The assassination of far-right activist and Turning Point founder Charlie Kirk during an event at Utah Valley University has provoked discussion and debate.
Marxists oppose political assassinations and other forms of individual terror, including against reactionary figures. Such acts do not defeat far-right movements. Creating martyrs only fuels the far-right’s cause and its figureheads are rapidly replaced. For example, if Donald Trump had been assassinated in July 2024, Vice President JD Vance would have likely replaced him as President.
Importantly, such tactics divert from the immediate struggles against the Trump regime’s attacks and on the building of a mass, anti-capitalist revolutionary movement of the working class and oppressed peoples.
Kirk’s alleged killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, is an apprentice electrician from Utah. Robinson grew up in a right-wing family. His father and mother are Trump supporters and reportedly told Robinson’s prosecutors that their son’s views had moved to the left.
Lost in the discussion over Kirk’s assassination is that the majority of political shootings in the US in recent years have been by far-rightists. After Kirk’s killing, FBI director Kash Patel reportedly scrubbed this fact from government reports documenting it.
The mass media blamed the assassination on the erosion of civil dialogue between “conservatives” and liberals. This is a bland and meaningless position. Even the term “conservative” whitewashes the ultra-right-wing reactionary politics of the Trump Republican Party — which is nothing like traditional Republican conservatism.
The media praised Kirk for allowing opponents to come to the front of his outdoor meetings and present opposing views. There was no reportage about what Kirk stood for, and in many cases, denials about his well-known views.
Weaponised
Trump hailed his “good friend” Kirk, ordered the flag flown at half mast on government buildings, gave Kirk a posthumous Medal of Freedom and spoke — along with Vance — at his memorial rally in Arizona on September 21.
Ignoring the commentary about “civil dialogue”, Trump used the assassination to launch an attack on the left. Trump announced that he would designate a variety of groups as terrorists, including “Antifa” — which is not a group as such, but how some individuals and anti-fascist groups describe themselves. The following day, Trump issued an executive order designating “Antifa” as a domestic terrorist organisation.
Trump also told the memorial rally that he would bring racketeering charges “against some of the people that you’ve been reading about that have been putting up millions and millions of dollars for agitation”.
Vance said: “Of course, we have to make sure that the killer is brought to justice. And importantly, we have to talk about this incredibly destructive movement of left-wing extremism that has grown up over the last few years and, I believe, is part of the reason why Charlie was killed by an assassin’s bullet. We’re going to talk about how to dismantle that.”
Joining the calls for retribution was White House adviser Stephen Miller, spokesperson Karoline Leavitt and Health Secretary RFK Jnr.
Since Kirk’s assassination, scores of politicians, public figures and private-sector workers have faced job loss, suspension or investigation for commenting on his assassination. Late night media host, Jimmy Kimmel was taken off air by the Disney network, on September 17, only to be reinstated following protests.
The Washington Post’s last remaining full-time African American opinion columnist, Karen Attiah, was sacked earlier in the month.
In a September 15 post on her Golden Hour Substack, Attiah wrote: “Last week, the Washington Post fired me. The reason? Speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns.”
Kirk’s views
Kirk was publicly and virulently opposed to transgender rights and debates around this have escalated since his murder. The suspect’s life and social circles have been meticulously scrutinised for any connection to the transgender community.
Just prior to being shot, Kirk was answering a question about the alleged prevalence of transgender people among the nation’s mass shooters — an idea he had put forward.
Taking over Kirk’s podcast after the assassination, top Trump administration officials suggested they were gearing up to avenge Kirk by waging war on left-leaning organisations, despite police statements indicating that Robinson likely acted alone.
The connection was further stoked when the Wall Street Journal reported that a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives report falsely suggested that etchings on bullet casings found with the rifle suspected to have been used in the shooting included transgender “ideology”.
It was further inflamed when it was reported that Robinson’s roommate and romantic partner is transitioning.
Kirk’s anti-LGBTI positions extended to quoting Bible passages saying gay men should be put to death.
Kirk was a racist, white Christian nationalist, who attacked Martin Luther King Jnr, the civil rights movement and the 1965 Voting Rights Act that won African Americans the right to vote in the segregated “Jim Crow” South.
Another of Kirk’s projects at Turning Point was a “professor watchlist” to “expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom”, which has created a climate of fear and led to expulsions and disciplinary actions against university professors, especially during Trump’s current term.
Nathan Connolly, a history professor at the Johns Hopkins University told the Baltimore Banner: “I feel less safe after Kirk’s murder. I think that his death, like his life, ripens murderous fruit.”
Christabel Cheung, a cancer researcher at the University of Maryland, was placed on the watchlist for “racial ideology” after she gave a talk about health equity for young cancer patients. She was repeatedly harassed and received hundreds of threatening emails. She said “I think some of the coverage that valorizes [Kirk’s] views is quite disturbing.”
The Trump administration’s threats against the “left” deepen the attacks on civil liberties and democracy.
Trump’s September 25 National Security Presidential Memorandum (known as NSPM-7), Countering Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence,represents “a declaration of war on anyone who does not support the Trump administration and its agenda”, according to Ken Klippenstein.
NSPM-7 broadens the powers of the state to surveil and “disrupt” groups that engage in “organized doxing campaigns, swatting, rioting, looting, trespass, assault, destruction of property, threats of violence, and civil disorder”.
In it, Trump writes: “Common threads animating this violent conduct include anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, and anti-Christianity; support for the overthrow of the United States Government; extremism on migration, race, and gender; and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.”
In this dangerous climate, we should redouble our efforts to build opposition to the government’s actions — from arming Israel’s genocide to its intensified racism and authoritarianism — and advocate and build mass actions against them.
We also need to oppose the Democrats’ complicity, including its silence.