Conservative influencers react to Charlie Kirk’s assassination : NPR

A police officer leaves a building at the University of Utah Valley while the authorities investigate the deadly shootout of political activist Charlie Kirk. Conservative influencers reacted with sorrow and anger at the murder of Kirk.

Michael Ciaglo / Getty Images North America

hide

tilting legend

Michael Ciaglo / Getty Images North America

While the news of Charlie Kirk’s death broke out yesterday, conservative journalist Megyn Kelly interviewed Glenn Beck, an eminent political commentator on the right.

“There are media reporting the worst now Glenn,” said Kelly, stifling tears. “They report that Charlie has died.”

“There is no way that he has survived this,” said Beck about the ball that struck Kirk in the neck when he was talking on a Utah university campus. He then started to cry.

On social media, conservative influencers exploded with a mixture of sorrow and rage. Some have cried Kirk’s loss as a martyr, while others quickly blamed the left and the Democrats to, at the very least, causing the unknown shooter. Some went even further, suggesting without evidence that the malicious forces had orchestrated the murder. Their feelings were resolved by President Trump himself, who published a brief video on Wednesday that started by renting Kirk, before Wakeling to Attack.

“For years, radical people have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to the Nazis and the worst mass and criminals in the world,” Trump said. “This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for terrorism that we see in our country today.”

Kirk, 31, was an eminent member of the political right who, at 18, launched an organization for students sharing the same ideas during the presidency of Barack Obama. He then built this group, Turning Point USA, in a political organization which, among other things, helped President Trump in victory in 2024.

Kirk defended the long -standing Christian conservative causes: large families anchored by a husband and a woman, an attendance of the regular church and a ban on abortion. He also thought that the 1964 civil rights law finally led to discrimination against white Americans and was a regular critic of Martin Luther King, JR. He sometimes used his presence on social networks, his podcasts and his speeches to amplify the votes of the far right and discredited complaints, some of which have thrown immigrants and transgenders.

It was during a rotating event at the University of Utah Valley in Orem, where Kirk was murdered.

In the hours that followed, graphic images of the killing circulated largely on X, as well as reactions from conservative activists. “The Lord God called his servant Charlie Kirk at home. Charlie is now a martyr,” wrote pro-Trump influencer Benny Johnson on X.

A photo of Charlie Kirk is presented during the vigil at Utah Capitol in Salt Lake City after the murder of the conservative activist.

The images of Salt Lake Tribune / Getty North America

hide

tilting legend

The images of Salt Lake Tribune / Getty North America

“We will all miss, and I cannot imagine the pain of his beautiful young family, and we must all pray for them,” wrote the Podcastor Ben Shapiro. “We have to fight for better America – an America where good people can tell the truth and debate with passion without fear of a bullet.”

For many influencers, the news of Kirk’s death was “deeply emotional,” said Nicole Hemmer, a political historian at Vanderbilt University. Kirk had many connections within the conservative media. “He was one of those characters with whom many people were going to send SMS and would go on the road.”

Kirk has also been loved by many ordinary conservatives, and these people should be called to action by his death, said Glenn Beck in his show on Thursday. “There were a thousand Charlie Kirks created yesterday. The tyrant dies and his reign is over. The martyr dies and his rule begins.”

Left to the left

But even when the conservatives were crying, many embarked on the Democrats and the left. “The left has given us conferences for the last decade on the dangers of the violence of the right, attempts to assassinate President Trump, to Brian Thompson, the CEO of United Healthcare, murdered, now to Charlie Kirk, the danger was in fact on the left,” wrote Shaun Maguire, a capitalist capitalist and a conservative political activist. “The left is the murder party,” wrote the billionaire Elon Musk, republishing MacGuire. “If they will not leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die,” he added in response to another poster.

These statements have occurred while the authorities continue to search for the shooter and there is no information on the assassin or motivations behind the attack.

“Without more information, many political right naturally look at those they perceive as their political enemies,” said Shannon McGregor, who studies the media at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. “The easy answer is:” Why would anyone do that? It is because he opposes us. “”

Katie Gaddini, sociologist at the University College of London who studies Christian support for Trump, said that the story could stick independently of the facts.

“It has already been interpreted as an attack on the left, and I think it will be difficult to move this story, no matter what we were discovering about the shooter,” said Gaddini.

Some already blame the Democratic Party and claiming that eminent donors were directly responsible for the murder. “It is not armed violence, it is democratic violence,” wrote the actor and conservative activist James Woods. “The Democratic Party must be classified as a national terrorist organization and their members and leaders treated accordingly,” wrote the podcaster Joey Mannarino.

Many democratic politicians have condemned murder. “The attack on Charlie Kirk is disgusting, vile and reprehensible. In the United States of America, we must reject political violence in all forms,” ​​wrote Gavin Newsom on X. “Political violence is absolutely unacceptable and indefensible,” wrote American representative Ilhan Omar (D-minn). Kirk had attacked Omar both personally and politically in the past.

But statements like these have not done little to suppress anger. “It was a very radicalizing week,” wrote Laura Loomer Conservative. “A message on the left: the debate time is over. You have finished it.”

The loomer and other conservative commentators have started to publish names and positions of individuals who celebrate the death of Kirk, often demanding compensation. A website entitled “Exhibits Charlie’s Murderers” also invited users to submit links to people celebrating their murder. “We seek to collect and archive the bodies of individuals promoting or the glorification of political violence, just like Archive.org or Archive.is”, indicates the website. “We strongly denounce all political violence and all criminal activities.”

But following such horrible public murder, Hemmer fears that more violence comes.

“Violence generates violence,” she said. “When this imaging is there, I think it widens the ability of people of violent revenge.”

Shannon Bond de NPR contributed to this report.