An American Conservative and the Necropolitics of Propaganda: The MOTIVE behind the Assassination of Charlie Kirk

The murder of Charlie Kirk on September 10, 2025, exposed not only the dark motive of one assailant to silence one American conservative but a social milieu in which celebrations, condonement, and victim-blaming of the assassination insinuate the presence of social conditions that facilitate genocide. I explain this with what I call the MOTIVE—the Model of the Origin, Transformation, and Impact of Violence Escalation, which is an elaboration and critique of the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) Pyramid of Hate. The necropolitics of propaganda are on full display in social and mass media, whereby we can plainly see how the murder of Charlie Kirk is framed as a symptom and expression of right-wing hate speech, extremism, and violence. Split narratives about Charlie Kirk’s life, death, and legacy clearly outline the schism between left- and right-wing politics and political ideologies in the USA, framing him as either a martyr or a menace in a divided society. I unpack theories and examples of personal prejudices and social biases, revealing how stereotypes ignite the first sparks of group-based conflict. Overt acts of individual bias surfaced before and after the assassination as producers and consumers of social and mass media content branded Charlie Kirk as a hate-filled fascist. These sentiments and appraisals are amplified and reified in digital echo chambers that dehumanize and delegitimize American conservatives and MAGA Republicans, which Charlie Kirk embodied.

Systemic discrimination against what Charlie Kirk represented as a White cisgender heterosexual conservative Christian male who engaged in MAGA Republican politics has its intellectual origins in the very battlegrounds in which he was murdered, American universities and colleges. Right-wing social influencers and pundits, many of whom share my and Charlie Kirk’s statuses within the Matrix of Privilege, immediately suspected that the assassin was motivated by the type of left-wing ideologies promoted in American academia. Influencers, pundits, professors, politicians, and others on the left side of the cultural chasm of the U.S. political and social orders blame Charlie Kirk’s violent rhetoric for his own murder and suspect the assassin to have been motivated by like-minded right-wing ideologies. The MOTIVE model reimagines the Pyramid of Hate’s limitations, tracing violence’s escalation from various temperatures of personal prejudices and social biases to the genocidal rhetoric of those who celebrate Charlie Kirk’s assassination and call for more politically-motivated murders.

In the end, unless we all can follow in Charlie Kirk’s footsteps and sit down to talk with one another to peacefully hash out our differences, the hatred and violence that have plagued humanity since its birth will lead to more of the same. This essay itself could be used as kindling to stoke more fires, turning up the temperature in already heated debates over social inequalities and injustices. That is far from my intent, but intentions matter little when uncharitable motives are imputed to those with whom we disagree. Ladies and gentlemen, as Charlie Kirk said to Van Jones the day before he was murdered, let’s try to disagree agreeably. For those not qualified by that binary, I’ll leave you with the words of Rev. Dr. Marin Luther King, Jr.:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Now, without further ado…

I. Charlie Kirk and the Pyramid of Hate

The Necropolitics of Charlie Kirk’s Legacy

Charlie Kirk was born on October 14, 1993, and was pronounced deceased on September 10, 2025. He was 31 years old, leaving behind his wife, Erika, and their two young children, a one-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter. Mr. Kirk also left behind a legacy that will be carried forward in at least two broad forms. As the story will be told from one side, Charlie was and always will be a hero. The other side will maintain that he should be remembered as the villain he was until his memory is lost to the dustbin of history. It should be obvious who he was to his friends, colleagues, and others who attended vigils, prayers, and gatherings in his honor, but whether he was a villain depends on who you thought he was before and after he departed this world.

For many, the death of Charlie Kirk was shocking, not only for the circumstances in which it happened, but because he represented a movement in mind, body, and spirit. For many others, his death was cause for immediate celebration or, at the very least, the same I-told-you-so mentality of the “Well, what did you expect” attitudes of Trump’s detractors after the failed assassination attempt on July 13th, 2024. It would be difficult to imagine anyone not having an opinion on what happened and why to the former real estate mogul, reality TV star, convicted felon, and two-time President of the United States of America, but he lived, and Charlie Kirk died. Therefore, Donald Trump can continue to speak for himself, and Charlie Kirk obviously cannot affect the narrative of his life. Thus, Charlie Kirk’s legacy is subject to the necropolitics of propaganda.

Reflexivity and Positionality Regarding Charlie Kirk

Imagine telling the story of Charlie Kirk’s life and death to somebody, anybody who had never heard his name or couldn’t remember it if they tried. What would you say? What could you say? In part, it would depend entirely on your and their political ideologies and party affiliations. I’m currently a registered Independent, and before that, a Libertarian. Before that, I registered as a Republican, and before that, a Democrat. I bring this up as a matter of reflexivity, on my part, to share with you some insight into what you might think my biases are or might be. I hope you will recognize that I can and have changed my mind, but perhaps another valid conclusion is that I’m like a leaf blowing in the wind, a rootless tumbleweed. But you, dear reader, have me at another disadvantage: I have no way of knowing who, exactly, my audience is for this essay.

So, I’ll be as straightforward and succinct as I can: I met Charlie Kirk once, very briefly, after a talk he gave in Central Florida in 2021. My then-girlfriend wanted to see him speak, so I naturally “wanted” to go, too. I think I had heard his name at that point, but I wouldn’t have been able to tell you much more than that he had something to do with some organization involved in a movement for young American conservatives. Mr. Kirk spoke well, with an air of earned confidence in his ability to articulate complex ideas, supported by a wellspring of facts. Having taught at the college level for 18 years now, I am still somewhat envious of his natural talent and charisma. I think that’s partly what drew so many to him, that and his widely reported Christ-centered life, outward generosity, kind and compassionate heart, pious hard work, and willingness to build bridges during his public dialogues and debates. The question is whether Charlie Kirk’s legacy is and will be one of, for example, an advocate for White supremacy or a champion of free speech.

To many other people, Charlie Kirk was “a racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, anti-immigrant fascist who despise[d] empathy” and who “built his movement with falsehoods.” As a self-identified White, cisgender, heterosexual, and conservative Christian male, Charlie Kirk checked all boxes of intersectional privileges. He was systemic oppression incarnate, the personification of White supremacist capitalist patriarchy. He helped Donald Trump (AKA, literally Hitler) to win back the presidency, and therefore represented the younger, more virulent generations of the MAGA movement. From this point of view, Charlie Kirk was behind a rising force of fascistic bigotry posing an “existential threat to democracy” and “breeding a new generation of Hitler Youth.” Echoing the hot takes from some people in this camp, is it any wonder somebody eventually took a shot at him? I think not.

The Pyramid of Hate as an Explanation of Motivated Violence

The driving question of this essay is this: Why was Charlie Kirk assassinated? This is not a question of the assassin’s personal motives, rationale, or psychosis. I’m a sociologist, not a psychologist or criminal profiler. I’m interested in how the socio-cultural environment shapes or facilitates human social behavior, as well as the historical and politico-economic contexts in which significant events occur. Therefore, I sought a model to help me explain what had happened. I recalled a lesson from Gender Studies courses I took for my BA (2006) and MA (2008) degrees in sociology, way back when I was a budding male feminist, a soon-to-be eco-Marxist, and a long-time atheist. I evidently learned my lessons well, because for the first six or seven years of my teaching career, I always taught my students about systemic and institutional sources of oppression, such as rape culture, as explained in models like the Racial & Sexual Violence Pyramid. So, I had a clue as to what to look for.

What I was searching for was a more general model that would help me explain the social facilitation of motivated violence, and I found it at the Anti-Defamation League’s (ADL) website on a webpage titled “Pyramid of Hate.” Since the author of the webpage so clearly articulated the essential features and nature of the model, I’ll let them tell you about it:

The Pyramid of Hate illustrates the prevalence of bias, hate and oppression in our society. It is organized in escalating levels of attitudes and behavior that grow in complexity from bottom to top. Like a pyramid, the upper levels are supported by the lower levels; unlike a pyramid, the levels are not built consecutively or to demonstrate a ranking of each level. Bias at each level reflects a system of oppression that negatively impacts individuals, institutions and society. Unchecked bias can become “normalized” and contribute to a pattern of accepting discrimination, violence and injustice in society. While every biased attitude or act does not lead to genocide, genocide takes place within a system of oppression in which the attitudes and actions described at the lower levels of the pyramid are accepted. When we challenge those biased attitudes and behaviors in ourselves, others and institutions, we can interrupt the escalation of bias and make it more difficult for discrimination and hate to flourish. [sic]

Challenge accepted.

II. Private Prejudices and Social Biases

Prejudices, Reification, and Dehumanization

From the logic of the model, and moreover, common sense tells us that relatively few people with personal prejudices will commit bias-motivated violence, let alone genocide. If the latter were the case, our ancestors would have killed themselves off eons ago; though, genocide has occurred many times throughout human history. Everybody harbors multiple types of prejudices, mostly based on negative stereotypes of outgroups, but they can also be neutral or positive. Prejudices are a type of heuristic, natural cognitive configurations that allow individuals to make snap judgements, right or wrong. For example, if there were two humans, one between five and six feet tall and the other between two and three feet tall, which one would you assume is younger than the other? (Hint: Children tend to be much shorter than most adults.) Now, of those two hypothetical humans, which would you assume is more ignorant? (Note: Keep in mind the possible connotation or denotation of the operative word and what you might assume I meant and for what purpose.)

Prejudices often spring from stereotypes, which are routine typifications that essentialize individuals with overgeneralizations drawn from one or more demographic or group-based characteristics. Put differently, stereotypes are generalizations about groups that can be applied to any of their members. For example, stereotypes about only children are that they’re selfish, self-centered, narcissistic, spoiled brats, and while that might be true in some cases due to genetics and/or to the conditions in which some sibling-less children are raised, it’s an overgeneralization to say that all or even most only children exhibit those characteristics. Prejudices are more than group-based overgeneralizations, though. Prejudices are also exaggerations of positive in-group and negative out-group characteristics, which blend into socially shared biases or (dis)favoritism. Humans are naturally social, tribalistic beings, and we are predisposed to fit in or belong to groups. Without in-depth contact with individuals who represent other groups, we don’t (tend to) see them as individuals; we (tend to) see them as members of a group, and we (tend to) think about them in terms of stereotypes. It can be quite dehumanizing, not to mention delegitimizing, to say the least.

One problem with personal prejudices is that they are too often tied to biases in favor of in-groups and hostility toward out-groups, which are often facilitated by socially acceptable biases shared in your social circles. You are more likely to believe a stereotype if and when it is (seemingly) confirmed by your in-group (we/us) or out-group (they/them), which creates feedback loops that reaffirm your perceptions, interpretations, and opinions, thus confirming their “reality” (i.e., reification). Reified prejudices prolong or deepen the dehumanization (see page 208) of out-groups, precisely because they seem to confirm the suspicions and presuppositions nurtured by shared prejudices and biases. Let’s say that you meet a selfish, demanding narcissist and believe that these are characteristics of only children. You might ask to confirm, but you might just assume it’s the case and not pry too deeply. Or, worse yet, you meet someone and find out they’re an only child; do you then begin to look for and see signs of narcissism where none might exist? Lastly, individuals’ deviations or inconsistencies from stereotypes can be explained away by the no-true-Scotsman fallacy and/or by moving the goal posts. It can be difficult recognizing the individuality and humanity in others whom you presume to already know, biographies be damned.

Of course, if your peers, reference groups, and role models confirm your biases, you might act on them with approval, which can lead to the situations described above, particularly reification. Moreover, social media amplifies out-group biases and polarization in our digital echo chambers. Another problem arises when individuals act on their prejudices in situations where others disapprove. The action itself can be morally repugnant, such as discrimination or violence committed solely based on a target’s (alleged) group affiliation, whether ascribed or achieved. However, in some situations, speech acts or physical behavior can be interpreted as maliciously motivated by people who recognize you as part of an out-group, thereby imputing or projecting malevolent intent where none exists. You can easily say that an inconvenient set of facts spewed by a member of an outgroup is an exhibition of their prejudices and bias-motivated bigotry. Part of the reason why we hate out-groups is what they represent to us, rather than who the individuals we associate with groups actually are as unique human beings. If we engage in discourse with or about an out-group long enough, for example, one can play the Hitler card as a way of associating the ultimate evil with what they have said or done (in reality or perception). It’s one thing to tell an abusive narcissist that they’re acting like a spoiled child (or vice-versa), but calling them a Nazi changes the game altogether.

The Hitler Card and (Neo)Nazi Conservatives

Charlie Kirk obviously knew about the Hitler card and played it as a reverse Uno card when the opportunity arose. It seems he had encountered it often enough to have a stock rebuttal, such as when he tossed back the Hitler analogy to a History professor at the University of Florida. I’ve never had to nor wanted to play that card, though I have made my fair share of statements about Nazis and fascists. Now, I don’t know about you, but I have strong negative feelings and thoughts about the Nazis and fascists of World War II, probably due to the lessons I was taught in grade school and high school Social Studies and Civics classes, History Channel documentaries, Hollywood movies like Saving Private Ryan, or the Call of Duty videogame in which the player simulates killing German Nazis – believe it or not, but I have no direct experience with actual Nazis or fascists from WWII. Now, I’m no a historian, but as a group, they seemed pretty bad. If I were to meet somebody donning Nazi symbols, I would immediately adopt a disfavorable disposition toward them, but I’m consciously aware of those prejudices, which tend to be socially approved biases. Allow me to digress further to recount the two times I did, in fact, meet (neo)Nazis.

I was at a tiki bar a couple of years ago (spring 2023) on Paradise Island in The Bahamas, chatting with a group of strangers from East-central California who looked like a biker gang on vacation in the Caribbean. We were drinking, joking, and laughing, but then I noticed a swastika tattoo on the left bicep of the woman seated to the right of me. I quietly asked her about it, hoping it was some type of ancient religious symbol, but it turns out that (neo)Nazis can appear to be relatively normal people who accept an abrupt adieu from a stranger. Later that year, on a beautiful summer Sunday afternoon, I was at a riverside bar in West-Central Illinois talking with some people, most of whom I’d never met. The band had finished their gig, and a long table of practical strangers were talking jovially about our favorite bands and who knows what else. At some point, the band Type O Negative was brought up, and I, for whatever reason, approvingly remarked that their song “We Hate Everyone” was written to tell their neo-Nazi fanbase to fuck off. Two people in the group, a hetero couple who looked like they could have just as easily ridden in on a brand-new Harley as an old beat-up pickup, straightened their backs, looked me in the eyes, and asked, “What do you got against Nazis?” In both situations, I walked away unscathed, knuckles unbruised, dignity intact.

To some, maybe you think I should find better company. To that, those are my only two personal encounters with people I knew to be (neo)Nazis, but who knows how many you or I have encountered without knowing. After all, “a sizeable portion of whites” seem to fit the bill, at least to some. Even if conservatives and MAGA Republicans are not (all) outright fascists or (neo)Nazis, says one History professor, they collectively compromised with and currently emulate the violent, racist, and antidemocratic characteristics of those historical groups, and therefore they are not to be tolerated because they “will endanger us all.” So, to others, maybe you think I missed my opportunity to “punch a Nazi,” which was presented to the public for an ethics discussion by The Guardian and The New York Times soon after Donald Trump’s first inauguration. To that, I am not a pacifist, but I do not support or condone the initiation of force, coercion, or violence, and I generally would not recommend antagonizing anyone to the point where they throw the first fist, especially not for speech.

So here lies the problem: Are (neo)Nazis, or fascists for that matter, like pornography? Do you know them when you see them? Do they all outwardly wear symbols like the swastika, or is a MAGA hat enough for you to know who is who? If you take them at their word, Wikipedia, PBS, Politico, Reuters, Rolling Stone, The Hill, The Guardian, The New Yorker, The New York Times, AP News, top Senate Democrats, the Democrat’s presidential nominee, business and sociology professors, and any number of other sources in the popular and academic presses might have convinced you that Donald Trump, MAGA, Republicans, and conservatives have all the hallmarks of fascism, which some see as interchangeable with (neo)Nazis. If you trust those sources, and especially if your in-groups are comprised of like-minded comrades, your personal prejudices would be socially approved biases against the conceptual constellation of Donald Trump-MAGA-Republicans-conservatives-fascists-Nazis.

You might have actually, truly come to believe that these are dangerous people who threaten women and minorities and will transform the USA into a genocidal, totalitarian dictatorship. And, honestly, who can really blame anyone for opposing hate-filled bigotry, bias-motivated violence, and calls for genocide? They should be condemned, totally. So what do you do when you meet one of these people face-to-face? Interpersonally, even if they would directly and vehemently defend their ideology if brought up in conversation, when was the last time you asked a stranger if they were a Nazi or fascist? How often do you check to see if strangers are secretly sporting an SS tattoo or covertly harbor fascist ideologies? Would you even need to ask if it’s readily apparent by a red MAGA hat, outspoken support for Trump, or even a subtle indicator that they might be conservative? Might it be easy to suspect if they’re a White male evangelizing his Christian faith and proclaiming his patriotism for the USA?

III. Overt Individual Acts of Bias

Charlie Kirk, the Hate-filled Bigot

On the popular social media website, Reddit, which has a notable left-wing bias, there are several forums and threads in which Redditors debate, discuss, and document what qualities of Charlie Kirk qualify him to be considered a fascist, with some going so far as to label him a Nazi. Within those discussions, there are some who point out that Charlie Kirk was not killed because he was labeled a fascist: “He was killed because he spouted bigoted views that offended many people for years and years.” For some Redditors, it is obvious that Charlie Kirk was ‘an extremist white nationalist who made millions spreading racism, bigotry, and minimizing gun violence’ and, if that were not bad enough, he was seen as “a purveyor of genocidal rhetoric.” These sentiments and allegations are common enough on social media that searching for “Charlie Kirk promoted peace” returned a Threads post in which several individuals express their lack of sympathy because he “was the victim of the same violence he endorsed,” a view shared by many others. Perhaps these people’s prejudices were primed to interpret Charlie Kirk’s “genocidal rhetoric” in those terms. We’ll explore that conjecture in this section and the one below.

In a Reddit forum titled, “Protesters chant ‘Fck Charlie Kirk’ as they march through Times Square…,” one Redditor went on to publish nine points of evidence, complete with truncated quotes, in support of their obituary that reads as follows:

“Charlie Kirk was a hateful piece of shit. He sought the oppression of women, women’s rights. He was racist, misogynistic and a homophobic bigot. He denounced all other religions in the name of his far right Christian ‘faith’. He pushed pseudoscience and anti-intellectualism. He worked to limit human rights and access to healthcare. He was a fascist.” [sic]

Personally held prejudices exhibited within groups that approve of shared biases help to justify individual overt acts of bias, even when those actions result in little more than posting, commenting, or participating in social media trends. Remember the logic of the Pyramid of Hate: Only a very small minority engages in bias-motivated violence. Before his death, individuals on the left and the right of U.S. politics organized to oppose Charlie Kirk and his organization, TPUSA, which is to say, he ruffled a lot of feathers. However, it is alleged that a lone fanatic murdered Charlie Kirk. After his death, discussions like those linked to above have continued, albeit with a few interjections asking people to reflect on how their rhetoric contributed to a climate of hostility toward the man who was publicly assassinated.

Confronting Charlie Kirk’s Weird and Dangerous Agenda

So, imagine this: You’re living in a world in which your online and real-life peers, educators, union leaders, social media influencers, media pundits, political leaders, and late-night comedians are telling you that conservatives, Republicans, and MAGA are fascists and that Hitler reborn is bent on ushering in the Fourth Reich. His political party is endangering the planet by not addressing climate change. His MAGA movement has put the USA in a Constitutional crisis and threatens American democracy by backsliding it into fascism. He has (allegedly) called his neo-Nazi, White supremacist, and KKK supporters “very fine people,” and one of his most popular and effective supporters is coming to your campus. As a dutiful anti-fascist, or possibly as just a decent person, you might take the opportunity to confront one of the lieutenants in Hitler’s ranks, given the chance, wouldn’t you? Shouldn’t you?

After all, why not confront Charlie Kirk publicly? Aren’t there more than enough pieces of video evidence floating around that draw a dispositive case that Charlie Kirk, in his own words, is the monster you believe him to be? Since his claims contradict the received wisdom underlying your worldview, it should be feasible, if not easy, to counter the lies he loved to espouse. You can readily reproach this vile college dropout with the intellectual arsenal your professors have equipped you with during the time you’ve been in college, right? After all, Charlie Kirk not only spread misinformation and disinformation that can be dispelled with facts, but his philosophy and theology can be countered with various versions of critical theory and consequentialist philosophies you learned in multiple courses in the social sciences, humanities, and education departments. What could go wrong?

You can find numerous videos on Charlie Kirk’s and Turning Point USA’s YouTube channels showcasing debates and discussions Charlie Kirk conducted on a wide range of topics. I selected the two below because they are the most popular clips on both channels and demonstrate just a couple of nuances that support my point in this section and the next. First, this is one of the most-watched videos on Charlie Kirk’s YouTube channel (5.37M subscribers): “Did Hater Try to Flash Charlie Kirk to Get Him Banned from YouTube?” (Charlie Kirk, September 14, 2024) [9.98 million views as of September 21, 2025]

In the above exchange, the student approached the microphone with stocked scorn and ridicule at the ready. She provided no substance while playing the role of the naive victim after voluntarily approaching and making claims that Charlie Kirk’s agenda was “dangerous” and “weird” without any supporting argument or evidence. From a speculative inference, I suspect the student concluded that Charlie Kirk’s agenda was dangerous and weird due to her media diet and out-group biases. Below, I’ll allude to how these ideas were likely part of her taken-for-granted background assumptions, which she was unwilling to explore in any depth, because her intent was not to engage in a dialogue but to weaponize her time at the microphone and in front of the camera, as implied in the title.

This second exchange is the most viewed clip on Turning Point USA’s YouTube channel (4.2M subscribers) of Charlie Kirk engaging with a single college student, titled “Charlie Kirk SCHOOLS Smug College Leftist full video” (Turning Point USA, April 17, 2023) [2.5 million views as of September 21, 2025]

Having taught a course on Racial and Ethnic Relations since Fall 2016, I’d say that’s a pretty good, succinct summary of the five pillars of critical race theory (CRT), though the citation is off by a year, and I would not consider critical theorists (Marcuse) or post-structuralists/postmodernists (Derrida, Foucault) part of CRT (so, C+). CRT traces back to the neo-Marxist Frankfurt School, also known as critical theory and associated with cultural Marxism. Conservatives have warned the public of CRT’s Marxist roots, while Marxists have decried CRT’s inability to adequately address problems of ideology, inequality, and oppression. What all of these approaches have in common is a radical rewriting of history, a reorientation of the social order, and ultimately, social revolution.

Charlie Kirk, the C+ Race Scholar

As you can read on page 20 in Critical Race Theory, Derrick Bell advocated for a revisionist history as part of CRT’s activism in reformulating the concepts of race, racism, power, and ideology. Like the 1619 Project, and as Charlie Kirk referenced, one goal of CRT is to create a dominant discourse in which every aspect of social order is viewed through the lens of systemic racial inequalities as a function of White supremacy. As for the other references, Foucault was a historian famous for drawing attention to the concept of knowledge/power relations that structure social discourse, and Derrida challenged traditional views of the natural social order by claiming that reality is rooted in rhetoric and symbols rather than an objective reality. Among Marcuse’s contributions to the modern world is the concept of repressive, liberating tolerance, which refers to “intolerance against movements from the Right and toleration of movements from the Left.” I will return to these points at the end of the next section below.

Returning to the second conversation above, in a post on 𝕏 from April 14, 2018, Charlie Kirk stated, “This article needs to be spread and read by every single liberal. Idea of ‘white privilege’ is racist. Black only dorms are racist. Latino segregated math classes are racist. Science is quite clear: We are all human beings. Race is made up. Stop using it.” [sic] The article he posted was National Geographic’s “There’s No Scientific Basis for Race—It’s a Made-Up Label,” which I assigned to my students this semester (fall 2025) after seeing that post. I became aware of it from Kaizen D. Asiedu’s September 15, 2025, post in which he said, “Charlie Kirk didn’t even believe in race,” which CRT posits as colorblind racism (see pages 103 & 144). According to CRT, you must see race and acknowledge that racism is a function of both (inter)personal relations and structurally embedded social systems. Take this passage from Critical Race Theory (pp. 79-80), the book I use in my Racial and Ethnic Relations course, for example (and note the lack of evidence or citations to evidence, as well as the broad generalizations):

Many critical race theorists and social scientists alike hold that racism is pervasive, systemic, and deeply ingrained. If we take this perspective, then no white member of society seems quite so innocent. The interplay of meanings that one attaches to race, the stereotypes one holds of other people, and the need to guard one’s own position all powerfully determine one’s perspective. Indeed, one aspect of whiteness, according to some, is its ability to seem perspectiveless, or transparent. Whites do not see themselves as having a race, but being, simply, people. They do not believe that they think and reason from a white viewpoint, but from a universally valid one—“the truth”—what everyone knows. By the same token, many whites will strenuously deny that they have benefited from white privilege, even in situations (golf, summer jobs, extra-credit assignments, merchants who smile) like the ones mentioned throughout this book.

If college students are taught to treat this book as indisputable, or if their professors teach about race and racism with premises and presumptions rooted in CRT, we might understand why some college-educated individuals come to hold the views about race and racism that they do. This view is reminiscent of the popular definition of racism as power plus prejudice (plus White privilege). Interestingly, Redditors and academics alike contest that definition because it excludes non-Whites from being able to be racist. Lastly, to raise one more point of contention with Charlie Kirk’s statements, race and racism are real because they are socially constructed, not despite it; the social construction of reality produces social fictions only insofar as social phenomena can be rewritten and relegated to history, but in the meantime, those fictions are real because they are real in their consequences. As in, Charlie Kirk’s assassination was socially constructed, and so will be his legacy.

So, I’m not quite sure Charlie Kirk schooled the second student, as stated in the title, but he did demonstrate more knowledge about CRT than my own (average) students do after a semester with me. In the first clip transcribed above, I kept waiting for the student to back up the bravado of her demeanor with substance, as both Charlie Kirk and Vivek Ramaswamy called for, but as was the case with the student in the second transcribed clip, it appears as if they were underprepared or underestimated who they ended up speaking with. Maybe they expected to meet a monster, a lying bigot whom they could expose as an ignorant ideologue. It’s likely that one could find cases in which Charlie Kirk was taken to task, but that’s a matter for an extensive and systematic content analysis, which is beyond the scope of this essay.

Charlie Kirk, Failed Opportunist

Ask yourself, in those situations, did Charlie Kirk have the opportunity to espouse theocratic, bellicose rhetoric in support of his often-referenced misogynistic and racist beliefs? Maybe he was simply playing nice in front of the camera to avoid producing more evidence than necessary of his widely presumed spread of hateful bigotry. Certainly, there are points of disagreement to be made, especially among leftists, liberals, progressives, socialists, and others ideologically opposed to Charlie Kirk, not to mention the types of pedantic academic critiques I raised above. Charlie Kirk’s views on systemic racism certainly clash with CRT in that he denied that America was built on racism and denied the existence of White privilege. It’s possible that Charlie Kirk opportunistically capitalized on race at his events because it made for monetizable viral clips when the issue inevitably sparked heated tensions. Charlie Kirk time and again said he did not believe in race and wanted to stop talking about it; the least charitable assumption would be that Charlie Kirk feigned disinterest in talking about race, even though he (allegedly) worked from a racist playbook, to try to appear as though he was not racist.

One can easily find discussions and analyses making Charlie Kirk out to be a White supremacist and advocate for White supremacy, just as you can find clips of Charlie Kirk adamantly denouncing and rejecting White supremacy and White supremacists and defending himself against accusations that he is/was a White Supremacist. My question is, why didn’t Charlie Kirk take the opportunity to tell the first student about how and why we should all be living out The Handmaid’s Tale or promote Charles Darwin’s and Margaret Sanger’s social theories on race to the second student? These are facetious rhetorical questions, of course, but it seems like Charlie Kirk’s most popular clips, if his base actually does consist of neonate fascists and (neo)Nazis, should more explicitly resonate with those ideologies. I have yet to find a video or writings that clearly show Charlie Kirk promoting the view that White people should own and operate power structures or sit atop society’s social structures throughout the USA and Western Civilization. Again, perhaps a more thorough analysis of all available evidence would conclusively demonstrate what has been alleged about Charlie Kirk’s character and motives, but in the end, those conclusions will likely still be hotly debated by people who fall on either side of the system of discrimination I describe below.

IV. Systemic Discrimination

Social Sources of Biases in Media and Higher Ed.

Imagine not just having a different worldview from Charlie Kirk but clutching a diametrically opposed worldview so tightly that anyone asking you to loosen your grip, even just a little, appeared to be an existential threat to you and your in-group(s). Then imagine that person tells you to let loose entirely. To some of these people (again, that’s the point of the pyramid), words are not merely a precursor to violence; words, like silence (ironically enough), are violence. This materialized in article titles like “The Killing of Charlie Kirk: Violent Speech and a Violent End.” Some college professors might teach their students about verbal violence and violent speech and then neglect to offer the counterpoint that violence in response to speech is always unacceptable. The question here, though, is about the systemic origins of why, for example, reports show that “Gen Z focuses on perceived harms from words, demanding censorship for protection, with 72% endorsing shouting down speakers and 34% justifying violence to suppress speech.” As the pyramid’s logic suggests, we need to understand this to comprehend bias-motivated violence and its more severe consequences.

For people trained to hear racist, fascist, White nationalist, and other dog whistles, a speech act unintended to offend can still be perceived as a microaggression and possible intent of violence or aggression. If a Charlie Kirk were to tell you that your worldview is false, it might seem like what he was really saying is, “You, and people like you, have no right to exist.” What Charlie Kirk would often do is bombard interlocutors with an unbelievable, incredible set of facts and logic that was so contrary to their received wisdom that it simply could not be true. Therefore, his malicious lies had to be motivated by malice. Recalling the homologous Racial & Sexual Violence Pyramid, it should be noted and understandable that those willing to commit sexual violence are small minorities among the whole of those individuals willing to verbalize their misogynistic prejudices and act on their biases (once more, that’s the point of the pyramid). If it’s better to be safe than sorry, then people espousing or faithfully listening to what you believe is hateful bigotry have a non-zero probability of committing or engendering violence. Therefore, for those keen on dog whistles, when they “heard” Charlie Kirk engaging in “hate speech,” it was an obvious justification of and precursor to what they believed would eventually materialize into hate crimes and widespread violence otherwise. At least, that’s how the logic goes.

Therefore, FAIR.org could honestly publish in their September 12, 2025, article, “Kirk Coverage Downplayed MAGA’s Culture of Violence,” the following:

“Charlie Kirk was a central actor in the right-wing hate machine that fomented violence. He encouraged violence against immigrants.”… “He incited partisan division and hatred, and encouraged the purchase and use of weapons in that context.” … “In fact, there is no better time to point out that the right-wing movement Kirk was a crucial part of has played the leading role in dehumanizing others and normalizing violence. Failure to honestly examine the politics that are driving extremism will steer us away from the kind of analysis and action that are needed to prevent more tragedies.” [Emphasis mine]

I agree. We need to honestly examine the conditions that drive extremism toward violence, but I disagree that Charlie Kirk was an integral component of widespread and politically motivated violence. Once more, I would like to see an in-depth and rigorous analysis of methodically collected data that confirms or disproves those claims. None exists. More importantly, millions of people believe the true tragedy is that Charlie Kirk was murdered.

Far from a ringleader fomenting his followers toward mass violence and genocide, for some, Charlie Kirk was little more than a “ragebaiting troll” [sic]. Others disagreed:

“He wasn’t a troll, he was a white supremacist trying to spread hatred and bigotry across the country with his podcast and his propaganda machine designed to indoctrinate children, and he wanted to lie his ass off on public “debates” so that he could get clips of him ‘destroying dumb leftist kids’ that would garner huge amounts of views, gaining him more revenue and spreading more white supremacism to be recommended to people through YouTube.” [sic]

Either way, multitudes of netizens shared and approved of each other’s biased interpretations of Charlie Kirk’s words, actions, and motivations, and I suspect the ideological source can be found not just in the myriad of (social) media sources linked to in this essay but in the intellectual works of those responsible for organizing the habits of mind among the nation’s youth, whose self-appointed station is to sanitize campuses from microaggressions.

Although the conceptual coherence and evidence of the impacts of microaggressions are debated academically, college and university professors frequently cite them, arguing that they are precursors to macroaggressions and mega-aggressions, ever-expanding forms of systemic oppression, domination, and violence. The opening paragraph from a peer-reviewed academic article, “Macroaggressions and Civil Discourse,” will serve as a clear example for my purposes in this essay:

“In his quest to ‘Make America Great Again,’ Donald J. Trump has actually made America racist and sexist again. Trump’s bid for presidency increased the division in the country and has provided a harbinger of opportunities for those on the fringes of society to take the mainstage with violence and hate-spewed vitriol, maliciousness, and fury. His campaign brought to the forefront people and organizations stoked in racism and divisiveness, such as David Duke, Milo Yiannopoulos, Jason Kessler, and Richard Spencer—all part of the Klu Klux Klan or other alt-right and white supremacist movements.” (Druery, Young, and Elbert, 2018, p. 73)

It is well known that Charlie Kirk was an integral part of Donald Trump’s 2024 (re)election, and I have no doubt that some Redditors would easily add Charlie Kirk to that list of names, some of whom Charlie Kirk openly rebuked. Thus, perceiving or interpreting Charlie Kirk as a malevolent social actor responsible for furthering the fascistic rise of a macro- or mega-aggressive social structure would have been completely reasonable to believe, like children believing in Santa Claus. In reality, Charlie Kirk efficaciously engaged in U.S. party politics, and the enemies he made were as real as the tens of thousands of attendees at his memorial, not to mention the 100 million people who watched it online and on TV.

Caricature Conservatives and Their Danger to Democracy

Charlie Kirk’s trade was in the marketplace of ideas on college campuses, and to his friends, he “gave his life for his country on the battlefield of political combat.” Charlie Kirk died doing what made him (in)famous, said Steve Bannon, “debating, using ideas… His last act on Earth was picking up a microphone to rebut something that he heard…” Charlie Kirk’s ideological mission, it seemed, was to talk to college students about (and out of) their personal beliefs and values and about the ideologies and worldview imparted to them by their educators. Aside from talking to and debating “random kids on campus,” Charlie Kirk engaged with “25 Liberal College Students” at Jubilee who were prepared to eagerly debate and interrogate his ideas. He defended his thesis that “you should be allowed to say outrageous things” to the Oxford Union debating society, but the jury is out on whether he won or lost his debate with the Cambridge Union club. One might say this was the bread and butter of the online persona many came to know him by. If I may, let me make a brief aside before returning to this point.

There are actors who play their roles as villains so well that they have difficulty finding work thereafter, in part due to being typecast as the villain they portrayed. Sometimes, people approach these actors in public as if they are the villains they saw on screen. In real life, anyone can be portrayed as a villain by what the Biden administration and its allies in the press tried to incantate into our cultural vernacular, i.e., “cheap fakes.” “Cheap fakes” are selectively edited videos of real events that portray individuals in a negative light by decontextualizing what they’ve said or done. Individuals’ self-serving biases can lead to confirmation bias that “cheap fakes” provide enough context to represent the truth of the situation, especially for individuals who fill in missing context with their taken-for-granted background assumptions arising from their worldview and “stock of knowledge at hand.” On the flip side, one can eschew the false claims tacitly made in “cheap fakes” by simply pointing out the fact that the alleged video evidence consists of cherry-picked aberrations that would be explained away by more context. It all depends on which side you’re on relative to the intent of the “cheap fake” in question.

Within social media echo chambers that amplify in-group and out-group biases via confirmation bias, one is not encouraged to, and is likely discouraged from, digging deeper into, for example, the full context of “cheap fakes” of Charlie Kirk. And why would you? If you truly believe that people like Charlie Kirk are the (neo)Nazis or fascists they’ve been made out to be, then anything they say or do can and should be used against them. Moreover, treating them as such would seem totally justified if your in-group shares your prejudices and approves your biases. Personal prejudices and social biases against Christians, conservatives, Republicans, or MAGA, along with prejudices and biases against heterosexual White cisgender males, were facilitated and justified by celebrities making news headlines, on talk shows, in college classrooms and textbooks, and in social media forums in which people could share and reinforce their biases with one another. Authors occupying various stations in the Internet’s ideoscape likened him to or outright labeled Charlie Kirk not only as a (neo)Nazi, fascist, antisemitic, conspiracy theorist, White nationalist, racist, transphobe, xenophobe, misogynist, homophobe with a history of violent bigotry, but also claimed he was dangerous.

While Joe Biden occupied the White House, his social media accounts were routinely used to publicly state that Donald Trump and MAGA Republicans threatened democracy and the soul of the USA, and he publicly made many statements to that effect for years. For example, Joe Biden stopped short of labeling MAGA as full-blown fascism, but repeatedly claimed Trump’s election-denying, violent supporters posed a dangerous threat to American democracy. And leftist news outlets like The Guardian reported that Charlie Kirk was both a key asset in the Trump 2024 campaign and a 2020 election denier. Is it an overestimation to say that 99.9999999% of Democrats, liberal progressives, and people who produce and consume that type of content did not pull the trigger on the fatal shot that ended Charlie Kirk’s life? Again, that’s the point of the Pyramid of Hate.

Before his assassination, The New York Times ran headlines accusing Charlie Kirk of antisemitism and nativism, and Medium articles directly linked Charlie Kirk to White supremacy, Christian nationalism, and ethnic cleansing. Posthumously, a Christian blog titled “The Danger of Charlie Kirk” repeated claims echoing throughout the Internet’s digital caverns and into the People’s House. Officially, though condemning his murder, government officials opposed to Charlie Kirk want him to be remembered as a villain: A racist, xenophobic, homophobic, misogynistic extremist who promoted hatred and violence. To his haters, Charlie Kirk inspired others through his hateful rhetoric to normalize harassment and violence. Just as before he was murdered, people continue to use monetized (social) media posts to demonize Charlie Kirk, and so his living enemies can now make him say anything they want. So his allies will have to choose to defend his honor or charge back into the campus battlefields where he was slain. Moreover, Charlie Kirk’s political allies could potentially use his death to justify “hate speech” laws, despite Charlie Kirk’s firm and longstanding opposition to that position. In essence, this is the necropolitics of propaganda.

Another dimension of the necropolitics of propaganda is demonstrated in YouTube videos titled “Charlie Kirk Was Dangerous for Society” and “Why Charlie Kirk was Dangerous.” It seems illogical and unfounded to say that Charlie Kirk was personally dangerous, for he has no criminal record of any kind and hosted hundreds of speaking events in which he never once incited violence. More importantly, he personally promoted public discourse as a preventative measure to deter violence. As a TikTok titled “Charlie Kirk was dangerous to black, brown, and queer communities” demonstrates, the danger of Charlie Kirk was not interpersonal but ideological. One of the comments on that video is instructive insofar as it demonstrates that there are people who thoughtfully disagree:

“We can disagree but I will always defend Charlie till I die and I’m a Latina. I wasn’t brainwashed. It’s hard to listen to your speech because it’s against everything he was. Please I urge you to sit and watch and open your mind. He allowed open discussions on all topics from all walks of life. He championed black people to be victors instead of victims, stressing the idea of having fathers in the homes since it’s the worst statistically based, he is a Christian and believes in two genders and had a lot of RESPECTFUL debate about that. He has never said he hated gay and trans. He could care less about what you do. There is a few videos proving that. He worried about the healthcare of young kids wanting to transition which is good because they are vulnerable. He told them to seek therapy first which is healthy. You are already messing up assuming white people are telling us how we feel. It just makes me sad to hear you talk like that when it’s false. I was around a ton of white people all my life and even today at his vigil. They prayed for me and were so kind. Please be respectful if you’re going to respond. It’s your page and I’ve been graceful here.”

This was the second (and hopefully last) time I’ve ever been on TikTok, so I’m unsure if that Latina will have changed the TikToker’s mind or heart.

I doubt that people who watch, like, and share YouTube videos like “Charlie Kirk: His Own Words #charliekirk #racist #maga #misogynist #homophobic #violent #incel” would change their minds if they watched one video titled “Charlie Kirk Was NOT Racist” and another video titled “Charlie Kirk Was NOT Racist.” They could probably watch “Charlie Kirk was NOT a ‘RACIST!’…(The LIES of the BLACK ‘Left’),” “10 MINUTES Of Charlie Kirk Being Racist…NOT REALLY,” “Black People Speak Out, Was Charlie Really Kirk Racist?,” “If You Think Charlie Kirk Was Racist, Watch This!” and still conclude that “Racist Charlie Kirk Should NOT Be Celebrated as an American Hero!” A similar list can be made of other claims of his bigotry, but I’ll simply leave it to Amir Odom’s nearly hour-long video, “Debunking The Biggest Lies Told About Charlie Kirk.” The point of this essay is not to defend Charlie Kirk but to explain the milieu in which he was murdered and his living memory is contested.

The Intellectual Foundation of Systemic Discrimination

As a sociologist, I am curious about the systemic conditions that have facilitated the collective effervescence of catharsis among the multitudes of those who see Charlie Kirk not as a martyr but as a malcontent and malicious counterrevolutionary. I’m curious as to what the institutional sources are of the prevailing prejudices and social biases that led thousands of individuals to generate the self-reinforcing content that, before and after he was assassinated, legitimized hatred of Charlie Kirk and rationalized his murder. You can read The War on Conservatives, The Origins of Woke, The End of Woke, The Radical Mind, The Madness of Crowds, America’s Cultural Revolution, The Plot to Change America, Lies My Liberal Teacher Told Me, Cynical Theories, Slanted, Hate Inc., Broken News, or any number of other books that detail the (alleged) hows and whys of the cultural transformation of the USA since WWII. Here, though, I want to address something Charlie Kirk said to Student 2 in the transcribed videos discussed above.

I don’t know if it was a slip of the tongue, an absent-minded conflation, or sheer ignorance, but Charlie Kirk was factually incorrect by citing Herbert Marcuse, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault as part of critical race theory. As discussed in several of the books I cited above, these figures are important for understanding the transformation of the USA over the past several decades; however, outside of academia, they are not widely known or well understood. I had to read excerpts of their works throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies in sociology, particularly for my Social Theory courses. I never quite understood their nuances, and possibly missed their entire theses, which, at the time, I thought was a failing of my intellect; however, as a matter of reflexivity and positionality, I’ve come to suspect that their ideas and ideologies are alien to my position in the social structure, my culture, and my way of thinking.

That said, I found it curious that when I took a PhD-level course in the Education Department at Oklahoma State University in 2011, called something like Education and Popular Culture (see, e.g., Ch. 8 in the book my course instructor, classmates, and I published from that course), I encountered those same critical theorists and postmodernists in the textbooks (e.g., also see here) we were assigned. My classmates understandably struggled with the material. After all, nearly all of them had been Education majors and were at the time working on their Master’s or PhDs in Education. The material was new to them, and largely a review for me, as I had been assigned many of those same theorists since I was an undergraduate and had read most of them during my Master’s and PhD programs in Sociology. The collective goal of these social theorists undermines certain aspects of American culture, namely the existence of objective truth and that capitalism is preferable to Marxism; rather, these social theories impress upon students the need for structural revolution to redress class, gender, and racial inequalities. I remember asking myself, “Why is this material being taught to a group of people aspiring to become professional educators and administrators in grade schools and high schools?”

The same answer, I suspect, is why these social theorists permeate a sixteen-hundred-page book intended for college-level English students titled Literary Theory: An Anthology, now in its third edition. As a standard requirement for most college degrees, millions of college students enroll in English courses every year, and they’re not just learning how to read and write. They’re being taught philosophy by English professors. In some of those courses, like Yale’s English 300: Introduction to Theory of Literature, college students are taught to look at the world through the lenses of Marxism, post-structuralism, postmodernism, Critical Theory, and many other theories designed to undermine the American culture of the post-war era and transform it into what we see today. These theories are explicitly taught not only across the Social Sciences and Humanities but in Nursing, Education, School Psychology and Counseling, Information and Library Sciences, and STEM programs. So, considering that college students are required to take English, it is a fair bet that they will encounter at least once, if not in multiple courses, college instructors whose agenda is to lead their students to analyze America and Western Civilization from a perspective that sees it as historically and essentially oppressive, which justifies fundamentally transforming the USA.

Here are specific examples of some of the topics these theories address, which relate specifically to the social theories Charlie Kirk alluded to when talking with Student 2 in the transcribed video above. These are excerpted from the second edition of Literary Theory: An Anthology (see also Literary Theory: The Basics):

“…Michel Foucault bore out the point that gender is variable: in history and between societies, there is variation between different ways of practicing sex and being one gender or another. Sexual practices like anal intercourse, intercourse between women, fellatio, and cunnilingus are coded differently across different societies and throughout history. Anal intercourse and fellatio between men were common in fifth-century Greek society, and only later (in the late nineteenth century, according to Foucault) would they be “discovered” to be signs of an identifiable “perversion.” Christianity stands between the two dates or sites and probably has a great deal to do with how non-reproductive sexual practices became stigmatized over time.” (p. 886) [emphasis mine]

Suffice it to say, Charlie Kirk’s views on sexuality and Christianity would not jive with that perspective. Here’s another excerpt, which references two people closely associated with Herbert Marcuse, whom Charlie Kirk mistakenly referred to as part of CRT. These are the originators of critical theory, namely Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, who hail from the Frankfurt School, which found its home on American soil at Columbia University:

“Since the advent of Marxism in the nineteenth century, people have come to think of culture as being political. Culture is both a means of domination, of assuring the rule of one class or group over another, and a means of resistance to such domination, a way of articulating oppositional points of view to those in dominance. Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, in their celebrated Dialectic of Enlightenment, argue that mass culture – the culture of television, radio, film, and cheap paperbacks – is a tool of domination, a way for capitalism to offer ephemeral gratification to people condemned to lives of work.” (p. 1233) [emphasis mine]

A decade before he was murdered, Charlie Kirk sought to engender ideologies opposed to those found in neo-Marxian critical theory, and he lamented the effects of cultural Marxism transmitted via education. He was certainly aware of the significant role culture and media play in shaping social structure. However, Charlie Kirk was a great champion of Western Civilization, the ethos behind the Republic and founding of the USA, of American exceptionalism, and of free market economics. Charlie Kirk’s position is a stark contrast to the anti-Enlightenment philosophy of Frankfurt School critical theorists.

Since he routinely confronted students’ subjectivist positions with his firmly rooted positions on objective morality and truth, the social theorist Charlie Kirk might have most opposed is Jacques Derrida:

“We have spent so much time on Derrida’s ideas because those ideas are central to what happened afterwards in the work of such thinkers as Irigaray, Cixous, Deleuze, and Lyotard. Their work reflects the shift Derrida engineered away from the centrality of consciousness in philosophical discussion and toward a sense that the world is a field of contingency, not natural order, that the identities of truth that philosophy takes for granted are unstable, that the truthful orders of value we live by may be rhetorical acts of linguistic meaning-making, rather than representations of preexisting truth, that the substance of thought and of reality conceals insubstantial processes that constitute them, etc.” (p. 261)

While I know that Charlie Kirk was confused about the school of thought to which these social theorists are typically categorized, he was certainly not confused about their centrality in shaping the minds of young people by university faculty throughout the USA for decades.

Charlie Kirk’s True Threat to the Social Order

I believe this is a significant part of what made Charlie Kirk such a dangerous threat to people educated in these institutions. These people post their personal prejudices and socially shared biases on their social media accounts, write headlines and articles for major news publications, and use media watchdog groups to surveil individuals like Charlie Kirk. These are the people who sit behind microphones and in front of cameras for public, network, and cable news, telling their viewers what to think (about). Charlie Kirk wasn’t just challenging the facts taught to college students; he was undermining the philosophical foundation of their entire moral order, which is reflected in and emanates from the social theories that tens of millions of college students have been exposed to, again, for decades.

A close cousin to all of these social theories is queer theory, the goal of which is to radically transform, i.e., “queering,” all existing cultural norms by addressing “how heteropatriarchy structures white supremacy, capitalism, and settler colonialism.” In addition to his rejection of the premises behind and intentions of queer theory, feminism, and related radical social theories, Charlie Kirk understood transgenderism to be an extension of these theories, and he viewed transgender identity as a delusional type of mental disorder. Despite not outwardly showing hostility toward transgender individuals and rooting his argument against homophobia in his understanding of Christian compassion, Charlie Kirk’s views on transgenderism are the accepted proximate explanation of why he was assassinated.

V. Bias-motivated Violence

Immediate Suspicions of the Motive to Assassinate Charlie Kirk

On September 10, 2025, while sitting under a tent on the campus commons of Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, Charlie Kirk was assassinated in front of friends, colleagues, fans, and hundreds of other attendees who came to hear him speak and to engage in public discussion and debate with him. In the hours and days after, speculations and debates abounded about who the assassin was and what might have motivated them to murder Charlie Kirk:

September 10th

• “According to multiple sources on the scene Charlie Kirk is dead at age 31. Assassinated by an older white male at his own rally. View shooting video at your own risk.” Joshua Chovan (@thechovanone), September 10, 2025
• “Charlie Kirks assassin was not a delusional old man. Sources placed shooter 180m or 2 football fields away. This was a highly trained, likely ex-military, individual who was able to execute a perfect kill shot — transecting both the Internal Jugular vein and Common Carotid artery.” James (@jamesmacrd), September 10, 2025
• “The person who killed Charlie Kirk wasn’t crazy. Crazy people don’t load up a rifle, get on a roof and wait patiently for someone to speak before shooting them. This was a premeditated and politically motivated assassination of a political speaker by the left.” Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray), September 10, 2025
• “At a moment when the entire country is unified in prayer for Charlie Kirk, MSNBC is speculating that the assassin may have been ‘a supporter of Charlie shooting their gun off in celebration’.” Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson), September 10, 2025

September 11th

• “Multiple networks are now reporting that Charlie Kirk assassin used a Mauser 30.06 rifle, a spent round was found in the chamber, with engraved ideological Antifa phrases on cartridges and shell casings.” Citizen Free Press (@citizenfreepress), September 11, 2025
• “Whatever role this [ammunition in Kirk shooting engraved with transgender, antifascist ideology] might have played in the unbalanced mind of Charlie Kirk’s assassin, I am so sick of ‘Transtifa’—the hate-fueled hybrid of Antifa anarchy and radical trans extremism. How much more violence before the public wakes up?” Gerald Posner (@geraldposner), September 11, 2025
• “‘Right now you can’t couch it as political violence because you have no idea the motive behind the shooter or shooters of Charlie Kirk’ [Katie Phang].” Jason Cohen (@jasonjournodc), September 11, 2025
• “Everyone keeps taking it as a given that Charlie Kirk was assassinated ‘for his political beliefs’ when the motives of his killer are at present completely unknown. There’s zero evidence for it.” Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz), September 11, 2025
• “‘ENOUGH IS ENOUGH’: Rep. Nancy Mace comments on reports of Charlie Kirk’s killer allegedly being ‘pro-tranny’.” Daily Caller (@dailycaller), September 11, 2025

September 12th

• “Charlie Kirk’s assassin Tyler Robinson, 22, killed him because he hated his opinions and thought he was a fascist. Yet ironically, HE was the fascist, killing someone to silence their opposing views. The woke left love to say ‘speech is violent.’ It’s not – violence is.” Piers Morgan (@piersmorgan), September 12, 2025
• “Charlie Kirk’s murderer wasn’t a ‘lunatic leftist’, he was a groyper. A far right follower of Nick Fuentes, a Neo Nazi. Charlie Kirk was a bad man, who was killed by a right wing incel, that hated Kirk because he was a grifting profiteer, and not a ‘true conservative’.” Politics in the Wild (@politicsouthere), September 12, 2025
• “The Anonymous 𝕏 account shared a fake photo of Charlie Kirk’s assassin Tyler Robinson wearing a Trump shirt that has amassed 2 million views. This is extremely dangerous and puts more innocent Americans in danger. I am pleading for 𝕏 to finally address this profile.” Dom Lucre (@dom_lucre), September 12, 2025
• “MSNBC is deliberately misleading their left-wing viewers about the motives of the Charlie Kirk assassin. The network claims there is ‘no theme’ when it comes to Tyler Robinson’s bullet casings. He literally wrote ‘hey fascist! catch!’ and Antifa phrases on bullet casings.” Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker), September 12, 2025

September 13th

• “Leftists on Reddit and across social media are spreading viral lies that the Charlie Kirk assassin suspect is a far-right Christian nationalist. They’re doing this to protect Antifa and radical leftist politics. No legacy media is challenging those lies and the platforms that do have some fact check feature, like 𝕏, have not posted notes to dispel the lies.” Andy Ngo (@mrandyngo), September 13, 2025
• “Charlie Kirk’s murderer is a Leftist by any account. There’s a lot of dust in the air about if he was a Groyper instead. It’s possible but unlikely, and we may find out (and don’t gain anything by speculating on it here), but Groypers ARE LEFTISTS, so, yeah.” James Lindsay (@conceptualjames), September 13, 2025
• “When the Charlie Kirk story first broke, I unfairly leapt to the assumption the shooter was probably trans. Now, I feel terrible for making that assumption because the killer was only the boyfriend of a trans. I was way off. I am now unfairly leaping to the assumption the boyfriend is on antidepressants.” Scott Adams (@scottadamssays), September 13, 2025
• “My friend Charlie Kirk was murdered in an act of transgender violence! His killer has been confirmed to have been living with a transgender partner. A demon killed my friend! This is a spiritual battle of good vs evil, and evil will NOT win!!” Graham Allen (@grahamallen_1), September 13, 2025
• “Charlie Kirk was Assassinated by a homosexual living with a male pretending to be a woman. How many of these people are going to do public shootings before something is done? I think it’s because they know it’s over for them. The trans movement is over. Gay ‘marriage’ is next.” Rachel Wilson (@Rach4Patriarchy), September 13, 2025

Suspicions of MAGA-Motivated Violence

September 16-19th

• “Montel Williams and Abby Phillip speculate that Charlie Kirk’s killer was motivated by his MAGA family not accepting his transgender boyfriend. ‘He was trying to defend his significant other. Not trying in defense of ideology’.” Greg Price (@greg_price11), September 16, 2025
• “Suspect Tyler Robinson, 22, charged with aggravated murder (death penalty sought). Post-shooting texts to roommate: ‘I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.’ ‘I had enough of his hatred… Some hate can’t be negotiated out’.” Hotep Jesus (@hotepjesus), September 17, 2025
• “Alleged assassin of Charlie Kirk: I was driven by leftist ideas. I am a progressive. I am a trans activist. My family disagrees with my extreme leftist progressivism. I hate MAGA. @jimmykimmel: The alleged assassin is MAGA. Kimmel is an affront to human decency.” Gad Saad (@gadsaad), September 17, 2025
• “Stelter says Kimmel ‘suggested’ the killer ‘might’ve been’ a pro-Trump Republican & that Kimmel said the motive was ‘unclear’ & ‘maybe’ the killer was rightwing. This is a lie by Brian. Kimmel was definitive in his false claim that the shooter was MAGA.” Jerry Dunleavy IV (@jerrydunleavy), September 17, 2025
• “Kimmel lives in LA. He probably got it from same place as Jemele Hill—the LA Times. On 9/12, LATimes ran a piece that featured an academic ‘expert on extremism’ —Joan Donovan. Donovan confidently identified the killer as a far right groyper. The reporter failed to notice that last year Donovan was fully discredited by an exposé in the Chronicle of Higher Education.” Christina Hoff Sommers (@chsommers), September 19, 2025

You can track a story from a comment on the last post cited above to a story of how a rumor spread that “Charlie Kirk likely was the victim of a white supremacist gang hit.” As the story goes, The Atlantic’s Jemele posted that statement to her Bluesky account, which referenced an LA Times story that relied on Joan Donovan, and Reuters cited Rachel Kleinfeld as their key expert in concluding that the far-right Groyper movement was behind Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Above, you’ll find that Politics in the Wild agreed that the assassin was part of the far-right Groyper movement, and while James Lindsay entertained the possibility that it could be the Groypers, he also agreed with the chorus of other right-wing voices who identified the assassin with left-wing ideologies. Jimmy Kimmel and his writers might have consumed a steady media diet that initially concluded that Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a right-wing MAGA Republican, which the Groypers would be lumped in with due to how out-groups are totalized as constellations. This would have also easily fit in the dominant narrative that gun violence and terrorism are largely carried out by right-wing individuals and groups.

In the end, the consensus is that left-wing ideologies are behind the assassin’s motives to murder Charlie Kirk. But why not just collect these statements and be done with the whole mess of the thousands of words I dedicated above to explaining prejudices, biases, and systemic discrimination? These all factor into the ever-present threat of genocide, which some believe is possible due to the outpouring of celebrations in the immediate aftermath of the assassination, along with the continuing justifications and rationalizations of the murder, not to mention calls for more politically motivated violence.

VI. The MOTIVE and Genocidal Rhetoric

Critique and Modification of the Pyramid of Hate Model

The pyramid shape and monochromatic scheme of the levels of the Pyramid of Hate model are flawed, which is why I’ve modified it here as the Model of the Origin, Transformation, and Impact of Violence Escalation (MOTIVE). As the ADL described above, the Pyramid of Hate model can be misleading because it can too easily make it seem that the logical flow is prejudice🡪acts of bias🡪systemic discrimination🡪bias-motivated violence🡪genocide. On one level, this makes sense since a person motivated by personal prejudices and social biases to commit violence would need to come by those beliefs in a social environment that facilitates them. However, that logic is linear and individualistic. In the case of a bias-motivated act of violence, we do need to explain the social environment that led to that particular act, such as the murder of Charlie Kirk. However, it can too easily be presumed that any individual who holds private prejudices and social biases will necessarily always progress toward bias-motivated violence unless some intervention is enacted. As I pointed out above, we can see this is not true simply by taking a look around.

Moreover, the pyramid model is methodologically individualistic. Systems of discrimination that develop over decades and centuries, such as what I described above, precede the existence of individuals socialized into those systems. There could not be a system of discrimination based on socially shared biases that just appears out of nowhere; these things take time. There are also different temperatures of prejudice, bias, discrimination, and even violence. Many of the prejudgments we make about others are relatively benign or private, and socially shared biases seem justifiable to those who hold them because others exhibit the same prejudices. It’s only in the context of interacting with people opposed to others’ prejudicial biases, along with the degree to which they react, that the temperature turns from dirty looks to heated arguments to aggression and violence.

Systems of discrimination, for example, against White male cisgender heterosexual Christians (aka the Matrix of Privilege), which are all part of my identity, can be and are justifiable to those who subscribe to the theoretical underpinnings of that system (e.g., social justice), not to mention those who benefit in material ways. There are myriad examples demonstrating that my categorization of this as a system of discrimination will itself be interpreted as an indication of my taken-for-granted worldview based on my privileges and/or a defense of my privileges, and therefore, my analysis can be dismissed on those grounds alone. (Beyond the literature on privilege defensiveness, I’ve been told this by classmates and instructors throughout my education in sociology classrooms.) Shared biases and systems of discrimination are self-sealing, self-reinforcing processes of social reification.

Somewhat like how the concepts of Freudian denial and (neo)Marxian false consciousness are self-fulfilling prophecies, denial of the symptom is considered a symptom of the disease. Any argument against, or even identification of the system of discrimination I’ve described above can and will be viewed through the lenses that liberal progressives and others on the left look through when they see conservatives, MAGA Republicans, and Donald Trump as fascists, Nazis, and Hitler. By far, most of those people will not commit violence, but would they condone or facilitate its ideological underpinnings? I am making the case in this essay that the answer is yes.

Control of the Thermostat

Charlie Kirk routinely talked with people who disagreed with and opposed his worldview, and then many like them gloated when he was shot through the neck and killed. Others merely said that while they were saddened by his death and do not condone (political) violence, they understood that he and people like him were ultimately the cause. I suspect that part of the explanation is political and a larger part is ideological, but that conjecture necessitates a large study. In the end, it’s the in-group/out-group biases facilitated by systems of discrimination promoted in social institutions like higher education and media (mass and social) that legitimize escalating differences of opinion to motivated acts of violence. If there were a cure for hatred, humanity would have found it by now, and violence is likely older than Genesis tells us. Ultimately, if enough people believe in, or are coerced into participating in systems of discrimination and mass acts of bias-motivated violence, then we end up at the ultimately undesirable outcome: genocide.

The logic of all of this is captured in an online article at SFL.MEDIA titled, “The Fatal Flaw in Charlie Kirk’s Politics: When Manufactured Fear Turns Deadly.” In it, the author makes the case that Charlie Kirk sowed the seeds of his own demise, which others were doing on major media outlets shortly after he was killed. The author also spells out how social feedback loops tend to amplify in echo chambers to the point where violence becomes a dark light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve reproduced here the pertinent section:

The Feedback Loop of Extremism

The tragedy of Charlie Kirk’s death highlights a larger dynamic in American politics: the way extremist rhetoric fuels itself in a cycle that’s nearly impossible to break. Right-wing media personalities spread fear and resentment to grow their brands, and in doing so, they provoke outrage from their opponents. That outrage then gets fed back into the same system as “proof” that conservatives are under attack, justifying even more radical rhetoric. The result is a feedback loop of extremism, where both the message and the backlash intensify until violence becomes inevitable.

America is now locked in a dangerous cycle:

• Right-wing figures like Kirk spread fear for profit and political gain.
• Opponents are forced to drag those lies into the light, dismantling them publicly.
• But the very act of amplification, whether supportive or critical, turns the heat up, fueling anger, paranoia, and raising the likelihood of violent eruptions from both sides.

This isn’t hypothetical. We saw it with the January 6 insurrection. We’ve seen it in mass shootings inspired by replacement theory and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric. And now, we’ve seen it with the killing of one of MAGA’s own leading voices.

I might agree were it not for the fact that the author assumed his audience would share his presumptions that Charlie Kirk was spreading fear and that the feedback loop and amplification were natural processes. Millions of people would not agree with the premises baked into the author’s insinuations and claims, and I’ve shown throughout this essay that it has been Charlie Kirk’s opponents and those who revile conservatives, MAGA Republicans, and Donald Trump who have been responsible for amplifying fear in the type of echo chamber that led Jimmy Kimmel and people who agree with him to suspect that Charlie Kirk’s assassin was motivated by right-wing ideologies. I imagine these types of people will interpret the concluding paragraphs in this essay as paranoia and blame avoidance, and that is a substantial part of the reason why there will be no easy solution for reducing the underlying factors that contribute to bias-motivated violence. Like with other historical examples of genocides, it would be denied that it’s happening until it’s too late.

Amplifying Echoes of Genocidal Rhetoric

I’ll end this essay with a series of statements from people raising the alarm that there are members of their own society who seem to support not just the murder of Charlie Kirk but also advocate for more political violence. You’ll have to decide if there is merit to their claims:

• “Bluesky is saturated with posts celebrating the attempted assassination of Charlie Kirk. When we say the Left wants you dead, it’s not hyberbole.” Reed Cooley (@reedcooley), September 10, 2025
• “If you go on Bluesky they’re all celebrating the Charlie Kirk assassination. How are we supposed to co-exist with these people?” aka (@akafaceUS), September 10, 2025
• “One of the most appalling talking points that I’ve seen in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder is how many leftists, rather than acting like humans over his death, said the killer did his children a favor so he couldn’t turn them into racist transphobes. They truly believe this.” Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray), September 11, 2025
• “Bluesky user demands that Charlie Kirk’s wife be shot, that the children be given to parents who can raise them to hate their own parents.” Ganesha (@derganesha), September 13, 2025
• “An unstated problem with cheering on Charlie Kirk’s murderer is that it provides an incentive for others to follow suit, knowing they will get adoration and praise.” Michael Malice (@michaelmalice), September 17, 2025
• “SEE IT: The shirt worn by a man who trampled Charlie Kirk’s memorial appears similar to the one the alleged assassin wore the day of the shooting, notes FOX News correspondent Matt Finn.” Fox News (@foxnews), September 14, 2025
• “Charlie Kirk was murdered one week ago today. Not a single building burned down, no looting, no violence. Just prayers and vigils. Meanwhile the left are doing everything they can to provoke his supporters.” CanadaLime (@scotchypoli), September 17, 2025
• “I made a post on BlueSky where I said “Rest in peace Charlie Kirk”. My post was BOMBARDED by people telling me he deserved it, he was a hateful person, a bigot, a fascist, a Nazi and they also don’t care about his children followed by laughing, celebratory images, scorning pictures, and gun pictures plus the most vile and disgusting mockery of the loss of a human life. The mockery extended also to the raw suffering of his wife, father and children.” Metatron (@puremetatron), September 19, 2025
• “Online streamer Destiny has a tour scheduled to follow Turning Point USA around and harass them at their events Here’s Destiny calling for Trump supporters to be shot and killed and says that anyone who disagrees with his politics can and should be censored and deplatformed.” Wall Street Apes (@wallstreetapes), September 19, 2025
• “‘These people will make a straw man of you in their minds [and] they get so f—king mad about it that they celebrate the real you dying.’ This @shoe0nhead video says everything that needs to be said. Watch every minute of it.” Robert Sterling (@robertmsterling), September 18, 2025

This last statement is out of chronological order because I believe it encapsulates an essential component of what happened to Charlie Kirk and why so many cheered or merely shrugged when they heard the news. Moreover, ShoeOnHead’s twenty-three-minute-long YouTube video is widely celebrated for describing and explaining the situation at hand, which is not just why Charlie Kirk was assassinated, but what the implications are that it was a bias-motivated act of violence condoned by multitudes. Two sections are relevant to conclude this essay:

At the end of the day, the shooter’s beliefs don’t matter. One person pulled the trigger, but the reaction of many revealed something darker. Here’s a sample of what people said:

• “Charlie Kirk just got shot in the neck. I’m not saying he deserved it, but God’s timing is always right.”
• “Yo, they got Charlie Kirk, bro. I’ve never been happier.”
• “Rest in peace, Bozo. Charlie Kirk just got put down like a dog in Utah.”
• “I will never feel bad when bad people get what they deserve.”
• “The sympathy for Charlie Kirk is weird. You don’t have to like violence, but I’m confused as to how you thought the revolution was going to be bloodless.”
• “I’ve been saying we need to bring back political assassinations. I don’t think everyone deserves free speech. Some people should be afraid to express their opinions in public.”
• “I didn’t like his opinions, and I don’t care that he’s dead. The best part is he’s not martyr material, so his death will mean nothing.”
• “I’m surprised you didn’t get rid of him sooner. Don’t stop with him—get rid of his wife and kids, too. They’re carrying on that mentality.”

There were thousands of posts like these, some with full names and faces, racking up hundreds of thousands of likes. Each like represents a real person. Millions in this country apparently believe the acceptable response to speech they dislike is murder. These weren’t just fringe “bluehair SJWs.” They were teachers, professors, doctors, HR workers, nurses, pediatricians—people who work with kids.

And:

They called Charlie Kirk a Nazi, and you know what kind of Nazi they think is best? A dead one. They say, “I’m a better person for celebrating a Nazi’s death, and it’s weird you’re not.” They’ll say Nazis have families, but they also get shot in the neck. They don’t kill you because you’re a Nazi—they call you a Nazi so they can kill you…

In the days after, I checked every lefty, liberal, or left-wing person I know to see what they were saying. Besides maybe four or five, they were either unhinged or posting backhanded comments like, “This is why we need gun control.” First, after watching people celebrate a killing over political differences, good luck taking our guns. I felt like I was drowning in the ocean, grasping for a flotation device, checking accounts for a normal take. Nothing. Maybe I was blind until now. Maybe they changed, or I did. Are they going crazy, or am I? All I know is their reaction to this is how they’d react to me, my family, my friends, or you if we ever stepped out of line from their ever-changing definition of progressive. These were people I thought were levelheaded—left-wing, but the “good ones” you could joke with, disagree with, and still be friends.

But if they’d celebrate an exact clone of you with your opinions being murdered, they’re not your friend. I see friends who knew Charlie, and they’re broken. Then I see others posting “RIP Bozo.” It’s sick. I’d rather live in a world full of Charlie Kirks who’d debate than a world of people who agree with me but would murder those who don’t. If it’s now normal to kill over political disagreements, we don’t have a society. It’s over.

Some of these people celebrating think you’re a Nazi, too. They’ll compile your hot takes to justify your murder. We are all Charlie Kirk.

And to drive the point home, I’ll end with a quote from John Pavlovitz, author of If God is Love, Don’t be a Jerk: “‘I am Charlie Kirk’ means, ‘I am a racist, homophobic, transphobic, misogynistic, anti-immigrant fascist who despises empathy.’ Thanks for letting us know.”

(Featured Image: “Charlie Kirk (54670509873)” by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.)