For all the many languages spoken at an international convention of far-right parties this weekend in Madrid, Charlie Kirk was the one name on all their lips.
“This is mobilizing,” said André Ventura, the leader of Portugal’s surging far-right party, Chega, after he had fired up the Madrid crowd with outrage over the killing of Mr. Kirk, a popular organizer of conservative youth who was assassinated in Utah last week.
“Usually, the leftists look at a tragedy and say, ‘OK, this guy is a hero, let’s make him a hero.’ But now the right wing and the conservatives are doing the same,” Mr. Ventura said. Right-wing leaders, he added, “should pray for Charlie Kirk, for his family, but we should also not forget his name and use him.”
President Trump is arriving in Europe against a backdrop of conservative fervor, as the continent’s hard-right parties seize on Mr. Kirk’s death as a rallying point. After decades of claiming victimization in their own countries, Europe’s right wing is on an upswing. They are winning elections, gaining traction among young voters and enjoying the support of Mr. Trump, who landed in Britain on Tuesday for a state visit.
And talking about Mr. Kirk’s assassination, experts said, fits neatly into their pre-existing, and often embroidered, narratives of persecution and exclusion.
“There is a common narrative across the far right of victimization, and this is one of the reasons this is so attractive to latch on to,” said Marta Lorimer, a politics lecturer at Cardiff University and an expert on the far right in Europe. “It says, ‘Look, not only have we been excluded, but now we’re also being murdered.’”
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The post As Trump Arrives, Europe’s Right Claims Charlie Kirk as One of Their Own appeared first on New York Times.
