MAGA'S HORST WESSEL
The Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk
September 12, 2025
The assassination of Charlie Kirk presages a new, deadly stage in the disintegration of a fractious and highly polarized United States. While toxic rhetoric and threats are lobbed across cultural divides like hand grenades, sometimes spilling over into actual violence — including the murder of Minnesota House of Representatives Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband and the two assassination attempts against Donald Trump — Kirk’s killing is a harbinger of full-scale social disintegration.
His murder has given the movement he represented — grounded in Christian nationalism — a martyr. Martyrs are the lifeblood of violent movements. Any flinching over the use of violence, any talk of compassion or understanding, any effort to mediate or discuss, is a betrayal of the martyr and the cause the martyr died defending.
Martyrs sacralize violence. They are used to turn the moral order upside down. Depravity becomes morality. Atrocities become heroism. Crime becomes justice. Hate becomes virtue. Greed and nepotism become civic virtues. Murder becomes good. War is the final aesthetic. This is what is coming.
“We have to have steely resolve,” said conservative political strategist Steve Bannon on his show “War Room,” adding, “Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country. We are.”
“If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die,” wrote Elon Musk on X.
“The entire Right has to band together. Enough of this in-fighting bullshit. We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell,” wrote commentator and author Matt Walsh on X. “Put the personal squabbles aside. Now’s not the time. This is existential. A fight for our own existence and the existence of our country.”
Republican Congressman Clay Higgins wrote that he will use, “Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk…” He further states “I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked. I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”
Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale capitalized on Kirk’s death to advocate for a takedown of the “red-green alliance” of “Communists and Islamists” who he claims have united to destroy Western civilization. He proposes an app where citizens can upload pictures of crime and homelessness in exchange for “property-tax rebates.”
Far-right comedian Sam Hyde, who has nearly half a million followers on X, wrote in response to Trump’s announcement of Kirk’s death that it is, “Time to do your fucking job and seize power… if you want to be more than a footnote in the ‘American Collapse’ section of future history books, it’s now or never.” In his tweet, he tags members of the administration and private military contractors.
Conservative actor James Woods warned, “Dear leftists: we can have a conversation or a civil war. One more shot from your side and you will not get this choice again.” His tweet was reposted by almost 20,000 people, received 4.9 million views and over 96,000 likes.
These are a sample of the slew of vitriolic sentiments shared and cheered on by tens of millions of Americans.
The dispossession of the working class, 30 million who have been laid off because of deindustrialization, has engendered rage, despair, dislocation, alienation and fostered magical thinking. It has fed conspiracy theories, a lust for vengeance and a celebration of violence as a purgative for social and cultural decay.
Christian fascists — like Kirk and Trump — have astutely preyed on this despair. They stoked the embers. Kirk’s killing will set it alight.
Dissidents, artists, gays, intellectuals, the poor, the vulnerable, people of color, those who are undocumented or who do not mindlessly repeat the cant of a perverted Christian nationalism, will be condemned as human contaminants to be excised from the body politic. They will become, as in all diseased societies, sacrificial victims in the vain attempt to achieve moral renewal and recapture a lost glory and prosperity.
The cannibalization of society, a futile attempt to recreate a mythical America, will accelerate the disintegration. The intoxication of violence — many of those reacting to Kirk’s killing seemed giddy about a looming bloodbath — will feed on itself like a firestorm.
The martyr is vital to the crusade, in this case ridding America of those Trump calls the “radical left.”
Martyrs are memorialized in ceremonies and acts of remembrance to remind followers of the righteousness of the cause and the perfidy of those who are blamed for the martyr’s death. This is what Trump did when he called Kirk “a martyr for truth and freedom” in a video message on September 10, awarded Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff until Sunday. It is why Kirk’s casket will be flown back to Phoenix, Arizona on Air Force Two.
Kirk was a poster child for our emergent Christian Fascism. He peddled the Great Replacement Theory, which claims liberals or “globalists” allow immigrants of color into the country in order to replace whites, distorting immigration trends into conspiracy. He was Islamophobic, tweeting “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America,” and that it is “not compatible with western civilization.”
When children’s YouTuber Ms. Rachel said “Jesus says to love God and to love your neighbor as yourself,” Kirk retorted that “Satan has quoted scripture plenty” and added “by the way Ms. Rachel, you might wanna crack open that Bible of yours, in a lesser referenced part of the same part of scripture is in Leviticus 18, is that thou shall Lay with another man and be stoned to death.”
He demanded we roll back the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and disparaged civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King. He was demeaning towards Black people, “If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman..is she there because of affirmative action?” He said “prowling Blacks” are targeting white people “for fun.” He blamed Black Lives Matter for “destroying the fabric of our society.”
Kirk insisted the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. He founded Professor Watchlist and School Board Watchlist to purge professors and teachers with what he called “radical leftist” agendas. He advocated televised public executions which he insisted should be mandatory viewing for children.
The idea that he championed free speech and liberty is absurd. He was an enemy of both.
Kirk, who was a cheerleader for the cult of Trump, embodied the hypermasculinity that is at the core of fascist movements. This was perhaps his primary attraction to youth, especially white men. He claimed there is “a war on men,” fetishized guns and sold Trump to his followers as a man’s man.
“There’s a lot you can call Donald Trump,” he wrote. “No one has ever called him feminine. Trump is a giant middle finger to all the screeching hall monitors that attacked young men for just existing. He’s a giant F YOU to the feminist establishment that was never challenged before he came down the golden escalator. Most of the media missed this. Young men did not.”
History has shown what comes next. It won’t be pleasant. Kirk, elevated to martyrdom, gives those seeking to extinguish our democracy the license to kill, just as Kirk was killed. It lifts what few constraints still exist to protect us from state abuse and vigilante violence. Kirk’s name and visage will be employed to accelerate the road to tyranny, which is as he would have wanted it.
Charlie Kirk's supporters have declared him a 'martyr.' Some want vengeance.
Hailey Branson-Potts
Fri, September 12, 2025
Community leader Benito "Benny" Bernal and other community members attend a vigil Thursday in downtown Los Angeles for slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)More
A few hours after Charlie Kirk was killed, Sean Feucht, an influential right-wing Christian worship leader, filmed a selfie video from his home in California, his eyes brimming with tears.
The shooting of one of the nation's most prominent conservative activists, Feucht declared, was no less than "a line in the sand" in a country descending into a spiritual darkness.
"The enemy thinks that he won, that there was a battle that was won today," he said, referencing Satan. "No, man, there's going to be millions of bold voices raised up out of the sacrifice and the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk."
People place lighted candles below a photo of Charlie Kirk at a vigil in his memory in Orem, Utah. (Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
Kirk's death has triggered a range of reaction, much of it mournful sympathy for the 31-year-old activist and his family. But it also has sparked conspiracy theories, hot-take presumptions the left was responsible and calls for vengeance against Kirk's perceived enemies.
At a vigil for Kirk in Huntington Beach this week, some attendees waved white flags depicting a red cross and the word "Jesus," while some chanted, "White men, fight back!" Kirk spread a philosophy that liberals sought to disempower men, and some of his male supporters see his killing as an attack against them.
Whether the calls for vengeance will ebb or intensify remains to be seen, especially with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox's announcement Friday that a suspect in the fatal shooting, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, had been arrested after a family member turned him in.
In life, Kirk spoke of what he called a "spiritual battle" being waged in the United States between Christians and a Democratic Party that "supports everything that God hates."
In death, Kirk, one of the Republican Party's most influential power brokers, is being hailed by conservative evangelical pastors and GOP politicians as a Christian killed for his religious beliefs.
President Trump called Kirk a "martyr for truth and freedom," and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in his honor. He blamed Kirk's death on the rhetoric of the "radical left." Vice President JD Vance, who helped carry Kirk's casket to Air Force Two, retweeted a post Kirk wrote on X last month reading, "It's all about Jesus." And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, quoting Jesus, wrote on X: "Well done, good and faithful servant."
A woman lays her head down on a seat during a vigil at CenterPoint Church for Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah. (Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
Experts on faith and far-right extremism say they are troubled by the religious glorification of Kirk in this era of increased political violence — and the potential vengeance that may spring from it. The activist's death, they say, seems to have ignited various factions on the right, ranging from white supremacists to hard-core Christian nationalists.
"The 'spiritual warfare' rhetoric will only increase," and Kirk is now being lifted up as "a physical manifestation" of a religious battle, said Matthew Boedy, a professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia who has written a forthcoming book about Christian nationalism that prominently features Kirk.
"Spiritual warfare rhetoric was a big part of Jan. 6," he said of the deadly 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. "Making a martyr out of Charlie Kirk will change our nation in severe ways."
Samuel Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma and expert on Christian nationalism, said he is a Christian himself but that religion, cynically used, "has the potential to amplify what would otherwise be very secular political conflicts between Democrats and Republicans."
"What if those are amplified with a cosmic and ultimate significance?" he said. "It becomes, 'This is God vs. Satan. This is angels vs. demons — and if we lose this next election, we plunge the nation into a thousand years of darkness.' ... It basically provokes extremism."
Feucht, a Christian nationalist and failed Republican congressional candidate from Northern California, said that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" and that, in the wake of Kirk's death, "we have to do something."
Kirk — who rallied his millions of online followers to vote for Trump in the 2024 election — declared that God was on the side of American conservatives and that there was "no separation of church and state." He was also known for his vitriol against racial and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ people, childless women, progressives and others who disagreed with him.
Kirk called transgender people "a throbbing middle finger to God." He said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was "a huge mistake" and called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "awful." On his podcast, he called with a smirk for "some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area [who] wants to really be a midterm hero" to bail out of jail the man who attacked then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband with a hammer in their home in 2022.
A memorial is set up for Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. (Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
In 2023, Kirk sat on the stage of Awaken Church in Salt Lake City and said: "I think it's worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the 2nd Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."
Two days before his death, Kirk retweeted a video of himself saying that a "spiritual battle is coming for the West," with "wokeism or marxism combining with Islamism" to go after "the American way of life, which is, by the way, Christendom."
Perry said, "There's no need to whitewash the legacy of Charlie Kirk."
"This is a tragedy, and no one deserves to die this way," Perry said. "Yet, at the same time, Charlie Kirk is very much part of this polarization story in the U.S. who used quite divisive rhetoric, 'us vs. them, the left is evil.'"
Perry noted that Kirk's Turning Point USA had placed him on its Professor Watchlist, a website that says it aims to expose professors "who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda." The entry on Perry flags him for "Anti-Judeo-Christian Values."
Some on the right say their recent fiery words are only a response to the hateful rhetoric of the left. One widely shared example: Two days before Kirk's killing, the feminist website Jezebel published an article titled, "We Paid Some Etsy Witches to Curse Charlie Kirk." It has since been removed and replaced by a letter from the site's editor saying it had been "intended as satire and made it absolutely clear that we wished no physical harm."
Kirk was killed by a single sniper-style shot to the neck Wednesday during an outdoor speaking event at Utah Valley University.
After announcing the suspect's arrest Friday, Gov. Cox said he had prayed that the shooter was not from Utah, "that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country." But that prayer, he said, "was not answered the way I hoped for."
He then said that political violence "metastasizes because we can always point the finger at the other side" and that, "at some point, we have to find an offramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse."
Some of Kirk's most prominent evangelical followers have said that his death represents an attack on conservative Christian values and that he was gunned down for speaking "the truth."
Jon Fleischman, Orange County-based conservative blogger and former executive director of the California Republican Party, who started out as a conservative college activist, knew Kirk and said "there is one hell of a martyr situation going on."
"A lot of people are getting activated and are going to walk the walk, talk the talk, and give money as their way of trying to process and deal with losing someone they care about," he told The Times.
In recent years, Kirk had become more outspoken about his Christian faith. He founded the nonprofit Turning Point USA in 2012 as an avowedly secular youth organization and became known for his college campus tours, with videos of his debates with liberal college students racking up tens of millions of views.
But in 2020, during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, college campuses closed. Kirk started speaking at churches that stayed open in violation of local lockdown and mask orders, including Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Ventura County, which was led by Pastor Rob McCoy, a former Thousand Oaks mayor.
McCoy is now the co-chair of Turning Point USA Faith, which encourages pastors to become more politically outspoken. McCoy, who could not be reached for comment, wrote in a statement Friday: "For those who rejoiced over his murder, you are instruments of evil and I implore you to repent. For those of you who mock prayer, you would do well to reconsider. Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us toward a more peaceful and civil life."
Professor Boedy said McCoy turned Kirk toward Christian nationalism, specifically the Seven Mountains Mandate — the idea that Christians should try to hold sway over the seven pillars of cultural influence: arts and entertainment, business, education, family, government, media and religion.
Christian nationalism, which is rejected by mainline Christians, holds that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that the faith should have primacy in government and law.
Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and a professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino, said, "the more violent fringes of Christian nationalism have disturbing aspects that are eliminationist and antidemocratic."
He noted that some of the same Christian nationalists and white supremacists who are now calling Kirk a martyr already deified Trump, especially after he survived two assassination attempts on the campaign trail last year and said he had been "saved by God to make America great again."
Levin said many Christian nationalists portray Trump as "an armed Christian warrior protecting America from a disturbing assortment of immigrants, religious minorities, genders and sexual orientations." And so, when he uses martyr language to describe Kirk, his adherents latch on.
"Where do martyrs come from? From violent conflicts and wars," Levin said. "The fact of the matter is that this is a moment that Trump could have more effectively seized, but he veered into divisive territory."
California Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones (R-Santee) also called Kirk "a modern day martyr." In a statement, Jones quoted Thomas Jefferson, who said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Jones wrote: "Let us take care that we allow that tree to grow and blossom as it feeds on the lifeblood of Charles J. Kirk in the years to come."
Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Hailey Branson-Potts
Fri, September 12, 2025
Community leader Benito "Benny" Bernal and other community members attend a vigil Thursday in downtown Los Angeles for slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk. (Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)More
A few hours after Charlie Kirk was killed, Sean Feucht, an influential right-wing Christian worship leader, filmed a selfie video from his home in California, his eyes brimming with tears.
The shooting of one of the nation's most prominent conservative activists, Feucht declared, was no less than "a line in the sand" in a country descending into a spiritual darkness.
"The enemy thinks that he won, that there was a battle that was won today," he said, referencing Satan. "No, man, there's going to be millions of bold voices raised up out of the sacrifice and the martyrdom of Charlie Kirk."
Soon afterward, Pastor Matt Tuggle, who leads the Salt Lake City campus of the San Diego-based Awaken megachurch, posted a video of Kirk's killing on Instagram, adding the caption: "If your pastor isn't telling you the left believes a evil demonic belief system you are in the wrong church!"
People place lighted candles below a photo of Charlie Kirk at a vigil in his memory in Orem, Utah. (Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
Kirk's death has triggered a range of reaction, much of it mournful sympathy for the 31-year-old activist and his family. But it also has sparked conspiracy theories, hot-take presumptions the left was responsible and calls for vengeance against Kirk's perceived enemies.
At a vigil for Kirk in Huntington Beach this week, some attendees waved white flags depicting a red cross and the word "Jesus," while some chanted, "White men, fight back!" Kirk spread a philosophy that liberals sought to disempower men, and some of his male supporters see his killing as an attack against them.
Whether the calls for vengeance will ebb or intensify remains to be seen, especially with Utah Gov. Spencer Cox's announcement Friday that a suspect in the fatal shooting, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, had been arrested after a family member turned him in.
In life, Kirk spoke of what he called a "spiritual battle" being waged in the United States between Christians and a Democratic Party that "supports everything that God hates."
In death, Kirk, one of the Republican Party's most influential power brokers, is being hailed by conservative evangelical pastors and GOP politicians as a Christian killed for his religious beliefs.
President Trump called Kirk a "martyr for truth and freedom," and ordered flags to be flown at half-staff in his honor. He blamed Kirk's death on the rhetoric of the "radical left." Vice President JD Vance, who helped carry Kirk's casket to Air Force Two, retweeted a post Kirk wrote on X last month reading, "It's all about Jesus." And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, quoting Jesus, wrote on X: "Well done, good and faithful servant."
A woman lays her head down on a seat during a vigil at CenterPoint Church for Charlie Kirk in Orem, Utah. (Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
Experts on faith and far-right extremism say they are troubled by the religious glorification of Kirk in this era of increased political violence — and the potential vengeance that may spring from it. The activist's death, they say, seems to have ignited various factions on the right, ranging from white supremacists to hard-core Christian nationalists.
"The 'spiritual warfare' rhetoric will only increase," and Kirk is now being lifted up as "a physical manifestation" of a religious battle, said Matthew Boedy, a professor of rhetoric and composition at the University of North Georgia who has written a forthcoming book about Christian nationalism that prominently features Kirk.
"Spiritual warfare rhetoric was a big part of Jan. 6," he said of the deadly 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters. "Making a martyr out of Charlie Kirk will change our nation in severe ways."
Samuel Perry, a sociologist at the University of Oklahoma and expert on Christian nationalism, said he is a Christian himself but that religion, cynically used, "has the potential to amplify what would otherwise be very secular political conflicts between Democrats and Republicans."
"What if those are amplified with a cosmic and ultimate significance?" he said. "It becomes, 'This is God vs. Satan. This is angels vs. demons — and if we lose this next election, we plunge the nation into a thousand years of darkness.' ... It basically provokes extremism."
Feucht, a Christian nationalist and failed Republican congressional candidate from Northern California, said that "the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church" and that, in the wake of Kirk's death, "we have to do something."
Kirk — who rallied his millions of online followers to vote for Trump in the 2024 election — declared that God was on the side of American conservatives and that there was "no separation of church and state." He was also known for his vitriol against racial and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ people, childless women, progressives and others who disagreed with him.
Kirk called transgender people "a throbbing middle finger to God." He said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was "a huge mistake" and called the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. "awful." On his podcast, he called with a smirk for "some amazing patriot out there in San Francisco or the Bay Area [who] wants to really be a midterm hero" to bail out of jail the man who attacked then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's husband with a hammer in their home in 2022.
A memorial is set up for Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. (Lindsey Wasson / Associated Press)
In 2023, Kirk sat on the stage of Awaken Church in Salt Lake City and said: "I think it's worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the 2nd Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."
Two days before his death, Kirk retweeted a video of himself saying that a "spiritual battle is coming for the West," with "wokeism or marxism combining with Islamism" to go after "the American way of life, which is, by the way, Christendom."
Perry said, "There's no need to whitewash the legacy of Charlie Kirk."
"This is a tragedy, and no one deserves to die this way," Perry said. "Yet, at the same time, Charlie Kirk is very much part of this polarization story in the U.S. who used quite divisive rhetoric, 'us vs. them, the left is evil.'"
Perry noted that Kirk's Turning Point USA had placed him on its Professor Watchlist, a website that says it aims to expose professors "who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda." The entry on Perry flags him for "Anti-Judeo-Christian Values."
Some on the right say their recent fiery words are only a response to the hateful rhetoric of the left. One widely shared example: Two days before Kirk's killing, the feminist website Jezebel published an article titled, "We Paid Some Etsy Witches to Curse Charlie Kirk." It has since been removed and replaced by a letter from the site's editor saying it had been "intended as satire and made it absolutely clear that we wished no physical harm."
Kirk was killed by a single sniper-style shot to the neck Wednesday during an outdoor speaking event at Utah Valley University.
After announcing the suspect's arrest Friday, Gov. Cox said he had prayed that the shooter was not from Utah, "that somebody drove from another state, somebody came from another country." But that prayer, he said, "was not answered the way I hoped for."
He then said that political violence "metastasizes because we can always point the finger at the other side" and that, "at some point, we have to find an offramp, or it’s going to get much, much worse."
Some of Kirk's most prominent evangelical followers have said that his death represents an attack on conservative Christian values and that he was gunned down for speaking "the truth."
Jon Fleischman, Orange County-based conservative blogger and former executive director of the California Republican Party, who started out as a conservative college activist, knew Kirk and said "there is one hell of a martyr situation going on."
"A lot of people are getting activated and are going to walk the walk, talk the talk, and give money as their way of trying to process and deal with losing someone they care about," he told The Times.
In recent years, Kirk had become more outspoken about his Christian faith. He founded the nonprofit Turning Point USA in 2012 as an avowedly secular youth organization and became known for his college campus tours, with videos of his debates with liberal college students racking up tens of millions of views.
But in 2020, during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, college campuses closed. Kirk started speaking at churches that stayed open in violation of local lockdown and mask orders, including Godspeak Calvary Chapel in Ventura County, which was led by Pastor Rob McCoy, a former Thousand Oaks mayor.
McCoy is now the co-chair of Turning Point USA Faith, which encourages pastors to become more politically outspoken. McCoy, who could not be reached for comment, wrote in a statement Friday: "For those who rejoiced over his murder, you are instruments of evil and I implore you to repent. For those of you who mock prayer, you would do well to reconsider. Prayer doesn’t change God, it changes us toward a more peaceful and civil life."
Professor Boedy said McCoy turned Kirk toward Christian nationalism, specifically the Seven Mountains Mandate — the idea that Christians should try to hold sway over the seven pillars of cultural influence: arts and entertainment, business, education, family, government, media and religion.
Christian nationalism, which is rejected by mainline Christians, holds that the United States was founded as a Christian nation and that the faith should have primacy in government and law.
Brian Levin, founder of the Center for the Study of Hate and Extremism and a professor emeritus at Cal State San Bernardino, said, "the more violent fringes of Christian nationalism have disturbing aspects that are eliminationist and antidemocratic."
He noted that some of the same Christian nationalists and white supremacists who are now calling Kirk a martyr already deified Trump, especially after he survived two assassination attempts on the campaign trail last year and said he had been "saved by God to make America great again."
Levin said many Christian nationalists portray Trump as "an armed Christian warrior protecting America from a disturbing assortment of immigrants, religious minorities, genders and sexual orientations." And so, when he uses martyr language to describe Kirk, his adherents latch on.
"Where do martyrs come from? From violent conflicts and wars," Levin said. "The fact of the matter is that this is a moment that Trump could have more effectively seized, but he veered into divisive territory."
California Senate Minority Leader Brian W. Jones (R-Santee) also called Kirk "a modern day martyr." In a statement, Jones quoted Thomas Jefferson, who said, "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Jones wrote: "Let us take care that we allow that tree to grow and blossom as it feeds on the lifeblood of Charles J. Kirk in the years to come."
Times staff writer Seema Mehta contributed to this report.
This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Opinion
Why MAGA’s Canonization of Charlie Kirk Is Truly Monstrous
David Rothkopf
Fri, September 12, 2025
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Reuters
It is one thing to condemn, as we all should, the brutal murder of Charlie Kirk or, for those who cared about him, to mourn his death.
It is quite another to turn Kirk into a MAGA saint, or to use his death as a Reichstag fire-like justification for increasing Trump’s authoritarian chokehold on America.
I am sure that Kirk and his family are grateful for the outpourings of support from the president and vice president of the United States, the cabinet, members of Congress, the media, and the public.
After Kirk’s death, Donald Trump described the Turning Point USA founder as “legendary.” / Cheney Orr / REUTERS
But at this point, it appears that we as a country have lost our minds.
The president of the United States has ordered all flags in the United States to fly at half-mast. He has announced he will posthumously award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The vice president decided to skip out on 9/11 observations—among the most solemn on the federal calendar—to be with Kirk’s family.
He then offered Air Force Two to fly Kirk’s casket from Utah to Arizona. The Secretary of Defense used a 9/11 remembrance speech to salute Kirk. Congress declared a moment of silent reflection on the loss. So too did sporting events across America. Trump called Kirk “a martyr.”
Kirk's body was flown from Utah to Arizona on Air Force Two, carried on and off by an Air Force honor guard in full uniform. / Thomas Machowicz / Thomas Machowicz/Reuters
As if Charlie Kirk were some kind of American hero.
But Kirk was no hero. The record is clear. If Kirk was a victim of a pernicious culture of violence in America, it must also be acknowledged that he was an author of that culture.
His primary accomplishment in life was to foment hatred and division across the United States. He blamed all of America’s ills on the left, and cheered violent attacks on Democrats. He fought against equal rights for many Americans; some of his last words were condemning women’s reproductive freedoms. He promoted America’s gun pathology, and asserted the death of innocents was an acceptable cost for that culture.
Charlie Kirk appears at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah on Sept. 10, 2025. While speaking at the event, Kirk was fatally shot in the neck. / Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribu / via REUTERSMore
However, what is happening is far worse than simply devoting our national resources or devaluing our national reputation by elevating an unworthy individual.
In tributes from across the political spectrum, Kirk is being praised as a champion of “free speech.” He was not. He mercilessly attacked those with whom he did not agree. He was an enemy of truth and of equity. Kirk perverted the idea of our First Amendment rights to suggest they required universities to embrace lies, as though there were some obligation to present unfounded idiocy and malice simply because some special interest or political group supported them.
Much of his political identity was tied up in the dangerous promotion of white Christian nativism and its alliance with the most corrupt president in American history—a felon, a sex offender, a man who incited an insurrection against the United States government.
A woman attends a vigil and memorial on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida for Kirk wearing a badge saying “big gov sucks.” / Marco Bello / Marco Bello/Reuters
This president has already explicitly said he will use the attack on Kirk to justify going after his opponents, condemning the “left” in America as terrorists and lunatics and asserting—without presenting evidence—that they were responsible for Kirk’s murder. The State Department announced consular officials were being directed to revoke visas or deny them to people who might have commented on Kirk or his death in ways they did not approve of.
What a fitting tribute to a fake First Amendment warrior.
Across the country, flags were lowered to half-mast on orders from Trump. / Nathan Howard/Reuters
The right in America has also sought to use similar criteria—posting or sharing views of Kirk they felt were critical of him, even when those views were entirely fact-based—to cancel media commentators and even social media posters.
How do we reconcile that with the assertions that Kirk “did politics right” or promoted free speech?
Easy.
These tributes are bulls--t. Furthermore, many of those on the far right who are elevating Kirk to a lofty pedestal that he does not deserve are doing so to help them justify precisely what they claim he stood for.
The rush to canonize Kirk and create a MAGA martyrology has entirely worldly motives, writes Rothkopf. / Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Trump, and Vance, and Hegseth, and Rubio, and Patel, and Loomer may be truly shocked and appalled by Kirk’s murder—as we all should be—but they also instantly saw it as an opportunity to accelerate their campaign to attack our democratic institutions and to demonize all those who do not agree with them.
Kirk’s supporters are the ones embracing the language of war at this moment. It is no accident that you hear such rhetoric from Jesse Watters on Fox News or from Steve Bannon or Elon Musk, just as it is not a coincidence that Trump has been deploying troops on American streets or promoting memes depicting him as leading a battle against American cities. The war against their opponents, using the resources of the federal government to suppress dissent, gut democracy and solidify their rule on this country was their priority all along.
Now, the death of Charlie Kirk, and the elevation of Charlie Kirk, and the lies about who Charlie Kirk was are all being used as weapons in that war, as part of a new offensive against those who believe in the values and ideals on which this country was founded.
We don’t give the country’s highest civilian honors to those who promote insurrection or attack democracy, writes David Rothkopf. Pictured above: Charlie Kirk greets the crowd during the 2024 AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Arizona on Dec. 19, 2024. / Cheney Orr / REUTERSMore
This is not merely about an outpouring of emotion and over-the-top responses to the grief of a horrible moment.
Nor are they the usual spin of partisans. They are something far more dangerous—the monstrous opportunism of those who have been planning for a moment like this all along, a moment that rather than making America great again, is seized in the hopes of making the America we once knew, an America for all of us, the America that guys like Charlie Kirk have long sought to undermine, cease to exist. Once and for all.
These are the same voices who frequently portray themselves as global defenders of “free speech.”
The American right has responded to the killing of Charlie Kirk not with calls for calm or unity but with a vow of vengeance.
Kirk, a prominent conservative commentator and close ally of Donald Trump, was shot while speaking on a Utah college campus in what both Trump and Utah Governor Spencer Cox described as an “assassination.”
Yet rather than urging restraint or reflection, Trump seized the moment to escalate tensions.
In a four-minute video from the Oval Office, posted just hours after the shooting, Trump made it clear – there would be no Biden-style appeals to “lower the temperature” or to remember that, while “we may disagree, we are not enemies,” the kind of language Biden used after Trump himself survived an assassination attempt in 2024.
Instead, Trump blamed his political opponents directly for what he called a “heinous assassination,” offering no evidence and seemingly seeing no need to. He made no mention of recent attacks on Democratic officials, including the fatal shooting of a Minnesota state legislator earlier this summer.
And his allies have echoed the call for retribution.
“It’s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, and prosecute every single Leftist organisation,” far-right activist Laura Loomer posted on X. “If Charlie Kirk dies from his injuries, his life cannot be in vain. We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all. The Left is a national security threat.”
These are the same voices who frequently portray themselves as global defenders of “free speech.”
Kirk himself often championed the First Amendment as a foundational value. Republicans routinely warn of creeping censorship, especially abroad. Last November, GOP lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee condemned the UK’s Online Safety Act as part of what they called a “tsunami of censorship headed towards America.”
In their statement, Republicans declared: “Legislation like the Online Safety Act that is said to combat ‘hate speech’ empowers regulators to censor free speech. Congressional Republicans understand that these threats to free speech are part of a broader global push by the Censorship Industrial Complex, which includes not only the EU, UK, and other nations but also malign actors here at home. We are committed to confronting this growing threat alongside the incoming Trump Administration to fight against these assaults on free speech within our borders and around the world.”
But while the GOP denounces online moderation in the UK as authoritarian censorship, they are advocating for a political purge of left-wing institutions at home.
The same voices crying censorship when British regulators challenge hate speech are now demanding the US government “shut down, defund, and prosecute” vast swaths of American civil society, without trials, without evidence, without hesitation.
Why MAGA’s Canonization of Charlie Kirk Is Truly Monstrous
David Rothkopf
Fri, September 12, 2025
Photo Illustration by The Daily Beast/Reuters
It is one thing to condemn, as we all should, the brutal murder of Charlie Kirk or, for those who cared about him, to mourn his death.
It is quite another to turn Kirk into a MAGA saint, or to use his death as a Reichstag fire-like justification for increasing Trump’s authoritarian chokehold on America.
I am sure that Kirk and his family are grateful for the outpourings of support from the president and vice president of the United States, the cabinet, members of Congress, the media, and the public.
After Kirk’s death, Donald Trump described the Turning Point USA founder as “legendary.” / Cheney Orr / REUTERS
But at this point, it appears that we as a country have lost our minds.
The president of the United States has ordered all flags in the United States to fly at half-mast. He has announced he will posthumously award Kirk the Presidential Medal of Freedom. The vice president decided to skip out on 9/11 observations—among the most solemn on the federal calendar—to be with Kirk’s family.
He then offered Air Force Two to fly Kirk’s casket from Utah to Arizona. The Secretary of Defense used a 9/11 remembrance speech to salute Kirk. Congress declared a moment of silent reflection on the loss. So too did sporting events across America. Trump called Kirk “a martyr.”
Kirk's body was flown from Utah to Arizona on Air Force Two, carried on and off by an Air Force honor guard in full uniform. / Thomas Machowicz / Thomas Machowicz/Reuters
As if Charlie Kirk were some kind of American hero.
But Kirk was no hero. The record is clear. If Kirk was a victim of a pernicious culture of violence in America, it must also be acknowledged that he was an author of that culture.
His primary accomplishment in life was to foment hatred and division across the United States. He blamed all of America’s ills on the left, and cheered violent attacks on Democrats. He fought against equal rights for many Americans; some of his last words were condemning women’s reproductive freedoms. He promoted America’s gun pathology, and asserted the death of innocents was an acceptable cost for that culture.
Charlie Kirk appears at an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah on Sept. 10, 2025. While speaking at the event, Kirk was fatally shot in the neck. / Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribu / via REUTERSMore
However, what is happening is far worse than simply devoting our national resources or devaluing our national reputation by elevating an unworthy individual.
In tributes from across the political spectrum, Kirk is being praised as a champion of “free speech.” He was not. He mercilessly attacked those with whom he did not agree. He was an enemy of truth and of equity. Kirk perverted the idea of our First Amendment rights to suggest they required universities to embrace lies, as though there were some obligation to present unfounded idiocy and malice simply because some special interest or political group supported them.
Much of his political identity was tied up in the dangerous promotion of white Christian nativism and its alliance with the most corrupt president in American history—a felon, a sex offender, a man who incited an insurrection against the United States government.
A woman attends a vigil and memorial on the campus of Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida for Kirk wearing a badge saying “big gov sucks.” / Marco Bello / Marco Bello/Reuters
This president has already explicitly said he will use the attack on Kirk to justify going after his opponents, condemning the “left” in America as terrorists and lunatics and asserting—without presenting evidence—that they were responsible for Kirk’s murder. The State Department announced consular officials were being directed to revoke visas or deny them to people who might have commented on Kirk or his death in ways they did not approve of.
What a fitting tribute to a fake First Amendment warrior.
Across the country, flags were lowered to half-mast on orders from Trump. / Nathan Howard/Reuters
The right in America has also sought to use similar criteria—posting or sharing views of Kirk they felt were critical of him, even when those views were entirely fact-based—to cancel media commentators and even social media posters.
How do we reconcile that with the assertions that Kirk “did politics right” or promoted free speech?
Easy.
These tributes are bulls--t. Furthermore, many of those on the far right who are elevating Kirk to a lofty pedestal that he does not deserve are doing so to help them justify precisely what they claim he stood for.
The rush to canonize Kirk and create a MAGA martyrology has entirely worldly motives, writes Rothkopf. / Shannon Stapleton/Reuters
Trump, and Vance, and Hegseth, and Rubio, and Patel, and Loomer may be truly shocked and appalled by Kirk’s murder—as we all should be—but they also instantly saw it as an opportunity to accelerate their campaign to attack our democratic institutions and to demonize all those who do not agree with them.
Kirk’s supporters are the ones embracing the language of war at this moment. It is no accident that you hear such rhetoric from Jesse Watters on Fox News or from Steve Bannon or Elon Musk, just as it is not a coincidence that Trump has been deploying troops on American streets or promoting memes depicting him as leading a battle against American cities. The war against their opponents, using the resources of the federal government to suppress dissent, gut democracy and solidify their rule on this country was their priority all along.
Now, the death of Charlie Kirk, and the elevation of Charlie Kirk, and the lies about who Charlie Kirk was are all being used as weapons in that war, as part of a new offensive against those who believe in the values and ideals on which this country was founded.
We don’t give the country’s highest civilian honors to those who promote insurrection or attack democracy, writes David Rothkopf. Pictured above: Charlie Kirk greets the crowd during the 2024 AmericaFest conference in Phoenix, Arizona on Dec. 19, 2024. / Cheney Orr / REUTERSMore
This is not merely about an outpouring of emotion and over-the-top responses to the grief of a horrible moment.
Nor are they the usual spin of partisans. They are something far more dangerous—the monstrous opportunism of those who have been planning for a moment like this all along, a moment that rather than making America great again, is seized in the hopes of making the America we once knew, an America for all of us, the America that guys like Charlie Kirk have long sought to undermine, cease to exist. Once and for all.
Toxic rhetoric, including calls for ‘civil war’ and retribution, surges after Charlie Kirk killing
David Ingram
Fri, September 12, 2025
NBC News; Mark Peterson / Redux
A stew of hypertoxic rhetoric has surged through social media and American discourse after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, inflaming a political environment that was already deeply polarized.
The most concerning messages, experts told NBC News, are proclamations from far-right activists, Republican politicians and conservative influencers about a coming civil war and the need for retribution or payback against the left for Kirk’s killing. The phrase “civil war” has spiked on social media and in Google searches.
“The Left is the party of murder,” Elon Musk posted on X to his 226 million followers, shortly after the shooting and before the gunman’s identity was known. He separately posted, “If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is fight or die,” without saying who “they” were.
While there had not been any known acts of violence connected to the Kirk killing as of Friday afternoon, the shooting sent a wave of fear across much of the U.S. political landscape. Many politicians are adding security in response to an uptick in death threats, and some canceled events and said they would be holding off on public appearances. The Democratic National Committee headquarters received bomb threats on Thursday and Friday, which authorities said turned out not to be credible.
On Friday, authorities said they arrested Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident, in connection with Kirk’s killing. Authorities also said he left behind bullet casings engraved with messages that included “Hey fascist! Catch! ↑→↓↓↓” in an apparent reference to a video game, among other references to obscure internet memes.
Hours after Robinson’s arrest, with his motive still unclear, former Trump adviser and right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon called for mass arrests and for taking a “blowtorch” to colleges and universities.
A spokesperson for Bannon responded to NBC News’ request for comment with an expletive. Musk did not respond to a request for comment
The inflammatory language took off on Wednesday, immediately after the shooting. On social media platforms such as X, Truth Social and TikTok, as well as on Fox News, some personalities called for national law enforcement to target Democrats. Others compared Democrats to animals, demanded National Guard troops in more cities, declared themselves to have been “radicalized,” called for other forms of vengeance and repeatedly invoked the language of war as they reacted to Kirk’s killing.
The rush to judgment about the shooter’s motives, before a suspect was identified, went all the way up to President Donald Trump. In an Oval Office address on Wednesday evening, he blamed “radical left” rhetoric and said his administration would pursue anyone whose language he believes may have contributed to Kirk’s killing.
“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now,” Trump said. “My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence including the organizations that fund it and support it.”
Other Republican politicians also pointed the finger at the left for the incident. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., echoed “war” rhetoric percolating on the far right after the incident: “The left and their policies are leading America into a civil war. They want it,” he wrote in one X post, adding: “The gloves are off.” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., wrote on X. “EVERY DAMN ONE OF YOU WHO CALLED US FASCISTS DID THIS,” she added. “YOU ARE THE HATE you claim to fight. Your words caused this. Your hate caused this.” Neither of their offices responded to requests for comment.
High-profile influencers on the right pushed similar rhetoric. Libs of TikTok, an account on X with more than 4 million followers, posted, “THIS IS WAR.” Enrique Tarrio, the onetime Proud Boys leader who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and then granted clemency this year by Trump, posted on X: “I’m labeling half the country murderers because that’s exactly what they are.” And he shared a post from another user who said: “FOR THE LIBS, WE’RE COMING FOR YOU!!! ITS WAR!!”
In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Tarrio said that although he believed the country is deeply divided, he did not support an actual civil war, mass arrests or other violence against political opponents. Instead, he said he would pursue other tactics against social media users who were celebrating Kirk’s death — including trying to get them fired from their jobs or publicly shamed.
“I’ve always been an advocate against cancel culture, but at this point, fighting dirty is the only way to win, you know?” Tarrio said.
Others on the right also highlighted comments from the left celebrating Kirk’s death, with some companies firing staffers who had been found to have posted insensitive statements online. MSNBC commentator Matthew Dowd was fired from the network after he said that Kirk pushed hate speech, and that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.” In a statement on Bluesky on Wednesday afternoon, Dowd said he did not intend to blame Kirk for the shooting. (NBCUniversal is the parent company of MSNBC and NBC News.)
A website seeking to collect examples of people celebrating Kirk’s killing in order to get them fired from their jobs sprung up quickly, and by Friday, it said it had received more than 20,000 submissions. “This is the largest firing operation in history,” the website stated.
A.J. Bauer, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Alabama who studies conservative media, said such language threatens to inflame a nation on the edge because some people on the far right may interpret it as permission to carry out attacks on those they perceive as disloyal.
“In my view, this increases the likelihood of vigilante violence against people who are not supporters of the right,” he said. “I think it’s a very dangerous time to not be an ardent supporter of right-wing politics in the United States.”
Kirk emerged in recent years as one of the leading voices of a Republican Party reshaped by Trump. Kirk built a massive audience through a willingness to argue extreme and provocative positions online and in frequent on-campus appearances. Kirk has called a trans person “an abomination to God,” said prominent Black women including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had taken white people’s jobs and “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously,” and that the U.S. “made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.” His political arm, Turning Point Action, participated in “Stop the Steal” efforts after Trump lost the 2020 election, and he continued defending Trump’s post-election strategy at least through 2023, calling the 2020 election “rigged,” though Kirk last year began to back off Trump’s stolen-election claims.
Kirk also encouraged open debate, once saying, “When people stop talking that’s when you get violence.”
Some conservatives closely identified with him speaking his mind and hailed his strategy of reaching out to college students. Those on the left found many of his positions polarizing and deeply offensive.
The response to Kirk’s death is playing out in a fractured media environment where people across the political spectrum have grasped for explanations. Polling has found increasing gaps between the left and right, particularly on hot-button issues such as diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, leaving even local leaders to struggle against the negative effects of polarization. Those divisions have been routinely stoked by U.S. rivals, most notably Russia.
Fox News host Jesse Watters asserted in a broadcast hours after the killing that a war was already in progress: “They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it?” He did not say specifically who “they” were.
Watters went on to warn “rats” about their language.
“Everybody’s accountable, and we’re watching what they’re saying on television and who’s saying what: the politicians, the media and all these rats out there. This can never happen again,” he said. Fox News also did not respond to a request for comment.
As the right trumpeted retribution, some on the left showed little sympathy for Kirk and implied that his own rhetoric had led to his killing.
Hasan Piker, a leftist streamer on Twitch with 2.9 million followers, expressed horror at the killing, but also partly blamed Kirk for his own death. “He has played a formative role in his own demise by playing a part in a media landscape, in a media environment, that normalizes this death and destruction,” he said on a livestream shortly after the shooting. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aside from Piker, though, such comments were generally limited to accounts with small followings and did not come from people with platforms as large as Musk’s or Bannon’s. High-profile Democrats condemned political violence, with some seeking to draw a distinction between their reaction and how conservatives responded when people on the left have been targeted with political violence.
Daniel Karell, an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University who has studied the relationship between online rhetoric and real-world action, said it matters that powerful figures such as Musk are pushing warlike rhetoric in a crowded media ecosystem.
“When it’s an elite figure or somebody with standing or respect or status in a group, they have a greater effect on realigning norms or standards or persuading people than just a random person from that group,” he said.
The rise of social media, where engaging content is algorithmically incentivized, has given extreme statements greater prominence. Some of the posts calling for civil war received millions of views on X, the platform that Musk owns.
“Considering the volume of extreme speech online, it’s almost surprising how rare these events are,” Karell said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
David Ingram
Fri, September 12, 2025
NBC News; Mark Peterson / Redux
A stew of hypertoxic rhetoric has surged through social media and American discourse after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, inflaming a political environment that was already deeply polarized.
The most concerning messages, experts told NBC News, are proclamations from far-right activists, Republican politicians and conservative influencers about a coming civil war and the need for retribution or payback against the left for Kirk’s killing. The phrase “civil war” has spiked on social media and in Google searches.
“The Left is the party of murder,” Elon Musk posted on X to his 226 million followers, shortly after the shooting and before the gunman’s identity was known. He separately posted, “If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is fight or die,” without saying who “they” were.
While there had not been any known acts of violence connected to the Kirk killing as of Friday afternoon, the shooting sent a wave of fear across much of the U.S. political landscape. Many politicians are adding security in response to an uptick in death threats, and some canceled events and said they would be holding off on public appearances. The Democratic National Committee headquarters received bomb threats on Thursday and Friday, which authorities said turned out not to be credible.
On Friday, authorities said they arrested Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident, in connection with Kirk’s killing. Authorities also said he left behind bullet casings engraved with messages that included “Hey fascist! Catch! ↑→↓↓↓” in an apparent reference to a video game, among other references to obscure internet memes.
Hours after Robinson’s arrest, with his motive still unclear, former Trump adviser and right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon called for mass arrests and for taking a “blowtorch” to colleges and universities.
A spokesperson for Bannon responded to NBC News’ request for comment with an expletive. Musk did not respond to a request for comment
The inflammatory language took off on Wednesday, immediately after the shooting. On social media platforms such as X, Truth Social and TikTok, as well as on Fox News, some personalities called for national law enforcement to target Democrats. Others compared Democrats to animals, demanded National Guard troops in more cities, declared themselves to have been “radicalized,” called for other forms of vengeance and repeatedly invoked the language of war as they reacted to Kirk’s killing.
The rush to judgment about the shooter’s motives, before a suspect was identified, went all the way up to President Donald Trump. In an Oval Office address on Wednesday evening, he blamed “radical left” rhetoric and said his administration would pursue anyone whose language he believes may have contributed to Kirk’s killing.
“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now,” Trump said. “My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence including the organizations that fund it and support it.”
Other Republican politicians also pointed the finger at the left for the incident. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., echoed “war” rhetoric percolating on the far right after the incident: “The left and their policies are leading America into a civil war. They want it,” he wrote in one X post, adding: “The gloves are off.” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., wrote on X. “EVERY DAMN ONE OF YOU WHO CALLED US FASCISTS DID THIS,” she added. “YOU ARE THE HATE you claim to fight. Your words caused this. Your hate caused this.” Neither of their offices responded to requests for comment.
High-profile influencers on the right pushed similar rhetoric. Libs of TikTok, an account on X with more than 4 million followers, posted, “THIS IS WAR.” Enrique Tarrio, the onetime Proud Boys leader who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and then granted clemency this year by Trump, posted on X: “I’m labeling half the country murderers because that’s exactly what they are.” And he shared a post from another user who said: “FOR THE LIBS, WE’RE COMING FOR YOU!!! ITS WAR!!”
In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Tarrio said that although he believed the country is deeply divided, he did not support an actual civil war, mass arrests or other violence against political opponents. Instead, he said he would pursue other tactics against social media users who were celebrating Kirk’s death — including trying to get them fired from their jobs or publicly shamed.
“I’ve always been an advocate against cancel culture, but at this point, fighting dirty is the only way to win, you know?” Tarrio said.
Others on the right also highlighted comments from the left celebrating Kirk’s death, with some companies firing staffers who had been found to have posted insensitive statements online. MSNBC commentator Matthew Dowd was fired from the network after he said that Kirk pushed hate speech, and that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.” In a statement on Bluesky on Wednesday afternoon, Dowd said he did not intend to blame Kirk for the shooting. (NBCUniversal is the parent company of MSNBC and NBC News.)
A website seeking to collect examples of people celebrating Kirk’s killing in order to get them fired from their jobs sprung up quickly, and by Friday, it said it had received more than 20,000 submissions. “This is the largest firing operation in history,” the website stated.
A.J. Bauer, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Alabama who studies conservative media, said such language threatens to inflame a nation on the edge because some people on the far right may interpret it as permission to carry out attacks on those they perceive as disloyal.
“In my view, this increases the likelihood of vigilante violence against people who are not supporters of the right,” he said. “I think it’s a very dangerous time to not be an ardent supporter of right-wing politics in the United States.”
Kirk emerged in recent years as one of the leading voices of a Republican Party reshaped by Trump. Kirk built a massive audience through a willingness to argue extreme and provocative positions online and in frequent on-campus appearances. Kirk has called a trans person “an abomination to God,” said prominent Black women including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had taken white people’s jobs and “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously,” and that the U.S. “made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.” His political arm, Turning Point Action, participated in “Stop the Steal” efforts after Trump lost the 2020 election, and he continued defending Trump’s post-election strategy at least through 2023, calling the 2020 election “rigged,” though Kirk last year began to back off Trump’s stolen-election claims.
Kirk also encouraged open debate, once saying, “When people stop talking that’s when you get violence.”
Some conservatives closely identified with him speaking his mind and hailed his strategy of reaching out to college students. Those on the left found many of his positions polarizing and deeply offensive.
The response to Kirk’s death is playing out in a fractured media environment where people across the political spectrum have grasped for explanations. Polling has found increasing gaps between the left and right, particularly on hot-button issues such as diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, leaving even local leaders to struggle against the negative effects of polarization. Those divisions have been routinely stoked by U.S. rivals, most notably Russia.
Fox News host Jesse Watters asserted in a broadcast hours after the killing that a war was already in progress: “They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it?” He did not say specifically who “they” were.
Watters went on to warn “rats” about their language.
“Everybody’s accountable, and we’re watching what they’re saying on television and who’s saying what: the politicians, the media and all these rats out there. This can never happen again,” he said. Fox News also did not respond to a request for comment.
As the right trumpeted retribution, some on the left showed little sympathy for Kirk and implied that his own rhetoric had led to his killing.
Hasan Piker, a leftist streamer on Twitch with 2.9 million followers, expressed horror at the killing, but also partly blamed Kirk for his own death. “He has played a formative role in his own demise by playing a part in a media landscape, in a media environment, that normalizes this death and destruction,” he said on a livestream shortly after the shooting. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aside from Piker, though, such comments were generally limited to accounts with small followings and did not come from people with platforms as large as Musk’s or Bannon’s. High-profile Democrats condemned political violence, with some seeking to draw a distinction between their reaction and how conservatives responded when people on the left have been targeted with political violence.
Daniel Karell, an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University who has studied the relationship between online rhetoric and real-world action, said it matters that powerful figures such as Musk are pushing warlike rhetoric in a crowded media ecosystem.
“When it’s an elite figure or somebody with standing or respect or status in a group, they have a greater effect on realigning norms or standards or persuading people than just a random person from that group,” he said.
The rise of social media, where engaging content is algorithmically incentivized, has given extreme statements greater prominence. Some of the posts calling for civil war received millions of views on X, the platform that Musk owns.
“Considering the volume of extreme speech online, it’s almost surprising how rare these events are,” Karell said.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
The right’s ‘free speech’ hypocrisy after the killing of Charlie Kirk
COMMENT
EDITOR RIGHT WING WATCH
12 September, 2025
Left Foot Forward
Left Foot Forward
These are the same voices who frequently portray themselves as global defenders of “free speech.”
The American right has responded to the killing of Charlie Kirk not with calls for calm or unity but with a vow of vengeance.
Kirk, a prominent conservative commentator and close ally of Donald Trump, was shot while speaking on a Utah college campus in what both Trump and Utah Governor Spencer Cox described as an “assassination.”
Yet rather than urging restraint or reflection, Trump seized the moment to escalate tensions.
In a four-minute video from the Oval Office, posted just hours after the shooting, Trump made it clear – there would be no Biden-style appeals to “lower the temperature” or to remember that, while “we may disagree, we are not enemies,” the kind of language Biden used after Trump himself survived an assassination attempt in 2024.
Instead, Trump blamed his political opponents directly for what he called a “heinous assassination,” offering no evidence and seemingly seeing no need to. He made no mention of recent attacks on Democratic officials, including the fatal shooting of a Minnesota state legislator earlier this summer.
And his allies have echoed the call for retribution.
“It’s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, and prosecute every single Leftist organisation,” far-right activist Laura Loomer posted on X. “If Charlie Kirk dies from his injuries, his life cannot be in vain. We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all. The Left is a national security threat.”
These are the same voices who frequently portray themselves as global defenders of “free speech.”
Kirk himself often championed the First Amendment as a foundational value. Republicans routinely warn of creeping censorship, especially abroad. Last November, GOP lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee condemned the UK’s Online Safety Act as part of what they called a “tsunami of censorship headed towards America.”
In their statement, Republicans declared: “Legislation like the Online Safety Act that is said to combat ‘hate speech’ empowers regulators to censor free speech. Congressional Republicans understand that these threats to free speech are part of a broader global push by the Censorship Industrial Complex, which includes not only the EU, UK, and other nations but also malign actors here at home. We are committed to confronting this growing threat alongside the incoming Trump Administration to fight against these assaults on free speech within our borders and around the world.”
But while the GOP denounces online moderation in the UK as authoritarian censorship, they are advocating for a political purge of left-wing institutions at home.
The same voices crying censorship when British regulators challenge hate speech are now demanding the US government “shut down, defund, and prosecute” vast swaths of American civil society, without trials, without evidence, without hesitation.
Newsmax Host Asks Netanyahu If Israel Is Behind The Killing Of Charlie Kirk
Ron Dicker
Fri, September 12, 2025
A Newsmax host asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reply to fringetheories that Israel was behind the killing of Charlie Kirk ― and got an earful from the leader on the “ridiculous,” “insane” and “stupid” rumors. (Watch the video below.)
Greta Van Susteren prefaced the question Thursday by noting the “absurdity” of the claims.
“Before I let you go, I want you to address one thing, and it’s just the absurdity of it,” Van Susteren said. “Some of the internet rumors that somehow Israel is behind the Charlie Kirk murder, and you know, I don’t believe it for one second, but I want you to, you know, make a statement. It’s so absurd.”
Netanyahu laughed ruefully before proceeding.
“That’s insane,” he said. “Israel also changes the orbit of the moon. Israel pushes the sun. I mean, the whole thing is not only insane, I think it’s so absurd, so stupid, and so ridiculous. You can’t believe that people are saying that.”
Fast-forward to 7:13 for the exchange:
“When you hate Jews, when you hate the Jewish state, you’re willing to say anything and promote all these absurd, absurd rumors,” he added.
He eventually pivoted to Kirk, the popular right-wing activist who was killed on Wednesday.
Politics: After Charlie Kirk’s Killing, The Right Dreams Of A Chilling Crackdown
“Charlie Kirk said to me ... ‘You have to fight the slander. These untruths, these vilifications have consequences.’ And he was right. But I’ll tell you one thing, we’re fighting on the battlefield against the terrorists and winning, and he was fighting in the battlefield of ideas, and I think he was winning.”
While Kirk defended Israel’s offensive in Gaza that has spurred growing condemnation, he expressed negative views about Jews.
According to The New York Times, Kirk was a “proponent” of so-called replacement theory, which says Jews are trying to supplant and disempower white Americans with immigrants of color. He also said Jewish money was fomenting quasi-Marxism and undermining higher education and Hollywood.
Ron Dicker
Fri, September 12, 2025
A Newsmax host asked Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to reply to fringetheories that Israel was behind the killing of Charlie Kirk ― and got an earful from the leader on the “ridiculous,” “insane” and “stupid” rumors. (Watch the video below.)
Greta Van Susteren prefaced the question Thursday by noting the “absurdity” of the claims.
“Before I let you go, I want you to address one thing, and it’s just the absurdity of it,” Van Susteren said. “Some of the internet rumors that somehow Israel is behind the Charlie Kirk murder, and you know, I don’t believe it for one second, but I want you to, you know, make a statement. It’s so absurd.”
Netanyahu laughed ruefully before proceeding.
“That’s insane,” he said. “Israel also changes the orbit of the moon. Israel pushes the sun. I mean, the whole thing is not only insane, I think it’s so absurd, so stupid, and so ridiculous. You can’t believe that people are saying that.”
Fast-forward to 7:13 for the exchange:
“When you hate Jews, when you hate the Jewish state, you’re willing to say anything and promote all these absurd, absurd rumors,” he added.
He eventually pivoted to Kirk, the popular right-wing activist who was killed on Wednesday.
Politics: After Charlie Kirk’s Killing, The Right Dreams Of A Chilling Crackdown
“Charlie Kirk said to me ... ‘You have to fight the slander. These untruths, these vilifications have consequences.’ And he was right. But I’ll tell you one thing, we’re fighting on the battlefield against the terrorists and winning, and he was fighting in the battlefield of ideas, and I think he was winning.”
While Kirk defended Israel’s offensive in Gaza that has spurred growing condemnation, he expressed negative views about Jews.
According to The New York Times, Kirk was a “proponent” of so-called replacement theory, which says Jews are trying to supplant and disempower white Americans with immigrants of color. He also said Jewish money was fomenting quasi-Marxism and undermining higher education and Hollywood.
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