The Brooklyn Rail

We know that Tyler Robinson’s family are all long-time Republicans and that Tyler thought his father became more “diehard MAGA” after Trump was elected the second time. Tyler was very worried about what his father was going to do if Tyler lost “Grandpa’s gun,” the heirloom rifle he used to assassinate Charlie Kirk, a Mauser M 98, that his Grandpa had apparently given him, and Tyler had fitted with a $2000 scope. The M 98 bolt-action rifle was originally made in 1937 for Hitler’s Wehrmacht and was later modified for civilian use. This one was chambered for a .30-06 Springfield round, of which Robinson fired only one, killing Kirk.

We also know that Tyler was in an intimate relationship with a man who was transitioning to a woman, and Tyler’s hatred of Charlie Kirk could have been because of Kirk’s anti-trans, anti-gay stances. Robinson might have thought he was protecting his trans lover, like Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon (Sidney Lumet, 1975, based on a true story). “There’s too much evil in the guy, spreading hate. . . . .Some hatred can’t be negotiated out,” Tyler told his lover after he’d murdered Kirk.

We also know that Robinson, 22, spent a lot of his time online and playing video games, and that his grasp of Real Life seemed to be tenuous at best. He actually thought he was going to shoot and kill an extremely famous person in a public space surrounded by admirers and then walk away and retreat to the online world where he was safe. He had only been thinking about doing this thing in the Real World for a week and he left a note for his lover saying, “I had the opportunity to take out Charlie Kirk, and I’m going to take it,” like it was a move in a video game.

It appears that the only two connections Tyler Robinson had to the Real World were his Grandpa’s Gun and his trans lover.

Two days after the shooting, Governor Spencer Cox, the Republican governor of Utah, appeared on Meet the Press, where instead of piling on liberals, he turned the debate back to the urgent subject of the effects of social media on us all:

I believe that social media has played a direct role in every single assassination and assassination attempt we've seen over the last five, six years. Cancer probably isn't a strong enough word. It has taken us a decade to understand how evil these algorithms really are. I can't emphasize enough the damage that social media and the internet is doing to all of us. Some of the most powerful companies in the history of the world have figured out how to hack our brains, get us addicted to outrage—which is the same type of dopamine, the same chemical you get from taking fentanyl—and get us to hate each other. I'm seeing it in real time in the tragic death of Charlie Kirk. I'm seeing it in every corner of our society. The conflict entrepreneurs are taking advantage of us, and we are losing our agency.

Stephen Miller and JD Vance immediately used the assassination of Charlie Kirk to stir up hatred of liberals and anyone on the left, and to set aside the First Amendment in their attacks on people who disagree with them. Donald Trump clearly believes that anyone who speaks about him negatively or makes fun of him should be censored and/or prosecuted and jailed.

On September 13, Laura Loomer posted on X: “How much do you want to bet we are going to find out there is a Trans terror cell that groomed Tyler Robinson and possibly even provided him with the gun to kill Charlie?” And Steve Bannon is “not buying” the theory that Robinson acted alone. He thinks the Kirk assassination is somehow linked to what happened in Butler, Pennsylvania, and that both were organized by Antifa. He told Politico, “The biggest thing is to broaden the assassination investigation from a single murder to the broader conspiracy. If we are going to go to war, let’s go to war!”

The public memorial for Charlie Kirk at State Farm Stadium (home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals) in Glendale, Arizona, a suburb of Phoenix, on September 21^st was half memorial and revival meeting, and half MAGA rally, and it was the largest public display of the attempted merging of Evangelical Christianity with Trump/MAGA that has occurred.

The Department of Homeland Security, led by Kristi Noem, declared the memorial service in Arizona a top-level security event, equal to the Super Bowl. No bags of any kind were allowed into the stadium and people had to line up in the early morning hours to get through security. All of the speakers spoke from within a bulletproof glass cage.

Many of the early speakers emphasized Charlie Kirk’s martyrdom and said that he was killed for teaching the Gospel of Christ. All the parts of the revival that came from the heart and soul were moving and strong. But as more and more members of the Trump Cabinet took the stage—including Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Tulsi Gabbard—the tenor of the speeches changed. Stephen Miller promoted his usual Manichaean view of the world and spewed his hatred of anyone who doesn’t agree with him:

We stand for what is good, what is virtuous, what is noble. And for those trying to incite violence against us, those trying to foment hatred against us. What do you have? You have nothing. You are nothing. You are wickedness, you are jealousy! You are envy! You are hatred! You are nothing! You can build nothing. You can produce nothing. You can create nothing. We are the ones who build. We are the ones who create. We are the ones who lift up humanity.

This line of thinking was continued by Don Jr., who used his time at the podium to advertise for new converts: “If you believe in God and family and country, you are one of us. If you reject the propaganda of the Fake News media, welcome.”

As the afternoon wore on, the merging of conservative Christianity and the MAGA movement continued to fray and separate. Finally, Charlie Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, rose and spoke movingly of her love for her husband and his mission. “He wanted to save young men just like the young man who killed him. That young man,” she said, “I forgive him.” She said she did this because it was what Christ taught and what Charlie Kirk would have done. She also said, “When we lose the ability and the willingness to communicate, we get violence.”

The memorial should have ended with Erika Kirk’s eulogy, but it didn’t. Donald Trump then took the stage and gave a long, rambling rally speech, enumerating his magnificent achievements as President, and his differences with Charlie Kirk. “I don’t love my opponents. I hate my opponents. And I don’t want the best for them!”

As the crowd began to file out in boredom and disgust, Trump shouted, “Does everybody love MAGA?”