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Just days before he was shot, , hailing this worldwide shift.

“The phenomenon of young people, especially men, turning conservative is occurring simultaneously across multiple continents,� Kirk told an audience in Seoul on Friday.

Indeed, some of the quickest in Canada to make public comments on Kirk’s death on Wednesday were Conservative Leader and MP .

Poilievre, in fact, pointedly kicked off a news conference on Thursday with expressions of sympathy over Kirk’s death, and a condemnation of the violence that caused it.

Jivani is no stranger to the cause of alienation among young men, having written a book in 2018 titled “Why Young Men: Rage, Race and the Crisis of Identity,” the cover of which has a promotional blurb from Jivani’s old Yale University friend, now U.S. Vice-President J.D. Vance.

In recent days, even before Kirk’s death, Jivani was out on social media, talking up a new project of his: “,� whose aim is to tackle what he is calling a societal crisis.

“Canada needs a national conversation about the crisis facing young men, and we need the federal government to start taking these issues seriously,â€� Jivani writes on the project’s website.

Jivani issued three social-media posts in the 24 hours after Kirk’s shooting, including a retweet of one from Vance. In , Jivani said, “I pray that yesterday’s tragedy does not discourage any young people from being politically active, but that Charlie Kirk’s legacy further inspires young people to speak clearly, think critically, stand up for the truth, and organize for positive change. The world needs you.â€�

On a purely practical political level, it makes sense for Jivani to do outreach with this audience, especially when you consider all the ways in which Conservatives have been increasingly attracting the votes of young men. Abacus Data CEO David Coletto has been tracking that trend for a while now and commenting on what he’s been seeing.

A poll by Abacus in late March, around the same time Canada was headed into the recent federal election, showed 41 per cent of men under 30 supporting the Conservatives, compared to 23 per cent of women in the same demographic.

“Economic anxiety, frustration with housing affordability, and a feeling that progressive discourse doesn’t include or even welcome them — these are recurring themes in our data,� .

It’s that last part — about not feeling welcome, even demonized by the left — that stirs up worries about the rightward migration of young men. It’s about the line between sober, ideological differences and the often toxic politics of backlash.

Those who see Kirk’s activism as redress for grievances against women or others horning in on traditional white male territory can be a combustible force in politics. These are the people who post on social media about taking the world back for men, and away from women or immigrants or minorities. They can be a raw, angry bunch.

Hence the worry. What happens when the aggrieved become angrily aggrieved, or worse, vengeful?

As U.S. Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned Wednesday after condemning the “horrific� incident, “The assassination of Charlie Kirk risks an uncorking of political chaos.�

Liberals are not unmindful of how their party has been seen in some quarters as turning its back on men, in favour of issues such as diversity and gender equity in Justin Trudeau’s decade in power. Some say that Mark Carney has been doing a welcome course correction; others worry that hard-won gains on those issues will disappear as Liberals try not to lose any more male voters.

For what it’s worth, while I have applauded (and benefited from) the gains made for women in the political world, I agree with Jivani that a national conversation would be a good idea for tackling very real concerns about young men and their place in a volatile time. The “restoreâ€� in his project’s name does evoke a bit of the “take back the nationâ€� sentiment, in which the divide between men and women is too often seen as a zero-sum game. But Jivani isn’t saying that, and his 2018 book was in large part an argument for making Black men and other minority cultures more welcome in civic and community life.

Kirk’s death, in other words, could be the catalyst for a conversation, in the U.S. and here at home in Canada, that may buy some of the calm for which politicians have been appealing.