Good morning and welcome back to the Tip Sheet, a weekly newsletter from Tom Dudchik’s Capitol Report written by Mike Cerulli.

This week, we’re bringing you a collection of responses and reactions to the assassination of Charlie Kirk.

Let’s dive in…

CT young conservatives mourn a man they viewed as a generational leader

If you’re a member of Gen Z – and the Tip Sheet’s author happens to be in that cohort – it’s really hard to overstate the impact Charlie Kirk had on the political discourse.

Kirk was nearly ubiquitous on social media feeds, regardless of whether you found yourself ardently nodding along to his points or shaking your head in vehement disagreement.

For young conservatives, Kirk was a galvanizing figure.

"He is one of the people that made being a conservative on a college campus cool again,” Patrick Burland, the newly-elected head of the Connecticut Young Republicans, said in an interview with News 8.

Indeed, it was Kirk who stood at the vanguard of what the conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat called “mass-movement conservatism.”

As Douthat described, Kirk’s campus tours and the viral videos they produced helped transform the youth conservative movement from once largely defined by, in Douthat’s words, “nerds and dorks” to one driven by an attitude that is now “masculine, rowdy, mainstream, even faintly cool.”

“He was a harbinger and then an embodiment of Trump-era populism — a spokesman for a youthful right that seemed both more rebellious and more relaxed (like a good college hangout) as progressivism became more institutionally dominant and uptight, and that had a particular appeal to not especially ideological young men,” Douthat wrote.

Douthat’s liberal colleague Ezra Klein echoed that conclusion in a piece titled “Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way.”

“When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it,” Klein wrote, characterizing Kirk as “one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion.”

Klein is among the commentators who took deep issue with many of the positions Kirk took during his life. From his statements on transgender rights to his absolutist stance against abortion, Kirk could not have stood more opposed to many of the values that liberals like Klein hold dear.

“Kirk and I were on different sides of most political arguments,” Klein wrote. “We were on the same side on the continued possibility of American politics.”

Kirk’s impact on the youth vote in 2024 – which shifted substantially toward Donald Trump – was also a subject of Klein’s admiration.

Of course, Kirk was not the only one driving this shift. A twisting network of cultural and political tributaries have come together in recent years to raise the tidewaters of the youth conservative movement. But it was Kirk who played an integral role in sewing together somewhat disparate threads – from the Barstool bros to the Curtis Yarvin fanboys – into a formidable political force which, by all accounts, helped tip the 2024 election.

"There would not nearly be the number of young conservatives that there are now without Charlie Kirk,” Andrew Tammaro, a Gen Z staffer for the House Republicans and Hamden Board of Education member, said in an interview. 

“Frankly, even more so, the number of young conservatives is almost besides the point,” Tammaro continued. “It's how much he empowered young conservatives and even just young people who were curious about the political process to get involved and to feel comfortable in the conviction of their beliefs."

A moment of Connecticut unity

As gruesome videos of Charlie Kirk’s assassination went viral last Wednesday, shock and horror were accompanied by fears of spiraling political violence in a deeply divided country.

By now, the list of recent instances of political violence has become all too familiar and almost too lengthy to recount in one paragraph: two attempts on the life of President Trump, the assassination of Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, the shooting of another Minnesota legislator and his wife, the arson attack against Governor Josh Shapiro’s official residence, and the murders of two Israeli diplomats in Washington all shocked the nation in the year or so preceding the assassination at Utah Valley University.

In the aftermath of Kirk’s murder, two Connecticut politicos became part of the national conversation about political violence in an unexpected way.

Patrick Burland, the aforementioned head of the state’s Young Republicans group, and Alan Cunningham, the leader of the Young Democrats of Connecticut, came together to issue a joint statement offering prayers for Kirk and condemning political violence.

The statement quickly went viral. Other youth groups across the country united for similar bipartisan displays. Numerous national outlets featured Burland and Cunningham in their coverage.

“As Political Tension Soars, Some Rare Calls for Unity Emerge,” a New York Times headline read.

The article described the many vitriolic responses that followed Kirk’s assassination, noting the celebrations by some on the left and predictions of war by others on the right. But the Times also quoted Cunningham, Burland, and others who sought unity in a time of unrest.

“I thought that it might be an opportunity for me to reach out to the Young Republicans and say, in one voice, that we reject all forms of violence,” Cunningham told the Times.

Keating, Paz survey Connecticut reactions as Capitol Police “surges” security resources

Two veteran Connecticut political reporters put their pens to paper to document the reactions of the state’s leaders to last week’s shocking news.

Mark Pazniokas chronicled the reflections of two of the highest ranking Democrats in the state: Governor Ned Lamont and Attorney General William Tong.

Chris Keating wrote of introspection among Connecticut politicos.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, the Connecticut State Capitol Police said they were surging resources to protect legislators, staff and the public. Aside from an increased police presence at the Capitol, the exact details of what that surge entails were not immediately apparent given the tight-lipped nature of law enforcement when it comes to discussing the protective measures for elected officials.

What has been clear in recent days is that lawmakers are once again reevaluating their own security measures, as they did in the wake of the Minnesota shootings. Some state legislators have removed their distinctive official license plates from their cars, and others have inquired about protection at official events in their districts.

In an interview with WICC’s Melissa Sheketoff, Congressman Jim Himes cut to the heart of the issue, largely eschewing discussion of security measures. The actions of our political and cultural leaders, not the size of their security details, is the issue, Himes said.

“If you’re a congressman or a senator or a governor, and you’re celebrating or somehow stoking the fires of violence in this moment in time, you don’t deserve to be anywhere near an office of responsibility,” Himes said. “That’s the way this gets fixed.”

“No amount of security money is going to do what that would do to tone down the violence in our country.”