Charlie Kirk was at the basis of a new media ecosystem of right-wing political influencers

Under right -wing podcast makers, activists and influencers in the US, two emotions fought for priority in response to the murder of Charlie Kirk: fear and anger. Kirk was a prominent voice in the new online media landscape of which they are also part, a political activist with influence up to the White House. His conservative youth movement Turning Point USA had an important share in the last election victory of President Donald Trump.

The day after the murder, different podcast makers and other political influencers said to worry about their safety. Some are considering scaling up their security. Certainly now that public performances, such as speeches and debates, are an increasingly important part of their work. Others wonder if they still have to keep making videos in public.

“The head of my security team called me when it happened,” said Glenn Beck, a conservative opinion maker and presenter who started his own media company after his departure at the right -wing channel Fox News. After the murder he was on the opinions show on YouTube by Megyn Kelly, just like him a former Fox presenter who started for himself. Beck said he had already urged Kirk to increase his security level. “Too many people in our position do not take their security seriously.”

In addition to fear in right-wing circles, in which ‘left’ or ‘radical left’ (often used as synonyms for the Democratic Party) was blamed for the murder, even though there was little known about the shooter and his motives. This not only applied to political influencers and other extreme voices on social media, but just as good for Republican politicians and government members, to Trump.

“Each of you who called us fascists did this,” said Anna Paulina Luna, a republican member of the House of Representatives from Florida, in response to the murder. The 36-year-old Luna is the first political influencer that came from Turning Point USA and was elected in the congress. “You are the hatred you say to fight,” she bit the Democrats. “Your words caused this. You hatred this caused this.”

Political brand

Luna Kirk personally knew the former director Hispanic Engagement of Turning Point USA. He is the reason she is in the congress, she told the Wall Street Journal. According to Luna, Kirk was so successful because he knew how to use social media “to make contact with the generation grew up in the digital age”. He had many millions of followers on the various social platforms, 12 million on Instagram alone.

Kirk built his political brand around Turning Point USA, a non-profit he founded in 2012, when he was eighteen. The aim was to spread conservative ideas in secondary schools and universities, traditionally progressive strongholds. Thanks to events with country performances, political speakers and evangelical pastors, Turning Point USA brought young people into contact with conservative views. With eight hundred departments, it is the largest conservative youth movement in the US.

Thanks to the support of Republican donors, Kirk Turning Point USA turned into a well-oiled media organization that strengthened its personal brand. An important role was reserved for the Prove Me Wrong events that he held on campuses, in which students debated with him. The most nasty fragments of those debates, in which Kirk put students as a kind of internet troll, were used as videos for his social media channels and his popular podcast The Charlie Kirk Show.

“For people from Kirk’s age, reality is formed by social media,” says Gabriel Kahn, professor of journalism at the Annenberg School for Journalism of the University of Southern California. “Kirk understood that language like no other. His movement is based on that kind of communication. He had the reputation to be someone who persuades young people to vote for Trump. This made him interesting for the Republicans who have had a hard time reaching young people for a long time.”

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Attention economy

To let his videos go viral, Kirk did not shy away from the controversy, such as many right -wing influencers of his generation that are the product of the online attention economy. In hateful statements about transgender people, women, black people, migrants and Muslims, he whistled bright reactions in progressive circles. In August he posted on a message X in which he announced: “Trump is going on a patrol in Washington DC tonight Shock and Awe. Force. We reclaim our country on these cockroaches. “

“That tweet led to a fuss, since this kind of dehumanization of opponents in history has led to terrible things,” says Kirsten Verdel, Media Strategist and America expert and author of the book The first 100 days of Trump. “He was known for those kinds of texts. They also worked well on social media. On the day of the murder he had 5.4 million followers on X.”

Kirk played a pioneering role in the creation of an alternative online media ecosystem for conservative America. His podcast reached an audience of millions on YouTube, Spotify and other platforms where right -wing media personnel have found a home. Some of them are established names that traded in traditional media for social media, such as former Fox presenter Tucker Carlson. Others built name recognition via social media, such as the podcast makers Ben Shapiro and Matt Welsch.

In this ecosystem, Kirk acted as Trumps megaphone, an influencer with access to the president. Other influencers focus more on other topics, such as religion, international developments or identity policy. “Everyone has their own niche,” says Verdel. “Because make no mistake, of course there is also just money. That is an underexposed aspect, but the popular podcast makers and influencers earn a lot of money on views, advertisements, subscribers and all kinds of sponsor contracts. These are tens of millions of dollars.”

Fox News

Kirk was by no means the only media personality that has access to the president. “In Trumps second term, the dividing line between politics and media is paper thin,” says Verdel. He has nineteen former presenters, journalists and commentators from Fox News for high positions. And radical-right influencers such as Laura Loomer have a lot of informal influence. The press conferences in the White House are also open to podcasters, vloggers, and other Maga influencers, while the access of established media is restricted.

On the extremely right -wing flank you will find notorious political influencers such as Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist, racist and anti -Semite that wholesales in conspiracy theories. Since Elon Musk recovered his X account last year, he has built up 900,000 followers. He once dinner with Trump in Mar-A-Lago, in the meantime he has turned against the president. The New York Times Recently he wrote in a profile that “he regularly puts the cult -like dedication of his young male fans to the test by criticizing their patriarchal figure, President Trump, because he would not be right enough.”

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Fuentes’ Fans are called ‘GroyPers’, a reference to a meme embraced by the extreme right. In 2019 they got involved in a real ‘Groyper War’, where they disrupted the events of Turning Point USA. Fuentes encouraged his support to ask difficult questions with the aim of distributing extreme right-wing positions and highlighting the ideological inconsistencies of Kirk and Trump. As a result, Fuentes is no longer welcome at prominent events of conservative America, including Turning Point USA.

After the murder of Kirk, (especially leftist) internet users suggested that the suspected shooter was a groyper. In fact, Halloween photos had appeared on which he was dressed as a Groyper-Meme. “As a result, Fuentes felt compelled to bring out a statement in which he threatened to reject his supporters if they took up the weapons,” says Verdel. “He clearly wanted to cover himself in case the perpetrator was indeed a groyper.” But according to Fuentes, his fans are wrongly accused of the murder, “based on literally zero evidence.”

Splintering Medial landscape

Last week, Kirk has been voted a martyr by conservative America who was brutally silenced by ‘radical left’. “If someone is murdered so publicly, and he has very powerful friends, then a narrative will arise at lightning speed,” says Kahn. “This is not hindered by facts, so that it degenerates into a kind of political cage fight.”

Kahn sees a direct link between the political polarization of the last decades and the fragmentation of the media landscape. This strengthens extreme voices in the public debate. “I think we often get lost in ideology because it is so extreme and polarizing,” says Kahn. “As a result, we forget the underlying structures that make this dynamic possible.”

From the 1970s to the turn of the century, the US had a media ecosystem with three national TV channels, ABC, CBS and NBC, which competed for the same audience. “This encouraged media producers to make content that could be digested in front of a large audience,” says Kahn. It laid the foundation for a society with shared values ​​and facts. “This has been replaced by a media ecosystem in which the threshold to join is extremely low and no one will ever reach a relevant part of the national public.”

This encourages media producers to find a niche and to bind that part of the audience. They often do this via social platforms, where many people get their news. “The purpose of social platforms is to keep us online for as long as possible so that they can sell us as many advertisements as possible,” says Kahn. “That is why we are flooded by an endless stream of content. Those who want to distinguish themselves in this overcrowded market must be as extreme as possible. After all, polarizing content gets the most reactions.”

Verdel is also very concerned about the influence of the online echoput on the already polarized politics. Because facts do not matter in the fragmented media landscape. For example, the Republicans now claim – wrongly – that political violence mainly comes from the left. “Because everyone is in their own bubble, information and knowledge no longer play a significant role,” says Verdel. “Opposite the truth, people simply put their own truth. The result is that the political temperature has been overheated not only in the US, but also in many other countries.”

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