For university student Dave Sanchez, seeing Trump acolyte Charlie Kirk murdered during a campus event was like watching his own brother get shot.Â
"It still makes me sick to my stomach," said Sanchez, who returned to campus on Thursday to mourn the Republican superstar who was gunned down while addressing a large crowd of students.
"We watch him all the time and so it really does feel like one of your own family members, your own brother's been killed," said Sanchez, an accounting student whose father came to the United States from Peru.
The 26-year-old became captivated by Kirk's social media videos and admired his "dedication to faith, family and freedom."
"He did change the political climate on campuses, leading young people to look at conservatism in a different way," said Sanchez, who voted for Donald Trump in both 2020 and 2024 and was sporting a red "Make America Great Again" cap.
- 'I hope he is qualified' Â -
At 31, Kirk was an influential figure on the American right, and host of a conservative talk show. His youth organization, Turning Point USA, has branches on more than 800 American campuses.
The ally of President Donald Trump toured campuses across the country holding debates with students to "push back against left-wing indoctrination in academia."
But the Christian nationalist and fierce defender of traditional family values faced accusations of homophobia and racism and had many enemies.
"If I see a Black pilot, I'm gonna be like 'Boy, I hope he is qualified,'" Kirk said on a podcast in 2024, causing an outcry.
At Utah Valley University, where Kirk was killed on Wednesday, students condemned the shooting. But even in one of the most conservative, Trump-backing US states, some also called the right-wing youth activist's rhetoric dangerous.Â
While no culprit has been identified more than a day after the murder, Utah's Republican governor has called the shooting a "political assassination".
- 'Spokesman for our generation' -
Computer science student Carson Caines said Kirk was "a martyr of free speech."
"He was a huge spokesman for our generation," Caines, 23, told AFP.
Caines, a Mormon, admitted feeling livid at Kirk's killing, but realized that aggression was not the answer.
"I think, like a lot of people, my first initial reaction was like, wanting to do something physical about it," Caines said. "But I refuse to feed this cycle of violence."
Instead, Caines says he will join Kirk's organization Turning Point USA. The group bused youth activists to Washington for the January 6, 2021 rally, which turned into a riot and the storming of the US Capitol.
Alexander, another student at the university, lamented that Kirk's death would only deepen animosity and polarization in the United States.
"I hear a lot of people saying he was an extremist. But in the right-wing community, he's one of the more moderate voices out there," Alexander, who would not give his last name, told AFP. "Killing him is only going to make it worse and increase the divide between Americans."
Alexander, who supports gun ownership and is against abortion, says he and fellow-minded Americans have felt ostracized and silenced by those on the left.
"In the past decade, I think anyone who leans conservative has had to censor their beliefs, even basic ones like being pro-family or pro-Second Amendment, in order to avoid public backlash," the 23-year-old added, referring to the Constitutional right to bear arms. Â
"Cancel culture has gone crazy," he said. "This killing is a cultural artifact, I think, of everything that happened during the last decade or so."
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