The killing of Charlie Kirk could have triggered a conservative detente. The first wave of shock at his shooting death on Sept. 10 on the campus of Utah Valley University released an outpouring of praise for his legacy of organizing — and the sanitization of his divisive rhetoric. The grief quickly gave way to an even more unifying pile-on against Kirk critics. But amidst this massive effort to manipulate his image into martyrdom, the biggest voices on the right are exploiting Kirk’s death for their own agenda.

His grieving widow, Erika, was fundraising off of his death before being named his successor at Turning Point USA, the conservative nonprofit he founded with entrepreneur and Tea Party activist Bill Montgomery. His former protege, Candace Owens, is peddling a conspiracy theory that

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