“A Death in Utah: Charlie Kirk and Capitalism’s Grip
on Free Speech, Gun Rights, and Conservatism”
In the shadow of modernity’s crumbling edifice, the assassination of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University serves not as a clarion call for unity but as a grim revelation of the hollow core at the heart of American pseudo-conservatism. As a conservative revolutionary—in the vein of Ernst Jünger, who envisioned a storm of steel forging a new aristocratic order from the ruins of bourgeois liberalism—view Kirk’s demise with neither glee nor grief, but with the cold detachment of one who recognizes a symptom rather than a savior. Kirk, that showman masquerading as a defender of free speech and tradition, embodied the very contradictions that have corrupted conservatism into a lapdog of neoliberal capitalism. His death, like his life, exposes the farce: a man who preached “freedom” while chaining the spirit to the marketplace, gunned down in a spectacle that his followers now exploit as martyrdom. But let this note dismantle this illusion, for true conservatism demands revolution against the very system Kirk upheld.
Kirk’s rise was inevitable in an era where the airwaves buzz with outrage merchants and the public square devolves into a carnival of provocation. Admirers hail him as a bulwark for free speech and gun rights, yet critics—see a man who weaponized these ideals to shield cruelty and conformity. Free speech? Yes, an essential forge for the warrior’s truth. Gun rights? Indispensable for the defense of hearth and homeland against tyranny. But in Kirk’s hands, they became licenses for bigotry and banalities, mere alibis for a “conservatism” that romanticizes the rugged individualist as a cog in the capitalist machine. This is no Jüngerian stormtrooper, defiant against the mechanized horrors of modernity; Kirk was a salesman, peddling atomized egoism to the masses, reducing the noble struggle to a defense of corporate overlords.
Consider the American streak in Kirk’s ideology: that myth of the self-made man, rooted in the frontier ethos but twisted over centuries into an apology for capitalist order. For more than a century, this narrative has served as a sedative, portraying economic collapse as a “cautionary tale” for the lazy, civil rights demands as disruptions to natural hierarchy, and social upheavals as threats to be quelled. Kirk cloaked himself in this tradition, positioning his barbs as “common sense” while branding opponents as enemies of freedom. He dismissed the Civil Rights Act as “a mistake,” not from a revolutionary critique of liberal egalitarianism—which might argue for organic communities over forced integration—but from a libertarian disdain that prioritizes market “freedoms” over cultural integrity. He mocked grieving parents of gun-violence victims, branded Muslim officials a “threat,” warned of demographic “replacement” (a point where he flirted with truth but diluted it with nativist pandering), taunted trans people, and even suggested public executions as civic entertainment. These were not the pronouncements of a thinker forging a new order; they were shock tactics, drawing crowds like a circus barker, pushing the boundaries of spectacle to bind followers in tribal loyalty.
True conservatism is not preservation of the status quo but a radical return to primal forms: the soil-bound nation, the heroic individual tempered by duty to the collective ethos, the rejection of bourgeois materialism. Jünger, in The Worker and Storm of Steel, envisioned a technocratic aristocracy rising from war’s anvil, transcending the liberal-capitalist decay. Kirk, by contrast, was a creature of that decay—a “Randian kid,” as aptly put, more influencer than intellectual. He floated in the shallow waters of talk-radio outrage, where empathy is deemed “dangerous” not because it softens the warrior’s resolve, but because it might question the endless grind of accumulation. His rallies were arenas of moral deregulation, yes, but one that served the globalist elite he claimed to oppose. How can one rail against “globalism” while embracing the neoliberal capitalism that fuels it? Globalization strips nations of self-determination, reducing peoples to interchangeable consumers in a borderless market. Kirk’s “anti-globalism” was selective theater, ignoring how multinational corporations—those true architects of replacement—erode the will for justice and sovereignty.
The assassination itself begs scrutiny, amplifying the oddity of Kirk’s final act. An outdoor appearance before hundreds, a controversial figure routinely besieged by death threats, yet no security? No checkpoints, no metal detectors, no backpack searches? This strains credulity. Was it hubris, born of his rugged individualist myth, or something more calculated—a stage set for martyrdom? In the conservative revolutionary view, such negligence smacks of the bourgeois complacency that invites chaos. Kirk’s defenders now swarm the airwaves, casting his killing as proof of leftist intolerance, transforming him into a saint for free speech, faith, and tradition. Ridiculous. Martyrdom requires sacrifice for a transcendent cause, not a bullet in the service of soundbites. His supporters invoke him as a victim of the very violence he allegedly incited, but this is inversion: Kirk lived by the rhetorical sword, slicing at the marginalized while cozying up to power. “Live by the sword, die by the sword,” indeed—perhaps he had it coming, not through vengeance, but as the inexorable fruit of a dishonest life that encouraged division and death.
This framing infuriates as communities been harmed by his rhetoric—Black, Muslim, Indigenous, LGBTQ+, and gun-violence survivors—the question of mourning is moot; why console a denier of their grief? Yet for the conservative revolutionary, the deeper betrayal is Kirk’s perversion of “free speech.” In his invocation, it was no neutral principle but a performance, a defiance masking exclusion. It tested loyalty: embrace the myth of individualism or be exiled as freedom’s foe. But free speech, in the revolutionary sense, is the forge of truth, not a shield for provocation without purpose. It symbolizes a posture of daring—to speak, believe, and act against the leveling forces of modernity. Kirk’s version reduced dissent to spectacle, a foil for his populist showmanship. Now, in death, it stands at a crossroads: will it remain a moral language, binding rights to responsibilities, or devolve into an alibi for the status quo?
Those weary of this “conservatism” see it for the hollow inheritance it is: the American romance of the self-made man, disciplining the masses to work harder, obey rules, distrust collective action. Social progress becomes a cautionary tale, compliance mistaken for order, order for freedom. But is this archetype relevant under capitalism’s oppression? The rugged individualist once embodied resistance—a farmer or craftsman defying authority on his soil. In Kirk’s retelling, he became a mascot for corporate power, shielding monopolies while preaching worker discipline. The independence myth, co-opted, enforces obedience to the machine.
Here lies the lingering question: has the conservative, once distrustful of capitalism’s soulless churn, become its compliant defender? Kirk exemplified this fusion, no different from the liberal who softens the same justifications. The conservative extols “tradition” and “duty”; the liberal, “opportunity” and “innovation.” Both command: keep working, keep buying, believe suffering proves freedom. Kirk and others who followed his view donned the dissident’s costume, railing against elites while reinforcing capital’s machinery. He mocked empathy not from contempt for weakness, but because it threatened the structure he served. To care—for the poor, excluded, gunfire’s victims—would unmask the lie: the “rugged individual” is enslaved, not free.
What unfolds post-assassination is no tidy narrative but a clash over free speech’s essence. Is it an unqualified shield for dehumanizing barbs, or a civic contract weighing costs? Kirk’s paradox: in life, he framed critiques as liberty’s assaults; in death, he compels reckoning—can liberty endure as cruelty’s excuse? His end may also mirrors America’s value struggle: freedom as moral imperative or mere alibi.
Yet Kirk was no philosopher, no Jünger forging metaphysical rebellion, but a Randian personality, flashy and fleeting. His “martyrdom” rings false; true opposition to globalism demands war on neoliberalism, reclaiming national will and justice from capitalism’s grasp. The debate transcends one man’s fall—it’s whether weaponized “free speech” is right or ruse, if society survives bigotry as entertainment. Discomfort is not injustice; real compassion heals the wounded. But for the revolutionary, it’s the spark to overthrow the decayed order Kirk defended. Let him be mourned, but let us build anew from the ashes.
References
Associated Press. (2025, September 10). Charlie Kirk, who helped build support for Trump among young people, dies after campus shooting. AP News. https://apnews.com/article/8357c3d102de09e3320fde761258131a
References
The Guardian. (2025, September 10). Charlie Kirk, Trump ally and right-wing activist, shot dead at Utah university. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/10/charlie-kirk-shot-utah
PBS NewsHour. (2025, September 11). High-powered rifle recovered from Utah campus where Kirk’s killer was able to blend in. PBS. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/high-powered-rifle-recovered-from-utah-campus-where-kirks-killer-was-able-to-blend-in
Jünger, E. (1993). The Worker: Dominion and form (J. Neugroschel, Trans.). Northwestern University Press. (Original work published 1932)
Jünger, E. (2004). Storm of steel (M. Hofmann, Trans.). Penguin. (Original work published 1920)
Harvey, D. (2007). A brief history of neoliberalism. Oxford University Press.
Bell, D. (1976). The cultural contradictions of capitalism. Basic Books.
Scruton, R. (2017). Conservatism: An invitation to the great tradition. All Points Books.