Charlie Kirk’s influence went far beyond the United States.
Days before Mr. Kirk, a right-wing activist was fatally shot at a campus event in Utah on Wednesday, he was addressing audiences in Seoul and Tokyo, speaking at conferences there about the conservative movement and how he had recruited young conservatives to join the MAGA movement.
Turning Point USA, the right-wing activist organization Mr. Kirk founded, is a “youth movement that is sweeping the world,” he said last week in a panel interview at Build Up Korea, a conservative conference in Seoul.
“It is a joy to see what we’ve been able to build in America come to South Korea,” he said. Speaking before a crowd that chanted “U-S-A! U-S-A!”, Mr. Kirk discussed the importance of the Bible and encouraged young people to get married and have more children.
Mr. Kirk’s conservative message and influence, which made him a close ally of President Trump’s, has also found audiences among young people in Europe in recent years.
Turning Point UK, the British offshoot of Mr. Kirk’s organization, was founded in 2019 to challenge what it called a far-left bias in schools. Nigel Farage, leader of the anti-immigrant party Reform U.K., offered a tribute for Mr. Kirk in the House of Commons on Thursday, saying that Mr. Kirk had a growing online presence in Britain, especially after his recent trip.
Mr. Kirk wrote about his visits to Oxford University and the University of Cambridge in May in the conservative British magazine The Spectator, saying he encountered a “wall of hostility” at Cambridge.
He described the atmosphere as similar to what he had found in the United States several years ago earlier as, he claimed, American college-age students “moved toward Trump.” He wrote that Cambridge students had seethed when he described pandemic lockdowns as pointless and “forced submission to mRNA shots” as “tyranny.”
“When I said George Floyd died from a drug overdose rather than under a police officer’s knee, they went into an uproar,” Mr. Kirk wrote, referencing a false claim about the 2020 death of Mr. Floyd, the Black man who was killed in police custody in Minneapolis.
Noting growing support for Reform U.K., Mr. Kirk concluded in the piece, “The great turn in Britain is coming. And when it arrives, the students of Oxbridge will be the most surprised of all.”
Turning Point UK posted several statements on social media after his death. One said: “They murdered our boss. Our mentor. Our inspiration. Our friend. We will not forgive. We will not forget.”
It said it would hold a vigil for Mr. Kirk on Friday evening in central London.
Mr. Kirk’s death drew strong condemnations from European leaders, including Viktor Orban, the populist nationalist prime minister of Hungary.
Mr. Orban on Thursday wrote on social media that the world had lost a “true defender of faith and freedom.” Like Mr. Trump, he blamed Mr. Kirk’s death on the “international hate campaign waged by the progressive-liberal left,” though he did not provide evidence.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel wrote on social media that he had spoken to Mr. Kirk, who frequently spoke in support of Israel’s military operation in Gaza, two weeks ago, when he invited him to Israel. “A lionhearted friend of Israel, he fought the lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization,” Mr. Netanyahu wrote.
Jenny Gross is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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