Now that it appears Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin was steeped in right-wing gamer culture, the Republican/conservative ecosystem seems to be coalescing around attacking the free-speech rights of those who did not respond or continue not to respond in a sufficiently mournful and respectful way. That is, everyone must speak of Kirk as a great man and never think about or mention the things he believed and said or the incivility with which he often said them. Those who fail to do so will be fired, deported, and perhaps worse.
Don Moynihan (Michigan) provides a comprehensive discussion. Updating what I wrote yesterday, Pete Hegseth announced that they are coming after service members. Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin sent a letter threatening all public employees with reprisal for social-media posts. NBC News reports at least a dozen instances of educators (college and secondary) disciplined for their posts about Kirk. And I forgot to mention MSNBC’s Matt Dowd and a sports reporter for a Phoenix radio station.
Bari Weiss’s Free Press offers the most ridiculous take–universities are to blame for political violence, including this one, because they act like madrassas radicalizing students and denying tenure and suppressing conservative ideas. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and other right-wing commentators got the memo and have begun to push this theme; they seek to justify and increase ongoing attacks on universities, faculty, and students. Moynihan shows why this is absurd. Never mind that Robinson spent one semester at Utah State and more time at a technical college; even if universities indoctrinated–we don’t–he most certainly did not receive any in that short a time at those schools. Also, every indication so far is that whatever political ideas he held and acted on were not ones he would have gotten in a semester of college. Charlie Kirk’s life’s work belies the claim that universities do not allow conservative speech, including obnoxious speech– they allowed him and the organization he founded to exist and thrive on campus. Moynihan’s piece is worth a read.
Appearing on PBS Friday, David Brooks said he had received texts and emails from people saying Kirk’s murder is the right’s George Floyd. If true, this exposes the free-speech opportunism that supposedly defines the free-speech warriors on the right. This is a fun-house mirror of what happened in 2020, with the right doing all the things that in 2020 they ridiculed and decried as horrific intrusions on free speech: Universities announcing positions on non-campus public controversies; universities offering emotional-support services and programs for students affected by distant controversies (FIU had one with the chaplain for the university policy department; people fired or sanctioned (cancel culture!!) for criticizing the victim (recall the many stories and social-media posts insisting that Floyd was a bad guy responsible for his own death).
By all accounts, the shooter was immersed in a subset of right-wing culture. But the right is still finding ways to blame and attack the left for it, without any grounding in fact or reality. It is kind of impressive, if you think about it.
Posted by Howard Wasserman on September 13, 2025 at 12:01 PM