kirk had predicted the two would eventually set aside their differences, but it didn’t happen until after his murder. Some are calling it the Kirk effect.

Let’s hope it’s contagious.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.