My point with comparing him to Samuels is that Kirk was a star on that algorithm the same way Samuels was on his.
Once again, I think you're underestimating just how great and megaphoned the algorithm that Kirk existed on was. In theory, sure, I can understand your perspective that they both gained famed through their appeal to a certain demographic and not the mainstream, but in reality, what Kirk represents has essentially becomea a mainstream-level mentality.
The existence of Trump as POTUS is proof of this; Elon turning Twitter into his own far-Right cesspool is proof of this.
Furthermore,
Turning Point USA is a multi-million dollar grift and the most prominent Conservative youth organization in the country, which has been active for over a decade (indoctrinating thousands of people), he's not only traveled all across the country to spread his message (Trump even joined him center stage), but he's made appearances in different countries too, he's published books (i.e. refurbished age-old Conservative rhetoric and passed it off as his own), hosted a podcast that had up towards a million downloads with each episode, poured countless amounts of resources in and recruited thousands of volunteers to shift the tide in swing states to vote for Trump (his ground game was essential last election).
I just did a google -
Outside the online world, TPUSA today has a presence in more than 3,500 high school and college campuses, with more than 250,000 student members, and more than 450 full- and part-time staff.
Despite whatever paltry online existence you think he had, it's clear that what he was doing was on a much greater scale than Samuel.
A lot of people who attended those games those games this weekend, didn’t know who Charlie Kirk was Wednesday morning. He was only popular among a certain sect.
Like I said, not only is that sect much bigger than you think it is, but the popularity of himself is rather meaningless when the message quickly spread on what he fought for.
That's what it ultimately comes down to, and I think that's where the disconnect lies between what you and I are arguing. You believe since he wasn't that well-known, it shouldn't have transpired in all this global public mourning, and I'm arguing that his popularity is rather inconsequential when folks are using his death for their own means, using it for a fight that runs adjacent to what he was fighting for. You know Republicans are crack addicts for their objective, so seeing one of their own being killed in 'politcal violence', it doesn't matter whether they knew of him or not, that was the fix they needed in order to acheive that high.
They have absolutely no shame, introspection or decorum when it comes to shoving their message down the throats of the rest of us, they'll use whatever tool they can with reckless abandon.
They're not mourning in the manner that you and I would mourn a person. They're dramatically grieving to cause a stir, amplifying what they believe to garner attention for their cause; they're political Karens, who'll scream bloody murder after throwing themselves to the floor, trying to make themselves the victim. Except now they don't need to create an elaborate act of being murdered, the boogeyman that is The Left has revealed itself and done it for them.
And despite what you wrote and what you are seeing online, Christian nationalism isn’t popular. Every time people in this country have the chance to vote for abortion access as a ballot measure, people vote for abortion access. It’s not popular.
In this context, it's popular in the fact that it's a guise for them to use for whatever grievances they have with the state they believe the country is in. Those crackas over in the UK said it best when they chanted
"we want our country back!". You should know by now that what Conservatives say and what they do are two different things. We're long past the point of expecting them to uphold what they say and not live in existence of hypocrisy.
you still ain’t understanding what my point is. I’m aware the people in power want to celebrate him, but that dude was not popular.
I completely understand what your point is, but like I keep reiterating, it's not about how popular he was (although you're severely undercalculating just how far his reach was - he was called the "
pied piper of the American Right" even before his death). It's all about how popular the representation of him was. That's something that can't be debated, unless you believe all the public outcry is all just AI and not real people, which is the quite the haunting thing, that Conservatives have essentially gone from fabricating their victimhood and turned it into something real.