Conservative provocateur Charlie Kirk is dead
Charlie Kirk’s assassination in Utah on Wednesday occured at a time in Hullabaloo’s daily cycle when Digby had the conn. She posted about it here, here, and here with information on the killing still fuzzy. My turn now.
This morning, the murder suspect(s) remains at large. That information void did not dissuade Donald Trump, Laura Loomer, Christopher Rufo, Elon Musk, Katie Miller and others on the far right from claiming sans evidence that the killing was the fault of the “radical left.” Conservatives are already amplifying lefty randos on social media who mocked Kirk’s death. On this anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, don’t be surprised to hear claims that “thousands and thousands” of liberals celebrated Kirk’s death in New Jersey.
Robert McCoy of The New Republic noted instead that “prominent Democrats were quick to condemn the violence.” Of course, they did.
A few on the right in the information void called for vengeance. Alex Jones declared, “This is a war, this is a war, this is a war.” Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok posted at 3:37 pm ET Wednesday, “THIS IS WAR.”
To be determined
Commenting on Trump’s statement on Kirk’s assassination, The New Republic‘s Greg Sargent posted this morning:
Here we go. Trump just made it unmistakably clear that it will now be absolutely open season on whoever they decide to label “the left,” and that this will be pursued with the full force of the government. This could get very, very bad.
Kirk’s murder is horrific. His family is destroyed. What happens to his Turning Point USA (TPUSA) movement remains to be written. As does what happens next. I’m holding my breath.
George Packer considers what Kirk’s death means at a moment when, as Digby suggested, this feels like 1968:
His murder is a tragedy for his family and a disaster for the country. In an atmosphere of national paranoia and hatred, each act of political violence makes the next one more likely. Last year, Trump came within a couple of inches of being assassinated. In June, two elected Democrats in Minnesota were shot, one fatally. President Trump has ordered flags across the country to be lowered to half-staff in Kirk’s honor, but he wasn’t a statesman like John F. Kennedy, or a moral leader like Martin Luther King Jr. (whom Kirk called “not a good person”). I won’t pretend that I believe America just lost a great man. In the long history of American political assassinations, Kirk belongs in the company of charismatic provocateurs such as Huey Long and Malcolm X, cut down before their time. Like them, he had a feel for the political pulse of his moment, a demagogic flair, and the courage to take on all comers in argument, which exposed him to the sniper who ended his life.
Kirk was killed on a college campus in Utah, seated under a tent with the slogan “Prove Me Wrong,” facing a crowd of several thousand people, debating anyone who wanted to approach and challenge him. He kept up this practice—part recruitment, part provocation, part entertainment—throughout his years as Turning Point USA’s leader. He was using his freedom of speech, and if his style was aggressive, divisive, sometimes mocking, losing his life this way was no less an assault on everything that democracy’s remaining believers should hold dear. Those who disagreed with Kirk ought to be able to deplore what he stood for and also the violence that killed him.
As do I.
“Words are not violence—violence is violence,” Packer continues. He cites some of the same comments by prominent conservatives to which I linked without quoting in paragraph two. Packer’s hope is that Trump’s MAGA administration will not use the murder of a young man who celebrated free speech and exercised his liberally “to muzzle others or themselves from speaking the truth about the perilous state we’re in.”
I am as concerned as Sargent is that we are on the road to Trump and his Project 2025 advisers declaring that anyone they define as “the left” is guilty of thought crimes. They’ve telegraphed that lean for months before Kirk’s killing. Whatever comes of the murder investigation, the right is already hard at work setting its preferred narrative while the adults in the room wait for actual facts to emerge.
These are perilous times. There is no First Amendment in an autocracy. Nor separation of powers in a dictatorship.
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