(RNS) — On Nov. 5, a visibly anxious Charlie Kirk fidgeted with his red MAGA hat and T-shirt, which was emblazoned with the word “Pray.” Surrounded by fellow young conservatives, he was livestreaming an election-night edition of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” his program on the conservative media outlet Real America’s Voice. Finally, as the hour grew late and Fox News declared Donald Trump the victor, Kirk burst into tears, eventually stammering out, “I am just humbled by God’s grace” and “This is God’s mercy on our country.”
But since the election, Kirk, a 31-year-old mainline-Presbyterian-turned-evangelical and founder of the conservative student organization Turning Point USA, has done his best to show he played no small part in what he insists was God’s plan to catapult Trump back into power.
Technically, TPUSA and its more overtly political arms, Turning Point Action and Turning Point PAC, were among several organizations tapped by the Trump campaign to operate as an outsourced field operation. But Kirk’s efforts have drawn particular praise as an effective driver of infrequent voters to the polls, bolstering what became Trump’s first popular-vote win.
Kirk has used that distinction to position himself as not only Trump’s fiercest backer among the modern-day religious right, but an enforcer of Trump …