Charlie Kirk, a conservative politician who organized to win young people to support Donald Trump, was shot and killed as he spoke in front of 3,000 people at Utah Valley University Sept. 10. He was known for engaging political opponents and challenging them to “prove me wrong.”
Six days later, Utah County Attorney Jeff Gray filed charges against Tyler Robinson, an electrical apprenticeship student at Dixie Technical College, including aggravated murder and six other counts. Gray said he planned to seek the death penalty against Robinson.
The charging document says Robinson confessed to the killing to his parents and his roommate. It quotes from messages he posted saying Kirk “spreads too much hate.” The document says Robinson’s DNA was found on the trigger of the rifle used to kill Kirk.
Robinson left a note to his roommate under the keyboard of his computer before the shooting saying, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk and I’m going to take it.”
The bullets found with the rifle had political etching on them, including one saying, “hey fascist! CATCH!”
For the last decade, Democrats, the liberal media and the middle-class left have fomented hatred and intolerance toward Trump and his supporters. From the Russia-gate frame-up of 2016, through two impeachment efforts, and a mountain of court cases, their campaign against him has trampled on constitutional protections crucial for the working class.
The shooting of Kirk, and a growing number of violent attacks on political opponents — Democrats, Republicans and others — is a reflection of the deepening political crisis of the U.S. capitalist rulers and their parties. They have no answers to the pressures their system is bringing down on workers today. They fear deepening class struggle is coming.
This is behind the growing intolerance toward opposing views that has become common, especially on campus. Days before the killing, some 900 students had signed a petition demanding college authorities ban Kirk from speaking at Utah Valley University.
In addition, in recent years Jewish students and other opponents of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, deadly pogrom have faced attacks on campuses across the country.
Normalization of violence
Other murderous attacks include the assassination of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, two staffers at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C., May 21. The killer shouted, “Free, free Palestine” as he was being arrested. In Boulder, Colorado, Mohamed Sabry Soliman threw firebombs at Jews attending a June 1 event called to demand the release of hostages seized by Hamas. Karen Diamond died of wounds she sustained in the attack weeks later.
Brian Thompson, CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was shot dead in cold blood on the way to a meeting in New York City last Dec. 4. Luigi Mangione, who was arrested for the killing, became an object of fascination for some on the middle-class left who glorified the brutal slaying, claiming it was a justified protest against the health insurance bosses.
Liberals have targeted Trump and his supporters with venom for years. Hillary Clinton deemed them “irredeemable” and “deplorable” in 2016.
Following Trump’s first election win, James Hodgkinson, a supporter of Democrat Bernie Sanders, set out to kill as many Republican congressmen as possible with a semi-automatic rifle. He targeted them as they attended a baseball game in June 2017, severely wounding Rep. Steve Scalise.
The Democrats’ election campaign in 2024 revolved entirely around branding Trump and so-called MAGA Republicans as “fascists.” They turned to Democratic-appointed prosecutors and judges to try to get him convicted of some crime and thrown in jail. Trump was the target of two failed assassination attempts.
As political intolerance has grown, not only Republicans have been targeted. In June, Minnesota Democratic State Rep. Melissa Hortman and her husband were shot dead. Vance Luther Boelter, arrested for the killings, was caught with a list of other Democrats.
The killing of Kirk — abhorrent to working people whatever their political views — was celebrated by many on the middle-class left. Comedian Brandy Bryant tweeted, “Breaking: Charlie Kirk loses gun debate.” “Kill all Charlie Kirks,” was painted over the entry to Seattle Central College in Washington state.
MSNBC commentator Matthew Dowd blamed Kirk for his own death, saying, “Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.” Fearing a reaction, MSNBC bosses fired Dowd. JB Pritzker, Democratic Party governor of Illinois, tried to pin Kirk’s death on Trump. “I think the president’s rhetoric often foments” political violence, he said.
Both Democrats and Republicans have used the killing of politicians to press assaults on constitutional protections. Christopher Landau, deputy secretary of state, issued a veiled threat to cancel visas and deport any foreign-born person who says anything the government interprets as glorifying “violence and hatred,” in the wake of Kirk’s killing.
“Class-conscious workers, the trade unions, and organizations of the oppressed and exploited must unconditionally oppose anti-constitutional assaults by the government,” the Socialist Workers Party 2022 political resolution says, “on freedom of worship and speech; freedom of the press, association and assembly; prohibition of ‘unreasonable search and seizure’; and other liberties needed and used by the toilers.”
“Whoever the target today, it is working people who will be targeted tomorrow.”