Martyr Unmade

Reflections on the one year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s murder

Charlie Kirk was murdered one year ago today. The assassination caused a moment of semi-unity for a polarized nation, with an unprecedented outpouring of support for the slain conservative. The tragedy caused the Right to put aside its many divisions to mourn Kirk and strengthen its resolve to defeat the Left. Anyone who celebrated it, or even tried to minimize it, risked cancellation. Prominent liberals even felt it necessary to praise Kirk after his murder.

Much of the Right expected the assassination to inspire a social revolution similar to how George Floyd’s death changed the country. America would experience a cultural shift to the Right, a crackdown on the Left, and a religious revival in the wake of Kirk’s assassination.

But that didn’t happen.

Kirk’s death has instead been trivialized. Charlie now serves as a source either for crackpot theories or for irreverent memes. His murder ended up exacerbating the Right’s divisions and retardation while the Left cast aside its caution to revel in the assassination.

Kirk’s death was a tremendous loss for America, and a sign that our country increasingly can’t take anything seriously. Terror attacks, assassinations, and other horrific acts can be quickly forgotten and turned into memes. In the TikTok age, it’s hard to turn anything into a serious call for action. Everything can be forgotten and trivialized. Even George Floyd has gone from a martyr to a meme. The same happened with Kirk.

The fault for this lies with both the public and elements of the Right. The public became indifferent to the murder and moved on, allowing the Left to exploit it as a joke. Meanwhile, the Right turned Kirk’s murder into a carnival of bullshit that further undermined the seriousness of it with idiotic conspiracy theories designed to increase audience engagement rather than public memorialization of the fallen conservative.

Kirk was arguably the most important conservative in America. He was a critical player in the transformation of the Right, as told in Whitepill. He helped mainstream ideas once consigned to the fringe, such as the Great Replacement and criticism of MLK. He pushed for immigration to become one of the central planks of modern conservatism. Most importantly, he was able to translate these ideas into real-world engagement through his campus events and deep connections to the GOP. No one has emerged to fill his massive shoes. He was a unique figure who deserves to be memorialized as a great American.

Ordinary conservatives still properly revere Kirk. Turn on Fox News today and you’ll be greeted by earnest tributes to the TPUSA founder. The tens of thousands preparing to attend remembrance services across the country still treat the murder with the appropriate level of seriousness. Republican politicians will still try to remember Kirk through public memorials and naming landmarks after him. Kirk will certainly not be forgotten.

But the public isn’t as concerned with him. According to a conservative polling firm, only 24 percent of the public even knows Tyler Robinson was a leftist. Very few believe the country is menaced by left-wing terrorism. Kirk, for regular Americans, was just a nice young man cut down by a random maniac. In their eyes, that’s all there is to it.

It’s difficult for normies to deeply care about anything that doesn’t directly impact their lives. Unless you were a highly-engaged conservative, or a liberal who hated him, you weren’t invested in caring much about Charlie Kirk. He wasn’t the president or a widely-beloved entertainer. One could even argue that Dolly Parton’s natural death upset normies more than Kirk’s murder. The average normie thought the Kirk slaying was awful, but that’s about as much as it registered. As soon as the murder was solved, there was no more reason for them to keep up with the story. It was a terrible thing, but it didn’t change anything in their lives. They moved on.

This is how normies not that plugged into social media think of Charlie Kirk. For those plugged in, Kirk has become a meme. Hop onto TikTok and you will find numerous AI-generated videos of the TPUSA founder going on adventures with George Floyd and Jeffrey Epstein. “You have created a million Charlie Kirks” and the “We are Charlie Kirk” song are now internet punchlines. Clips from his assassination are now regularly used to jokingly react to sports and entertainment news, further trivializing his murder. If you see Kirk content now–and it’s not about how his wife or Israel killed him–it’s most likely going to be a goofy meme.

The normie indifference to Kirk has helped the Left. No longer do leftists need to tiptoe around the slain conservative. Now they relish every opportunity to mock Kirk’s death and condemn the victim as a “bad” person. You no longer have to worry about losing your job or getting harassed by a right-wing internet mob for minimizing or reveling in Kirk’s assassination. In fact, the only people who still face any Kirk-related consequences are those who witnessed the murder and conspiracy theorists suspect are in on it.

Hasan Piker defines the Left’s current mood towards Kirk. He jokingly sang “We Are Charlie Kirk” at a recent event, prompting outrage from conservatives but with no real consequences. He also praised Candace Owens for spreading conspiracy theories about Kirk, arguing the idiotic notions undermined the Right’s response to the killing and helped the Left avoid blame for it.

I couldn’t put it better myself.

As I’ve long argued, the Right’s response to the murder has been a disaster in itself. While many right-wingers were confident the assassination would trigger a civil conflict, it only generated a civil war within its own ranks. The most obvious source for dissension was the conspiracy theories that blame the murder on Israel, TPUSA, Erika Kirk, France, and pretty much everyone but the Left. Instead of worrying about left-wing extremism, the conspiracists fixate on Trump, Erika Kirk, Blake Neff, and other conservatives as the real villains of the story. It makes its adherents turn into Tyler Robinson fans, with many prominent conspiracists wishing to free the man who killed Kirk. There is no evidence for the conspiracy theories besides altered camera images and hallucinations from Candace Owens’s imagination.

It has genuinely convinced millions of people. Tyler Robinson’s trial should’ve convinced any person with a functioning brain that he alone killed Kirk. But the trial did little to dampen enthusiasm for the conspiracies surrounding Kirk. They’ve become a matter of faith for those who entertain them.

It begs the question as to why right-wingers so eagerly believe theories that undermine their own side and aid the enemy. One reason is that our side can’t resist conspiracy theories, no matter how idiotic or libtarded they are. They’re addicted to conspiracism. This explains the audience’s belief. But most influencers should know better. They spread these ideas because it increased viewership and kept the Kirk story alive. It gave them firepower to attack their rivals within the Right and turned the murder into a never-ending soap opera. It was perfect for engagement, and certainly much better for that all-important factor than telling the truth about the murder.

There’s another popular influencer narrative that’s far less malevolent but also redirects anger away from the Left and on to the Right. This narrative insisted Kirk was killed by an elaborate Antifa terror network that the admin has done absolutely nothing about. In spite of explicitly blaming the Left, this content usually rips into the admin and other right-wingers for being too “weak” to intern tens of thousands of leftists. Believers in this narrative rile themselves up against the rest of the Right over this apparent failure.

The admin has done a lot to crack down on leftist terror since Kirk’s death. Several potential terrorists have been arrested and convicted of serious charges. Federal law enforcement now focuses far more on left-wing extremism rather than anything on the Right. The feds labeled numerous international Antifa groups as terrorists, including a digital collective that helps numerous leftist websites. This resulted in several Antifa sites going offline. These moves have greatly upset the mainstream media and liberals, but have done nothing to satisfy the demands of the influencer set.

Tyler Robinson obviously killed Kirk over politics. The extreme rhetoric pushed by leftists made the killer think he would be justified in the act. The celebrations vindicated that opinion. However, there wasn’t a terror network behind Robinson. He acted alone to impress his troon partner. Robinson’s family and friends, including the trans roommate, all cooperated with authorities. Demanding a roundup of all leftists in response to the shooting was never feasible, especially at a time of increased concern for civil liberties. People are far more worried about Flock and public surveillance than they are about terrorism. That even includes the people criticizing the admin for not interning thousands of leftists.

The narrative the admin did nothing about the Left after Kirk’s slaying isn’t as malevolent as Kirk trutherism. It still is directionally correct and gives proper respect to Kirk and his family. But it also demoralizes the Right and convinces people that the guilty parties still roam free.

These narratives are motivated in large part by the desire to keep the story alive. A lone gunman randomly killing one of the most important political figures in America isn’t easy to accept. It isn’t satisfying for the story to end with the conviction of Robinson. Many want there to be more there, and for more to pay for this tragedy. The conspiracy theories and the incessant demands to arrest thousands of leftists keep the story alive within the influencer sphere.

But it didn’t stay alive with the public, at least not in the way the Right intended. The public wasn’t inspired to do more than shake their heads at such a terrible event. They weren’t eager to hand over their liberties to allow the admin to intern Democratic leaders, left-wing influencers, and random people who celebrated Kirk’s murder. They did find the mockery of Kirk awful after his death and weren’t upset that people lost their jobs over such behavior. But they no longer care about it. The expected religious revival didn’t quite pan out either, with data showing no discernible surge in church attendance or faith after Kirk’s death. The normies moved on to other matters.

Charlie Kirk’s death was an irreplaceable loss for the Right. There is no one like him who can connect the Right’s vanguard with its established politicians and institutions. There is no one like him who can keep the peace among the Right’s many factions. There is no one like him who can present an optimistic, normie-friendly face of conservatism to millions of college students. There is no one like him who can communicate the frustrations of the base to President Trump. And there is no one like him who can make a movement focus on winning rather than delivering non-stop ragebait.

The conspiracy theories are far worse than random leftists posting memes about Charlie Kirk’s murder. We know the Left is filled with scumbags, and it’s good that they expose themselves. The callous memes don’t convert anyone. The conspiracy theories and demoralization narratives actually do persuade people on our side. That’s why they’re more of a menace.

We can never replace him, but we can honor his memory by not letting his death be used to turn the Right into a carnival of bullshit.

Order Scott Greer’s new book, “Whitepill: The Online Right and the Making of Trump’s America,” from this link.