Terrible takes on the Kirk killing, starting with Trump’s

The police have yet to give a motive for why 22-year-old Tyler Robinson allegedly assassinated right-wing star Charlie Kirk Wednesday. But many, from President Donald Trump on down to social media posters, have been quick to cast blame on their political opponents for fostering a permissive environment for such a tragedy.

The deluge of media and online takes that emerged after Kirk was gunned down onstage at a college event in Utah ranged from pleas to turn down the temperature of US politics to, as in the case of Trump and his administration, seeming calls for a clampdown on the opposition.

Many on Bluesky, a social media platform popular with liberal and left-wing users, were quick to bring up the numerous racists, transphobic, and otherwise hateful or violent things Kirk has said in the past. He frequently questioned Black people’s intelligence, for example, and called for war crimes-style tribunals for doctors performing gender affirming care. Many among the online left criticized editorials and opinion columns in The New York Times for allegedly white-washing this record and holding Kirk up as a paragon of open debate in a free society. Posters found fault with Ezra Klein, a liberal columnist, for penning an article with a headline claiming that Kirk had been “practicing politics the right way.” He and Kirk, Klein wrote, held separate beliefs but were “on the same side of the continued possibility of American politics.”

When former President Barack Obama decried Kirk’s assassination, writing on X, “This kind of despicable violence has no place in our democracy,” many on Bluesky took issue. One poster wrote, “I don’t care if Obama expressed sympathy! YOU DON’T HAVE TO,” going on to call Kirk a “psychopath.” Others investigated if Obama had posted sympathies after Democratic state lawmakers were gunned down in Minnesota earlier this year.

On the right, there were also voices of moderation. Utah Governor Spencer Cox, a Republican, said at a press conference, “We can always point the finger at the other side. At some point we have to find an off ramp, or else it’s going to get much worse.” He said that politics these days “feels like rage,” and urged young people to bring about a less violent political environment. “Your generation has an opportunity to build a culture that is very different than what we are suffering through right now.”

But other commentators, including Laura Loomer, a far-right activist with close ties to Trump, were less circumspect. Amid the deluge of media attention and online activity surrounding Kirk, Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington posted on X, “It’s the guns,” apparently referencing a common assertion by gun-control advocates in the wake of shootings.  Loomer, who, after Kirk’s killing, called for the prosecution of every leftist organization, responded to Jayapal on X, “No. It’s you and your psychotic colleagues in the Democrat party you insane, rabid bitch.”

Another X user, who urged critics to come to what he said was his address to “punch a Nazi” compared Kirk’s shooting to the Reichstag fire—an arson attack on Germany’s parliament that is widely seen as a key point in the Nazi party’s rise to complete control of the country.

“It is time for a complete crackdown on the left. Every Democratic politician must be arrested and the party banned under RICO. Every libtard commentator must be shut down,” a user who goes by Matt Forney wrote. The post was shared close to 5,000 times and had accumulated 3 million views as of Friday.

Trump, who urged on his supporters before their attack on the Capitol following his election loss in 2020, an act of mob violence that sent elected officials from both parties into hiding, who has long called into question the legitimacy of various judges, who accused Obama of treason, and who, just in the last few days, threatened that the American city of Chicago would soon know “why it’s called the Department of War” would seem like a poor candidate for halting the country’s descent into violent political rhetoric. And indeed he was.

In a video memorializing Kirk, he recited a list of violent political actions against Republicans, including assassination attempts made against him, before laying blame for political violence on the left. Robinson—who turned himself in to police as the admitted assassin of Kirk—was not registered as a member of any political party, and authorities believe he acted alone, the Washington Post reported.

“For years, those on the radical left had compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to the Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism we are seeing in our country today,” Trump said.

Without giving any specifics, Trump pledged to “find” a wide range of people or groups on the left that he blamed for political violence. “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, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials, and everyone else who brings order to our country.”

On Friday, a Fox News host asked Trump, “How do we fix this country? How do we come together.” Unity, however, was not on Trump’s mind. “ The radicals on the left are the problem,” he told Fox & Friends. “And they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy, although they want men and women sports, they want transgender for everyone, they want open borders.”

After an event that many across the political spectrum decried as a grim inflection point, when references to the need to “lower the temperature” of politics were plentiful in headlines, the president of the United States, as he often does, seemed more intent on turning up all the burners.