Trump should honor Charlie Kirk with a statue in his Garden of Heroes

President Trump should mark America’s 250th year by completing his Garden of Heroes, and he should put a big, beautiful, statue of Charlie Kirk at the center of it.   

A mere five years after the destruction of American cities during the aftermath of the George Floyd protests, a summer of love, America now mourns the death of Charlie Kirk — who embodied peaceful dialogue, open discourse, and civil disagreement. 

Following Charlie’s assassination, the nation did not see riots or the burning of neighborhood or the destruction of streets. Instead, what emerged was an outcry expressed through prayer, vigils, and a collective demand for a return to civic unity. That response reflected not only the strength of Kirk’s legacy but also the essential role he played in keeping alive a tradition of discourse that America had nearly lost.

Kirk was the figure the nation needed to counter the creeping aggression and disappearance of civil dialogue. At a time when too many Americans mistook shouting for persuasion and violence for conviction, Kirk offered an alternative: passionate debate, freely chosen ideas, and the belief that persuasion over silencing was the true currency of democracy. 

His assassination was not just an attempt to strip one man of his voice; it was an attempt to send a message that conservative America should retreat. The response has been precisely the opposite. Conservatives have grown louder, but also more determined to embrace the moral authority of nonviolence in civic life. 

At the heart of Kirk’s contribution was his lifelong defense of the First Amendment. Free speech was not for him a slogan, nor simply a clause in the Constitution. It was the beating heart of the republic. He believed that America’s promise rested not only on freedom of worship and enterprise, but more importantly, on the freedom to express one’s ideas without fear of reprisal. 

Kirk offered debates on campuses across the country — arguably the one place where open discussion should have thrived — and in doing so he touched a generation of students who had never before seen a forceful yet civil defense of conservative principles. 

For Kirk, to defend speech was not merely to defend conservative speech. It was to defend the American right to disagree. He often reminded audiences that disagreement was not weakness but strength and the mark of a republic robust enough to live with its differences rather than abolish them by decree. In this, he traced his lineage back to the Founders, who in their messy and fractious debates showed that fiery differences were not the enemy of democracy but its guarantor. 

Every nation tells its story through those it chooses to honor. Trump has advanced a proposal for a Garden of Heroes to mark America’s 250th birthday; a living monument of 250 of the greatest Americans. To ask who should be included is to ask whose lives embody our national spirit and values, and Kirk deserves a place among them. 

From the onset, Trump saw that the garden should not be reserved to military generals and political leaders, though their roles are indispensable. He saw that heroes also include the citizens who advanced American excellence in the academy, in civic spaces, and in cultural life.

To some, Kirk’s inclusion will seem political. But honoring him is not about aligning with every policy suggestion he made or movement he led. Rather, it is about recognizing that the silencing of dissent is the first step toward tyranny, and that those who resisted that silencing are among the republic’s greatest guardians. 

Regardless of political affiliation, every American should grieve when voices are struck down by violence. When violence replaces discourse, society replaces citizenship with fear. 

The promise of America has always been fragile. It depends as much on ordinary citizens’ willingness to defend liberty as on the laws written in parchment. Kirk answered that call in a distinctively American way without violence and edicts, but with dialogue. He took his message into the crucible of the modern university, where free discourse was most under siege, and he refused to back down. 

To honor Kirk in the Garden of Heroes is not only to venerate his memory, but to make a statement about the kind of republic America wishes to be in its 250th year. If we believe that civil disagreement is a strength, if we still hold freedom of speech as sacred, even and especially when it is unpopular, then the Garden cannot be complete without him. 

The strength of America lies in its people, in the freedom of disagreement, and in the endless opportunities to compete, persuade, and grow. Kirk belongs in the Garden of Heroes not because he was universally loved, but because he kept freedom of speech alive when it was most at risk. 

Vilda Westh Blanc and Tim Rosenberger are co-founders of Excelsior Action.