Even before his death was confirmed, MAGA influencers were pointing fingers — and planning reprisals
Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old man from Utah, was arrested and accused of fatally shooting Charlie Kirk. Even before the alleged assassin’s apprehension was announced Friday morning by President Donald Trump on “Fox & Friends,” Republican politicians and right-wing media influencers rushed to use Kirk’s murder as a permission structure to move American politics even more to the right.
At 31, Kirk was one of the most influential and prominent right-wing political activists in American politics. He was widely credited with bringing young conservatives into the electoral process by visiting college campuses to engage them, not by sparring with faculty in a lecture hall, but by debating underclassmen on the quad — the very place he was shot on Wednesday while speaking at Utah Valley University on the first stop of his American Comeback college tour.
As rapidly as the grizzly video of his killing circulated online, many across the political landscape worked to sanitize his legacy of inflammatory rhetoric without interrogating his actual arguments.
Republicans in Congress are hoping to dedicate a statue to the influencer on Capitol Hill and pushing for him to lie in honor in the Capitol Rotunda. Some have gone so far to compare him to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whom Kirk called a “bad guy.” Meanwhile, King’s son, Martin III, released a statement mourning Kirk’s passing as a “tragedy.” Major professional sports teams from the New York Yankees to the Green Bay Packers observed a moment of silence for Kirk this week. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth performed a public prayer for Kirk in front of gathered troops and shared the video on social media. Flags were lowered to half-mast by order of the president.
While people across the ideological spectrum agree that Kirk’s violent death is part of a concerning trend of growing political violence, the right has insisted on blaming the left for its rise, despite statements from Democrats condemning the fatal shooting.
Eric Trump called for “accountability from MSNBC and NBC.” On Fox News, Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu suggested Muslims were somehow to blame. “If you have a different opinion from the left, they want to kill you. That is a fact, and that’s the way you all should report it,” Rep.
