Kirk's Death on the Future of the GOP

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Henry Olsen, who wrote an interesting piece. Henry is a
senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, is
writing about the massive conservative backlash over the assassination of
Charlie Kirk and as notable as Kirk's widow said at
the service that we didn't see riots and cities burning

(00:22):
and still because that's basically not what conservatives do. Henry
makes the point that this could be a moment for
a massive supermajority conservative supermajority to be formed and joins
us for a few minutes on kfab's Morning News. Henry,
good morning, Good morning. I appreciate you being here. One

(00:43):
of the points you made, because you wrote this before
last Sunday's service, was that if this was handled right,
this could be a real launching pad. In other words,
if the rhetoric was right at the funeral, this could
be a major launching pad for bringing many people into
the conservative movement. What did you think of it?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
I think that they did handle it right, and I
think Erica Kirk's forgiveness of the killer, statements about Charlie's
legacy living on and needing to grow were exactly the
right touch, and that was the statements and that was
the speech that got the most play. I think if
anyone who's not a political animal heard anything about it,

(01:27):
it was her. And that's exactly the right touch, which
is conservatism Americanism forgiveness, but conservative principle, and I think
that will help quite a bit.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
I have seen reporting and I've also heard anecdotally from
friends that there seems to be a real resurgence, at
least for the moment in church attendance. What do you
think this could become?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
This movement? Yeah, well, I think there's two ways. That's
the political and there's the social. The social way is
that people on look and say, hey, wait a minute,
this was a good man. This was a man who
lived certain values and maybe those values work for me.
And that would be the marriage and the church going

(02:17):
aspect of it, and the political aspect of it. It
would be that he stands for freedom, he stands for debate,
and that's why he was killed as somebody who didn't
believe in those American values. And we've already seen in
the last week in Pennsylvania thousands more Republican registrations, and
had been the pattern beforehand. If we see that picking

(02:38):
up across the country and continuing that would be fine
of a political research.

Speaker 1 (02:42):
Up as well, and especially among young people apparently, which
is remarkably encouraging.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
Yeah, well, I think young people, the young people today
came up during COVID, and came up during the online censorship,
came up during the height of wokeness in the Georgia
Floyd era, and they didn't benify it benefit by it.
You know, they lost a year of their lives in
most places because of school shutdowns. We see a move

(03:10):
to the right among the eighteen to twenty four generation
in polls, and the Charlie Kirk assassination could very well
just amplify and increase that.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
The only criticism I have heard of any of the speakers,
and it was fairly muted from the funeral service the
other day, was what President's advisor Stephen Miller in his tone,
but he's always combative. Do you think there's a danger
that some will take his message as a call for
retribution and some kind of physical action or riots or

(03:41):
that or that kind of thing, you know, that.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Would be very bad for the movement that Stephen Miller
is devoted to, you know, which is fortunately most of
the speakers did not have that sort of rhetoric. Certainly
his President Vance did not, Secretary of State Ruby, of
Chief of Staff Wilds, and so forth. So I don't
think that's going to be the message that most people hear.
But if you've got the maggot people screaming for violence

(04:06):
and retribution and somebody acts on it, that will be
very bad for the movement they purport to serve.

Speaker 1 (04:10):
No doubt, no doubt. Where can we read more from you, Henry?

Speaker 2 (04:15):
Well, you can subscribe to my newsletter at ETPC dot org.
You can just sign up there and I write in
a host of publications every other week in National Review
online and every other week in the Washington Examiner.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
Awesome, appreciate you being with us this morning.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Thank you for having Thank you very much.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Henry Olsen here on kfab's Morning News. Interesting talk to
a friend the other day, he said, he said, I
went to church three times just it will be just
not not Sunday services obviously because there weren't three Sundays,
but just to be there, you know. And I think
we're seeing this, we're seeing this in the country again.

(04:55):
That website EPPC dot org Ethics and Public Policy Center
that was Henry Olsen,