Within hours of Charlie Kirk being shot dead at a college event in Utah, he had been turned into a far-right martyr in the US’s raging culture war. Many prominent rightwing voices and influencers quickly characterized his murder as an act of war from the left – and have vowed to respond in kind. “We have to have steely resolve,” said conservative strategist Steve Bannon on his show War Room. “Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country. We are.”
Even as the suspect and motive remain unknown, incendiary rhetoric spread rapidly online, blaming leftist violence for Kirk’s death. Elon Musk wrote on X: “If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die.” Fox News host Jesse Watters said on air: “They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. What are we gonna do about it?” Commentator Matt Walsh wrote: “We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell.”
Donald Trump released a video statement blaming “the radical left” for the shooting and vowing to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity”. He listed several violent incidents, including his own attempted assassination, but omitted the shooting of two Democratic lawmakers from Minnesota in June. Meanwhile, all three living former presidents condemned political violence and called for calm.
Kirk, 31, shaped gen Z conservatism through his organisation Turning Point USA, leveraging rhetoric about “liberal rot” in education. He was known for controversial views, including calling for a total ban on transgender healthcare and describing immigration from Muslim countries as “civilisational suicide”. He was shot from about 130 metres away while on stage at Utah Valley University.
Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism, fears the reaction from the right will lead to further violence. “The singular message emerging from across the right is one of vengeance and retribution,” he said. “The rhetoric being used by elected officials and mainstream figures is indistinguishable from the vitriolic statements by far-right extremists, which only further increases the likelihood of retaliatory vigilante violence.”
