Turning Point USA plans to return to Utah Valley University in Orem on the anniversary of founder Charlie Kirk’s assassination to hold what promises to be a powerful event.
“Remembering his life. Honoring his legacy,” TPUSA posted on social media.
“Join us 9/10 at the UCCU Center on the campus of UVU with Glenn Beck, Frank Turek, and more as we reflect on Charlie Kirk’s extraordinary impact,” the post further stated.
Turek is a well-known Christian apologist who was with Kirk when he was shot at the UVU event. Beck has been a staple at Turning Point’s annual AmericaFest events in Phoenix.
Remembering his life. Honoring his legacy.
Join us 9/10 at the UCCU Center on the campus of UVU with Glenn Beck, Frank Turek, and more as we reflect on Charlie Kirk’s extraordinary impact: https://t.co/DbKZifYSDz pic.twitter.com/kFZr465FKZ
— Turning Point USA (@TPUSA) August 21, 2026
I noticed at a Turning Point headquarters open house that I attended in March that multiple speakers referred specifically to Sept. 10, or 9/10, so that date is something that is very much in their thinking and vocabulary.
I argued in an article earlier this summer and in the 2026 edition of my book, “We Hold These Truths,” that Charlie Kirk was a Thomas Paine for our time.
In other words, he was a cultural leader outside of government who truly shifted American society back toward liberty, and in his case, back toward God.
Kirk said just months before he died, “If I’m to be known for anything, I want to be known for being courageous for my faith.” I contended that he, like Paine and other cultural leaders I wrote about, such as Frederick Douglass, Julia Ward Howe, and Frank Capra, helped shape the political dialogue of their historical eras.
I was able to witness some of his work through Turning Point USA as a reporter for The Western Journal covering CPAC. I interviewed him multiple times there, and I remember him being surrounded by college-aged students wearing swag with messages like “Socialism Sucks” and “Big Government Sucks.”
I spoke to him specifically on the subject of socialism for a news story that I wrote in early 2020, following the release of a poll showing that seven in 10 millennials would be inclined to vote for a socialist candidate.
He argued that it was the result of years of indoctrination taking place on college campuses — but, he added, students can often be turned away from socialism simply by asking them two questions. First, do you trust the government? And if not, why do you want to make it bigger?
In my book and in a recent Western Journal podcast, I argued that Kirk was like Paine in terms of his cultural influence.
Many people might not realize that Paine, in “Common Sense,” which was published in January 1776, cited the Bible multiple times in his argument about why the American colonies should declare their independence from Great Britain.
Regarding being governed by a king, he wrote, “As the exalting one man so greatly above the rest cannot be justified on the equal rights of nature, so neither can it be defended on the authority of Scripture; for the will of the Almighty, as declared by Gideon and the prophet Samuel, expressly disapproves of government by kings.”
The pamphleteer advocated that, instead of being subject to the arbitrary whims of royal decree, the colonists should be subject to God and His eternal laws. “But where, say some, is the king of America? I tell you, Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the royal brute of Britain.
“Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter [creating a new government for America]; let it be brought forth based on divine law, the Word of God [the Bible]; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve of monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the king is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other,” Paine wrote, six months before colonists signed the Declaration of Independence.
“Common Sense” sold 125,000 copies in the first three months after its release and 500,000 by the end of the Revolutionary War. For a nation of no more than four million at the time, those are some pretty impressive numbers. The pamphlet is still in print to this day.
In today’s parlance, we would call that going viral, which is what Kirk also did with millions of social media followers and “The Charlie Kirk Show.”
TPUSA shared a clip last month of Kirk exhorting that we should follow “God’s commands against the culture, not in consistency with the culture.”
Build for eternity, not just today. pic.twitter.com/FWoESunTAU
— Turning Point USA (@TPUSA) July 9, 2026
“To stand, in my opinion, on eternal truths, fight for the country, fight for our civilization, and then also understand that you, especially as men, but women as well, you are obligated to do difficult and hard things.”
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
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