SEPTEMBER 14 — If politics is theatre, Charlie Kirk was less Lincoln at Gettysburg than a carnival barker outside a suburban food court — and the crowds still lined up to listen. He wasn’t forged in lecture halls or libraries. He came out of the strip-mall flatlands of Illinois, a world of Dollar Trees, parking lots, and fried chicken joints with grease seeping through the bags. No ancient Athens, no Lincoln Memorial — just asphalt, neon, and resentment. And somehow, he turned that into an empire.
University? Optional. Truth? Marketed. His genius wasn’t thought — it was branding. Turning Point USA was a drive-thru, not a revolution. Founded in 2012 when Kirk was barely 18, it ballooned to a US$55 million annual operation within a decade, boasting more than 400 chapters across American colleges. Not a movement, a franchise. Burgers became slogans, rallies became “student conferences” with merch tables, outrage packaged like combo meals. He didn’t build a church — he built a Chick-fil-A of grievance.
And you look around the world, and it’s the same damn menu.
• India: Baba Ramdev hawks yoga, toothpaste, and nationalist sermons, turning Patanjali Ayurved into a US$7 billion empire while fronting Hindu purity politics.
• Brazil: Edir Macedo, pastor-turned-billionaire, mobilized 40 million evangelical followers to help elect Bolsonaro in 2018, while his Universal Church of the Kingdom of God rakes in an estimated US$1.4 billion a year.
• Hungary: Viktor Orban wraps himself in “Christian Europe,” while Freedom House now ranks his country only “partly free,” sliding democracy ratings into the basement even as he trades comfortably with Moscow.
Different languages, same recipe: God, grievance, and cash registers.
Kirk’s pulpit wasn’t a church — it was a podcast mic. His communion was livestream donations. His parishioners weren’t souls—they were clicks. He blended evangelical fire with white-suburban resentment, fusing God with nationalism and merch. By 2022, his Twitter following alone surpassed 1.7 million; Turning Point’s videos racked up tens of millions of views. Christ became a mascot, not a savior.
The lines he shouted — “America is a Christian nation,” “The Left hates God” — weren’t arguments, they were jingles. Empty calories, meant to stick in the teeth. Orban’s “Christian Europe,” Ramdev’s “purity of tradition,” Bolsonaro’s pastors preaching “family values” — different verses of the same hymn sheet.
But outrage is hunger that can’t be sated. Gurus in India fall to scandal — Patanjali’s products were exposed for failing safety tests in 2021. Brazilian pastors split, rebrand, sue each other. Orban clings to power through gerrymanders and media takeovers. And Kirk? He became combustible.
And he did. Shot dead in 2025 by another American, Tyler Robinson, age 22 — raised in the same digital stew of grievance. Robinson, armed with an antique bolt-action rifle, turned Kirk into the very martyr he spent his life manufacturing. That’s irony so sharp it draws blood: the man who sold fear became its casualty.
But this isn’t just Kirk’s story — it’s a map of where politics has gone. Once we had leaders who built — Lincoln signing the Emancipation Proclamation, Nehru drafting India’s constitution, Mandela emerging from 27 years in prison to unite a fractured nation. Now we have entrepreneurs of outrage. They mistake donations for devotion, promotion for destiny. They burn like fireworks, but leave only smoke.
The tragedy is ours. Politics as theatre doesn’t build roads or hospitals. It doesn’t lift wages or lower bills. In America, infrastructure crumbles while Turning Point conferences sell out. In India, millions slip back into poverty while saffron nationalism sells soap. In Brazil, food insecurity doubled between 2018 and 2022 while prosperity pastors bought TV stations.
Ambition without reflection? That’s just a Molotov cocktail with your name on it.
In the end, Kirk wasn’t unique — just a symptom. Societies starved of seriousness will always produce merchants of belief. They thrive because nothing deeper is on offer. The lesson isn’t about him, or even his death — it’s about us. When politics becomes theatre and faith becomes commerce, belief itself becomes a business. And business, as always, is booming.
* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of Malay Mail.
