Tyler Robinson is currently under arrest and in custody in Utah for the murder of Charlie Kirk. Reportedly, Robinson’s father turned him in. Reportedly, Robinson’s family is all MAGA, all ultra-conservative and Trump-supporters through and through, and they’re also huge gun nuts. Robinson, a 22-year-old white Mormon, is not cooperating with authorities. Currently, various law enforcement agencies are going through Robinson’s extensive digital footprint and WaPo even says that Robinson likely confessed to the Kirk murder online.
Of course, I’ve seen some theories online that while law enforcement believes that Robinson is absolutely the shooter, they’re trying to ruin the case against him because they’re mad that they can’t blame Kirk’s death on leftists or Democrats or marginalized communities. They want to use Kirk’s death as a “Reichstag fire” to completely destroy liberal groups, free speech and more. This is not even a conspiracy at this point – both JD Vance and Stephen Miller are speaking about this openly now.
President Trump and his top advisers threatened on Monday to unleash the power of the federal government to punish what they alleged was a left-wing network that funds and incites violence, seizing on Charlie Kirk’s killing to make broad and unsubstantiated claims about their political opponents.
Investigators were still working to identify a motive in the death of Mr. Kirk, a prominent conservative activist who was shot last week in Utah. The Republican governor of Utah, Spencer Cox, has said that the suspect had a “leftist ideology” and that he acted alone. But Mr. Trump and his top allies suggested that the suspect was part of a coordinated movement that was fomenting violence against conservatives, without presenting evidence that such a network existed. America has seen a wave of violence across the political spectrum, targeting Democrats and Republicans.
Two senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal planning, said that cabinet secretaries and federal department heads were working to identify organizations that funded or supported violence against conservatives.
The goal, they said, was to categorize as domestic terrorism left-wing activity that they said led to violence, a continuation of existing efforts by federal agencies to try to punish liberal groups they have accused of funding or otherwise supporting violent protests. One tactic has been to target the tax-exempt status of nonprofits that are critical of Mr. Trump or conservatives.
Several other officials, from Vice President JD Vance on down, made it clear on Monday that they believed that political violence was a liberal problem and not a conservative one. They used Mr. Kirk’s podcast, with Mr. Vance as guest host, to announce that they would be cracking down on what they called leftist nongovernmental organizations, and that they would use every available lever of the federal government to do so.
“With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, eliminate and destroy this network and make America safe again for the American people,” said Stephen Miller, the president’s top policy adviser.
From his office at the White House, Mr. Vance invited other senior members of the administration to praise Mr. Kirk and decry the “far left.” The show was broadcast on the television screens in the White House briefing room and in several West Wing offices. And while he acknowledged that “our side of the aisle certainly has its crazies,” Mr. Vance placed the blame for most political violence on “proud members of the far left.”
So… this is the game plan: they’re going to lie about Tyler Robinson’s motives and pretend that he was radicalized by the far-left, up until the point where he either plays ball or the case against Robinson collapses entirely. In the meantime, they’ll ignore the realities of Kirk’s death – that it was an internecine issue within the extremist right-wing – and do a “crackdown” on groups which, like, work to register new voters.
Photos courtesy of Cover Images.
- Foreign Secretary David Lammy welcomes US vice president JD Vance to Chevening House in Kent, during his visit to the UK Featuring: Vice President JD Vance, David Lammy Where: Chevening, United Kingdom When: 08 Aug 2025 Credit: Suzanne Plunkett/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
- Foreign Secretary David Lammy welcomes US vice president JD Vance to Chevening House in Kent, during his visit to the UK Featuring: Vice President JD Vance Where: Chevening, United Kingdom When: 08 Aug 2025 Credit: Suzanne Plunkett/PA Images/INSTARimages **NORTH AMERICA RIGHTS ONLY**
- Pete Hegseth, JD Vance and Stephen Miller visit National Guard troops in Union Station. Vice President JD Vance and top White House adviser Stephen Miller ridiculed “old” and “white” protesters who hurled verbal abuse at them during a visit with National Guard members deployed as part of President Trump’s crime crackdown. Vance, Miller and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth treated the Guardsmen to a meal of Shake Shack burgers in the Union Station DC train hub as demonstrators made themselves heard in the concourse. Miller blasted the protesters as “elderly white hippies.” Featuring: Pete Hegseth, JD Vance, Stephen Miller Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 20 Aug 2025 Credit: Natascha Tahabsem/Cover Images
- Pete Hegseth, JD Vance and Stephen Miller visit National Guard troops in Union Station. Vice President JD Vance and top White House adviser Stephen Miller ridiculed “old” and “white” protesters who hurled verbal abuse at them during a visit with National Guard members deployed as part of President Trump’s crime crackdown. Vance, Miller and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth treated the Guardsmen to a meal of Shake Shack burgers in the Union Station DC train hub as demonstrators made themselves heard in the concourse. Miller blasted the protesters as “elderly white hippies.” Featuring: Pete Hegseth, JD Vance Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 20 Aug 2025 Credit: Natascha Tahabsem/Cover Images
- Pete Hegseth, JD Vance and Stephen Miller visit National Guard troops in Union Station. Vice President JD Vance and top White House adviser Stephen Miller ridiculed “old” and “white” protesters who hurled verbal abuse at them during a visit with National Guard members deployed as part of President Trump’s crime crackdown. Vance, Miller and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth treated the Guardsmen to a meal of Shake Shack burgers in the Union Station DC train hub as demonstrators made themselves heard in the concourse. Miller blasted the protesters as “elderly white hippies.” Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 20 Aug 2025 Credit: Natascha Tahabsem/Cover Images
- President Donald Trump during an executive order signing in the Oval Office of the White House. Trump is signing two executive orders Monday aiming to end cashless bail in Washington and nationwide, marking the latest move in the administration’s agenda to crack down on crime. Featuring: President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, Pete Hegseth Where: Washington, District of Columbia, United States When: 25 Aug 2025 Credit: Al Drago/POOL via CNP/INSTARimages.com
This is the descent into fascism and they’re not even trying to hide it anymore. In June, right-winger Vance Boetler gunned down democratic Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, and also shot State Senator John Hoffman and his wife. Tell us again how the problem is a vast, violent left-wing network.
Charlie Kirk was killed in a school shooting. And like the overwhelming majority of school shooters, he was killed by a cis, het, white, Christian man who subscribed to right wing ideology and had a hate on for the entire world because he felt entitled to a better life than he had.
We need to start calling all school shootings political violence because that is what they are.
We have no idea if this shooter was planning a mass shooting but got lucky on his first shot and decided to run.
Yeah, and I’m pretty sure all this “the shooter isn’t cooperating” we keep seeing is really that they are in negotiations with him to confess to being a leftist – with what seems like very little evidence.
(For instance, I’ve seen some rumors his roommate, who might also have been his partner, was trans, but only on social media, I’ve not seen it corroborated with any real press.)
It makes me think they are trying to get him to lie about being a lefty for a reduced sentence, etc., although hopefully he’s smart enough to realize his best chance at a reduced sentence is to remain a white cishet conservative male and hope for Rittenhouse treatment.
If he confesses to fit their pretend violent leftist fantasy BS, the Maga faithful will demand his execution, and given the weird lionizing of Kirk as though he’s some military hero who died protecting the US rather than the shock jock podcaster/influencer he was (still didn’t deserve to get murdered of course), plus this administration’s desire to bring back public executions…if Robinson falls for it and lies about being a lefty, you can be sure he’ll be the first public execution. No matter what they promise him beforehand to get him to pretend to be a lib.
Ironically he was in a *romantic* relationship with a male classmate who is transitioning to becoming a woman. Funny how that hasn’t been mentioned in legacy media.
Trump was asked post-Kirk by a reporter (remarkably) why he didn’t lower the flag for the Democratic legislator and family gunned down. He said he didn’t recall the crime. When reminded, he said that he would have lowered the flag but no one asked him. At the time, he also declined to meet the Democratic Governor, using abusive terms about him. No point in saying ‘imagine what the media would say if Obama…’. That ship sailed in 2015.
I have another theory: he’s a patsy. What father turns his son in? I mean. From a purely psychological point of view, as a parent, I find this inconceivable. Marguerite Oswald hired Mark Lane to defend her son Lee *after* he was killed. From charges on which the entire planet had already convicted him. And Lane turned out to be a genuine Atticus Finch. Maybe he’s actually — as he’s entitled to be presumed — innocent until proven guilty. And I have no idea how you would prove his guilt when none of the dozens (if not hundreds) of security cameras on the campus where Kirk was killed recorded the accused that day, in a form that would be acceptable beyond a reasonable doubt. Not one. Puzzling. Also? The chain of evidence attributing custody of the murder weapon to him is hopeless. Unless they find his fingerprints on it. Which… they won’t. It was recovered in a field, abandoned. Does the gun match the wound that killed the victim? Probably. But who actually used it, is a matter of conjecture. How did he get it onto campus? How did he get it *off* campus? It’s a sizeable piece of equipment. The footage I saw of a figure escaping the scene of the crime by vaulting himself / herself over the edge of the roof, scaling down the side of a building, running across a parking lot, slowing to blend in with bystanders, then strolling casually into traffic at a busy intersection sited conveniently next to campus, gives no glimpse of a weapon, or anything that could be a dismantled one. ….this is a case that would not likely get a conviction, if the media were not able to convict him in the court of public opinion. By circulating his photo to all and sundry. And claiming his father turned him in. That’s what convinces people of his guilt. Like Marina Oswald turning on her dead (estranged) husband. I mean…. We certainly have a deep state, no air quotes. We don’t need the Israelis to do this for us. But I would submit the Reichstag moment was in !963. And the playbook hasn’t changed much.
Any decent parent would turn in their child if they confessed to an assassination.
I believe the father turned him in b/c there’s no way the authorities would have taken him alive.
Maybe he just wanted the $100,000 reward. It would be pretty-in line with the MAGA mentality.
@Mrs. Smith ITA, he was allegedly admitting to the shooting. It was only a matter of time before the SWAT team was going to be breaking down their door and shoot him. Dead men tell no tales so it would have been easier for Trump and his goons to spin the story.
A father who is acquainted with the GOP lust for blood would want to protect his son. That’s not even getting to the morality of it.
What do the Israelis have to do with this? Are you talking about Mossad?
It’s a RW conspiracy theory: that Bibi is behind this, Don’t hurt your brain trying to make sense of it.
When I first heard Kirk was shot I assumed it was some kind of publicity stunt to distract from the Epstein files. Like how Trump was “shot” in the ear.
Before this man was identified, some people were convinced Mossad did this, because antisemitism is popular right now.
They explained it by Kirk turning his back on Israel lately. And that it was done by a professional sniper who escaped on a plane.
Even with the truth now known, some really really want it to be a Mossad job.
I have to disagree with you on whether a parent would turn their child in. I thought about this quite a bit as a mother of two teenage sons. I hate Charlie Kirk, but I would turn my child in. I would be afraid of what other violence my son would be capable of if he could murder even a hateful man in cold blood. We all hate Charlie Kirk (here on this site), but actually killing him is another matter.
The Unabomber’s parents and brother identified him for the FBI.
JD is desperate to make a play to lead this portion of the cult. He knows how deeply unpopular he is and the shooter being demographically uncooperative really pushed these guys too far past cognitive capabilities of reconciliation. I believe this is the start of the play to push Trump out. They will go too far and it will all come crashing down.
this is to reply to @SB, I’m with you, there, up to a point where I foresee a wrinkle: JD can only come in as a peacemaker, not a cult leader. Standard playbook for helping a fanatic off the stage, is to say, look, this has gone too far. JD needs to pivot back to law and order. This was the cue to everyone to say, walk it all back. Take a breath. I don’t think it will go that way now. It hasn’t really gone that way before. There’s a period of superficial calm, when people are stunned, and then all hell breaks loose. Kirk isn’t a big enough fish to generate the stunned effect. So when you appeal for calm, it doesn’t have the same force. Cause a lot of people *are* calm — left, right, what they have in common is the dawning perception that the powers that fancy themselves play both sides against the middle.
@ParkRunMum, I’m not sure what you mean by standard playbook – perhaps reasonable people looking to calm down the fanaticism? Unfortunately standard ain’t JD *or* the cult he wants to control: he’s not looking to help a fanatic off the stage, he’s desperate to grab the fanatics’ fervor by any means possible.
The cult he wants control of loves violence, wants an excuse for violence, wants a government that will celebrate them for their violence while cracking down on any and all who disagree.
Leaning into this violence and fanning it further is the *only* way for Vance to get more popular with this crowd (even if it is the worst thing a POTUS or VP could do right now for the country as a whole).
If Vance came out promoting peace, cooling the temperature and calming everyone down, they would boo him away as not racist, anti-leftist enough.
After all, it’s very likely that Kirk was killed for those very reasons.
Our nation has already tipped so far into facist authoritarianism, and I don’t know what we (regular people, I don’t mean the politicians bc they’ve all gotten us into this mess and don’t seem to be helping enough right now at all) can do to save our democracy.
Just an aside, but has anyone else noticed Trump and Vance seem to be competing for Pete Hegseth’s affections?
They are treating Kirk like he was a politician or military vet, as opposed to what he actually was-a podcaster. I think the whole thing is so bizarre but they are clearly going to use this to their advantage.
This….the canonization of a podcaster no one I know (on both sides) had ever heard of before is ridiculous and insulting to people who actually deserve it like, say, the Minnesota legislators who actually did live in service.
And honestly, I’m waiting for phase 2 and trying to turn his widow and kids into their version of Jackie Kennedy and young Caroline and JFK, Jr.
It’s so weird. We’re in the UK and my b/f has mentioned him a few times and each time I ask if there’s anything on there about the school shooting and the children who were murdered on the same day.
Kirk’s wife has already picked up the mantle of her husband’s destructive hyperbole and is threatening the world and inciting all his followers, worshipers and sychophants to rise up and create a wave of revenge.
Oh, thank you. I try to keep in touch, but Kirk has never been on my radar. I mean, I had heard his name, but not that he was some kind of guru/savior/saint that they’re making him out to be.
The Canadian conservatives asked for a moment of silence for Kirk when parliament opened yesterday. WTF. He’s not Canadian and he is irrelevant to us. If we had a moment of silence for every American shot we wouldn’t get work done.
Also free speech in Canada isn’t the same as the U.S. there are restrictions on hate speech and most of what Kirk said would have gotten him in trouble.
@Nic919 – I could not believe it when I read that. WTF? Why would the Speaker agree to a moment of silence for this neo-nazi hate monger? He has nothing to do with Canada. And with everything else going on (ie: trump hating on us) why would the powers that be consider this to be a good look for our parliament?
I had never heard of him before, either. But apparently he’s a huuuge deal among the more Nazi-leaning MAGAs.
If there were truly a liberal, left-wing group advocating for violence… please shut them down. I think we can all agree on that. That said, there isn’t, and that’s not what’s going on here.
Progressive organizations are suing the Trump admin constantly and winning, which is why SCOTUS ruled that federal district judges can’t but nationwide injunctions on Trump’s illegal orders pending appeals. Cases are still going to appeal, but Trump wants the groups bringing the legislation shut down so he doesn’t risk losing.
November can’t come soon enough.
Was watching CBS this morning, and they summed up the shooter as into left wing ideology as a bullet point, like it was just as a matter of fact and straight reporting. Which is false, because this was different factions of right wing extremist on right wing extremist violence, the killer was a Nick Fuentes fanboy, like that is a documented, and the misinformation was stated like it was fact, with no pushback. On CBS. This country is fucking doomed. You can’t trust any mainstream news. It’s all owned and pushing narratives that support oligarchs and the oligarchs want a Russian style kleptocracy here, which Trump’s fascism is enabling for them.
The Governor of Utah is really a piece of work. At first I thought he was handling things well and seemed to be really trying to be lower the temperature. Now he’s acting like a whiny little puppet.
So many news outlets are confirming that as fact. Even our local news in Boston did so. Insanity.
Apparently “into left wing ideology” means “knows someone who might be LGBTQ”
He lives with a man in a romantic relationship who is transitioning to become a woman. So you hit the nail on the head.
Well, if anyone was wondering what kind of prez old Shady would be if Thump kicks the bucket, now we know.
Honestly, he seems worse. If anything could make me hope Trump finishes out his term it’s JD Vance.
Anybody watch Andor.
It is a political thriller set in the star wars world, only minus all the star wars woo-woo.
It is about the every day cost of being under the evil empire’s thumb, and fighting against that empire.
There is a season 2 episode about an event where the empire massacres a city, the Ghor are the people who live there.
Tensions are high as the empire takes more and more, while the Ghor try to go along to get along, but the empire needs basically to use the planet for something else, so all of the inhabitants will have to go.
So when a pr smear campaign about how crappy the Ghor are doesn’t fully do the trick, the empire sends untrained recruits out into the crowd- and then one of the empire’s snipers shoots their own guy, so they have an excuse to start massacring civilians, which they then do.
This is how fascism works. And the evil empire in our country is a very short stop from executing peaceful protesters en masse.
Welcome to the rebellion.
Andor needs to be a must watch for Americans because the events in that show are a warning as to what can happen.
this is to reply to @Ariel, that is *fascinating* and thank you for sharing!! Indeed, the playbook is, score an own goal, blame it on the oppo, then attack the oppo. There’s one interesting theory about the Kennedy assassination, that holds there was a dispute between rival power groups over the meaning of it all. One group wanted to use the event as a pretext for an invasion of Cuba, which could have risked a nuclear war. Hence the need to paint Oswald as a Communist. Some of these people were presumably even happy to contemplate a nuclear exchange, in the vein of, let’s get it over with. End the Cold War. Etc. Some of these people likely imagined you could limit the damage to the conventional theatre. Ultimately both alternatives were nixed because Johnson refused to invade Cuba, as too high a risk. So, they got the Vietnam war instead. But then they had to pivot from the Communist villain narrative, to the lone gunman narrative. I’m thinking a narrative is the spin you give to facts when you need to re-arrange the facts to support an agenda. The narrative is how the facts are yoked to that agenda.
Just to add there are people who will recognize the phrase “as God is my witness” as a climactic point in Gone With the Wind — where Scarlett O’Hara at her lowest decides not to be defeatist anymore and determines to prevail in the new world.
In movie, fist in the air moment swearing to the heavens, if that sounds familiar ..
I always associate that phrase with Scarlet, though I know it certainly didn’t originate with her. How dare Vance co-opt her words, though. As she herself would say, he’s not fit to lick her boots,
They both believe in the Confederacy and white supremacy. And it was Stephen Miller who used the phrase so that tracks too. Don’t think Scarlett would mind in the least.
With a potato in her hand that she just tried to eat raw
My question is, who’s minds are they trying to change? Independents know how to read. People on the Left see right through this. People on the Right will believe whatever their politicians tell them as long as it confirms their priors so…..maybe nonvoters? The politically ambivalent? IDK I just don’t see a ton of value behind peddling a false narrative here. The Goypers shit is easy enough to find, as that identity exists mainly online.
And obviously I get that this is just a pretext to foment more violence against the Left but I also think it will alienate people who are already sick of how divisive our country has become. Maybe I’m being too optimistic…
I wish I could share your optimism. This whole thing has made me feel so hopeless and depressed. They will do anything to make this fit their narrative and we can’t even count on a free press to push back
One thing I have been thinking of as “mainstream” (evidently far right, based on their caping for these ghouls) media has shown the full extent of their depravity is that we as normal people need to coalesce around something reality based. That is the seed of a real movement instead of us most of glaring at our screens in horror. We can no longer trust most media outlets (nor have we ever been able to, really. Let’s think back to how the GOP stole 2000 and crapped the bed with the Iraq War and the media just… manufactured consent, mocking those opposed to the war); we need to boycott meaningfully and coalesce around something, help make that something become a larger outlet. We need reality based media and while I could probably think of a half dozen littler substacks and writers, it needs to be at least slightly more central than that.
When I saw that the couch f**ker was podcasting (actually gaslighting us) from the vice president’s ceremonial office, I knew we had reached a new low. But I’m pretty sure there is no bottom. We’ll just continue to drop like an elevator with broken cables.
You are right that there is no bottom for Vance and Trump here.
I think MAGA is panicking because they were counting on Kirk to repeat the momentum he delivered for them in 2024. Now there is a vacancy for that role that could be filled by someone much less effective (let’s hope) in 2026 and 2028. Kirk delivered the young white male vote, and young people have already started questioning their Trump votes. So MAGA is enraged and we can expect them to break every legal and moral rule they can to make the “Left” pay.
This canonization of Kirk is sickening to witness. I’m not on X, but there was a link yesterday to a pastor who spoke the truth, and it was wonderful to hear his congregation’s response. Try to find that video if you can. Alfred Street Baptist Church in Alexandria, VA. I’m donating money to that church this week.
JD forgot to mention the right-wing militias, such as the kkk and the Proud Boys. Will JD shut those down too?
I KNEW they were going to use this as their Reichstag fire.
There is sooooo little actual information! Please post links to whatever legit sources you have on Robinson a) being ultra-right (not just what his parents are or how he grew up), and b) whether he really lived with/was in a romantic relationship with a trans person. I am so hoping that the left’s spin on this turns out to be true, that Robinson is a groypher or whatever and that this is the ultra-right fighting the far-right. But I’m not seeing much that isn’t just Instagram posts or tweets with theories, and I feel like both sides are full of spin (which is weird because usually the left is so much more fact based). The FBI isn’t letting out any info that contradicts theories that the Trump administration wants to push and it seems like they’ve threatened anyone with real information (like the family) into keeping quiet.
Apparently he didn’t vote last time, which at least means that he at the time was neither very against Trump nor very pro Trump.
And his messages, first atributted to left political leanings, were just internet memes and jokes.
Which in a way makes it worse, because apparently there is a whole subculture online of youngsters fascinated with assassins, school shooters and the like. Not just individuals, whole comunities. For them, there is no message, the murder itself is the goal.
this is exactly how fascism takes hold. stifle dissent. incite fear. the only free speech is Republican speech.
Really. They’re cracking down on “leftist groups”, eh? When did they ever stop? Imagine that, the suspect apprehended for the killing was raised in an ultra-conservative household and they promptly outed themselves as MAGA as soon as the suspect’s identity was known. In addition, he was shot while spouting off his brand of nonsense at a university in Utah where people had the right to openly carry firearms! Open carry ruled the day, something that most left-wing people think should be outlawed. And these geniuses are after leftist groups. Well, keep searching.
The Center for Strategic and International Studies says violent far right extremists have been responsible for 94 of the 108 terrorism fatalities (87%) in the past 5 years. So what about that JD???
It reminds me of this.
Horst Ludwig Georg Erich Wessel (9 October 1907 – 23 February 1930) was a member of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary wing of the Nazi Party, who became a propaganda symbol in Nazi Germany following his murder in 1930 by two members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD). After his death, Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels elevated him into a martyr for the Nazi Party.
ok. So I’ve been reading — on Wikipedia mostly — about the differences between Kirk and Fuentes for the past hour or more. And here’s what leaps out at me: they represent whiter shades of pale, credit to the song, insofar as their differences break down into shades of Charles vs William, or, Nixon vs Wallace, or, Reagan vs Rockefeller, or Lachlan vs James Murdoch. Etc. the dialectic of the right (to use the Marxist paradigm in reverse) is: you’re not going far enough. You have to go further. You see this in Israeli politics too, which is perhaps what accounts for the cross-pollination, and conspiracy theories: Bibi vs Smotrich, if I’m spelling his name correctly. Or — classic case — Ben Gurion vs Begin. Again, if I’m spelling his name correctly. The right vs the far right. The “moderates’ vs the lunatic fringe. Vance does not strike me as a lunatic. He strikes me as a middle-America, midwestern suburban dad with a plaid shirt and a paunch, cosplaying a lunatic. Badly. Trump strikes me as a wilfully malicious agent of chaos. Vance strikes me as grounded by comparison. Not progressive, but not nuts. Just — you know, cishet standard. The only way Vance takes over Magaworld is if Magaworld has a civil war and they need a compromise candidate. I think that’s what this is about.