He was 18 when he became involved in politics. With $10,000, he started what would become one of the most important conservative organizations in the United States: Turning Point USA, key to Trump’s historic victory in 2024.
Along the way, however, he knew how to build the most important thing: a marriage and a family. When I heard about the attack, all I could think about was all the nights his children would miss their bedtime kiss, and how his wife would tell them their dad was gone because someone hated his intelligence so much that they put a bullet in his neck.
The video of that last second is shocking. Charlie speaks, removes the microphone from his lips, and his body shudders, like a lightning strike. There is blood. And his life is slipping away. Thirty-one years old.
At that age, some analysts were tipping him as the next leader of the Republican National Committee, or even a future president.
What is beyond doubt is his decisive leadership for today’s Republican youth, that grand coalition that ranges from Make America Healthy Again, to libertarians, to traditionalists.
I knew about his videos through social media in Cuba before going into exile in 2022. His defense of the right to life and freedom of expression at a time when the Age of Man seemed to be ending and the Age of Orcs was beginning.
Many Cubans, without access to materials that weren’t socialist on the island, consumed his content, that of platforms like The Daily Wire and Prager U, to learn about a political debate that was forbidden to us under totalitarianism. Along the way, we improved our English and connected with a part of Western thought that loves truth and freedom.
Charlie blazed a trail through the thickets of the political jungle — when it was politically incorrect to say that Trump was a candidate to follow, or that not all cultures have the same values, or that amputating minors in the name of gender ideology was malevolent.
He was a leader, one of his generation. They insulted him with personal taunts, they harassed his family, they slapped him with labels like the now-stale “Nazi” or “fascist”; but he didn’t take the microphone away from anyone; he responded calmly and with arguments. His composure made him a role model.
He was a genuine man. I remember, in one of his last presentations, how he encouraged young people to learn trades with practical applications, to read on their own, to think critically, to break out of the ideological funnel that left-leaning college campuses had become. I remember how he mentioned that a decade ago, he had struggled with pornography. That sincerity, the frankness of speaking like a brother, earned him the trust of a large part of Generation Z.
Earlier this year, while working at Florida International University, I witnessed the organization and passion of the Turning Point USA chapter, which was promoting an event about the dangers of gender ideology in women’s sports.
At its inception, Turning Point USA attracted enough audiences to fill a small hall; by 2025, it has more than 1,300 chapters on college campuses in all 50 states. In his final appearance with the organization, Charlie filled what looked like an amphitheater (a space that compromised his safety, leaving him in a low and exposed position) at Utah Valley University with thousands of people. Some of his last words there were in defense of the historical truth of the figure of Jesus.
Charlie joins the long list of martyrs who, for advancing Christian values and ethics in the public sphere, fall at the hands of radicals.
He also joins the growing list of violence against high-profile leaders from the right-wing political spectrum so far this century. From Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), Fernando Villavicencio (Ecuador), to Shinzo Abe (Japan), to Donald Trump, to Miguel Uribe (Colombia), etc.
Will the habits of political assassination that bloodied the United States between the 1960s and 1970s return? Let’s hope not. Let's hope that the authorities won’t be afraid to punish those who play assassins.
Charlie died defending what he loved, those foundations of the West that make this the most prosperous and free civilization the planet has ever seen: freedom of expression and faith in the biblical God.
With grace, strength, and intelligence, he broke the pattern of censorship imposed by wokeism in universities, opening microphones on campuses across the country.
The mainstream media hated him. CNN, just days before his assassination, basically called him a racist because he called for justice for Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska.
This is the same media firestorm that inflamed public opinion and served as a logical framework for permissibility in attempts to end Trump’s life on several occasions during the presidential elections.
What happened this September 10th could dangerously change the way we understand the use of public space in a democratic society. How many people, like Charlie, who debate outdoors will consider holding smaller, closed events? How many will prefer (out of a not unfounded fear) to remain silent? How many thousands of dollars more will it cost, using private security companies, to organize an event where citizens can exercise their First Amendment rights?
The violent ones can’t win, because it would mean returning to a time before civilization.
When I learned that Charlie had been murdered, I shuddered. Because Charlie was a symbol — a great one, without a doubt. Charlie was killed for his political ideas, which are shared by millions of Americans, Cubans in exile and in the resistance, and people everywhere.
The bullet that pierced Charlie’s lanky body was meant for the young people who smiled at him and applauded him at Utah Valley University, for me, and perhaps for you who are reading this. There’s no justification for a minority dictatorship to make this country a place where its citizens live in fear of speaking and debating; there’s no reason for a minority dictatorship to silence the voices of those who love freedom.
Editor's Note: This article originally appeared here.
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