People mourning the killing of Charlie Kirk carried candles and American flags in a solemn memorial last week at the Huntington Beach Pier, long a destination for conservative gatherings ranging from protests over pandemic-era lockdowns to rallies in support of President Trump.
But on this night, things took a dark turn when dozens of men joined the crowd, chanting, “White men fight back.”
Then on Saturday, a white nationalist organization, identified by experts as Patriot Front, showed up at another beachside memorial for Kirk. The men, wearing khakis, navy blue shirts and white gaiters concealing their faces, marched down Main Street toward the beach holding a picture of Kirk. “Say his name!” they yelled. “Take back our world! Take back our land!” By Sunday, key political leaders in the conservative Orange County city known as a hotbed for the MAGA movement were fighting to contain the situation, issuing a statement denouncing violence. Kirk’s assassination, City Hall said, “serves as a stark reminder of the devastating outcomes that can result from vitriol and violent rhetoric.”
“I despise them,” Councilman Butch Twining said of the white nationalists who disrupted the vigil. “There is no place for them here, and they disgust me.”
Huntington Beach is one of many communities grappling with the aftermath of the shooting of Kirk, a beloved activist in the conservative movement and close ally of President Trump.
Since his killing, conservatives have demanded the firing of people who posted online comments about Kirk they considered offensive. There have been debates over whether to lower flags to half-staff. One U.S. congressman is asking his colleagues to force social media platforms to kick off users who celebrated the killing. Vice President J.D. Vance encouraged people to take it a step further: “Call them out, and hell, call their employer.”
Huntington Beach is in a unique position because of its history of fringe white supremacist activity that goes back decades. In the 1980s and 1990s, skinheads converged on Main Street throwing Nazi salutes and intimidating people of color. In 1995, a pair of white supremacists fatally shot a Black man after confronting him outside a McDonald’s restaurant on Beach Boulevard.
