Sounds more like they're moving their grooming targets to less critical thinkers.

Ah, GOP-jugend.

  If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine -  Obi-Wan Kenobi (A New Hope, 1977)

It would be extraordinary if Kirk could have grown his organization alive nearly as much as his death has. Here's hoping that the martyr effect becomes strong enough to discourage the creation of more of them. I wish we had learned that from Martin Luther King.