Charlie Kirk on assassination culture

by philg

I didn’t follow Charlie Kirk and had never seen one of his videos, but I was sad to hear about his death today. Sad/prescient post of his from five months ago:

Although I don’t have any personal theories about who might have perpetrated this assassination nor the political leanings of the killer, the statistics that Charlie Kirk put forward above seem right. At least half of my Democrat friends in Massachusetts would kill prominent Republicans, such as Donald Trump, if they thought they could get away with it. They would be doing it not to indulge their rage at people who disagree with them, though they have a lot of rage, but to protect our democracy. Note that most of them would likely prefer less extreme measures, e.g., outlawing voting for candidates who aren’t approved by the Democrats, deporting all Republicans to Eswatini, or making it illegal for Republicans to run for office (a simple measure to protect our democracy from January 6 insurrectionists).

The text of Charlie Kirk’s April 7, 2025 tweet, in case it gets memory-holed:

Assassination culture is spreading on the left. Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump.

In California, activists are naming ballot measures after Luigi Mangione.

The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response.

This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb.

A lot of Charlie Kirk’s recent posts on X were about Iryna Zarutska, murdered by a prime example of the heritability of criminality. Decarlos Brown Jr. is the perpetrator (recorded on video, but that’s not enough for his name to appear on the Wikipedia page as a potential suspect). His brother Stacey Dejon Brown is a convicted murderer (2014 article about a 2012 crime). Their father, Decarlos Brown Sr. is also a convicted criminal (NY Post).

Related:

  • Democrat thought-leader Rashida Tlaib, 2023: “Let’s not forget that Republicans are the Party of Insurrection” (i.e., it would be rational to kill Republicans in order to prevent our democracy from being subverted)
  • A response to the shooting by someone with a lot of experience in this area, below.

34 thoughts on “Charlie Kirk on assassination culture”

  2. Philip Greenspun, I didn’t know where to begin with this post, so best to summarize up front: you are a depraved soul on so many levels. Your total lack of humanity and decency is always evident, but never more so than today.

    You celebrate the arrest and verbally assassinate the entire family of a god-loving Black American whose family suffered generations of Slavery, Discrimination, Oppression and ongoing White Supremacy yet mourn the life of a beautiful, young white girl from a foreign land.

    Equally as disturbing, you have the Moral Perversion to celebrate a person who actually lived the life of a White Supremacist and indoctrinated others to this Racist Ideology and others equally as despicable. Donald Trump, Charlie Kirk and all the others you worship are a cancer on our society, just as your “friends’ from Massachusetts have noted.

    With so many people like you here in America, I now invariably lean toward Michelle’s view of America: she has “was never proud to be an American.”

    Reply

    • Hi B.,

      You said, and I quote:

      “There’s a greater presumption of dangerousness that arises from the social and cultural perception that have been fed to folks for a long time. I think it is not as bad as it used to be, but it’s still there.”

      Someone should have told Iryna Zarutska about cultural perception and to watch her 8. Damn, that was horrible to watch.

      I wouldn’t get on the elevator with you either, and lock my doors when you walked by, not because you are black, but because you are a politician. Eww.

      Say “Hi!” to Chell-Chell for me, and tell her many fine 3rd world countries would love to host her in a shanty town, as we watch the U.S. of A. turn into one, K? Bye.

      P.S.

      I’d like my prize back. And this shiznit isn’t even funny anymore, IMO. It’s a “peace” prize, yo. Peace, out.

  3. How I found out:

    At ~5:30 p.m., ~24-year-old, 5 ft. female coworker ecstatically shouted, “Charlie Kirk is dead! That’s great.” “I only wish this shooter went after someone more important.” “I wasn’t having a good day, but then…”

    Was she 100% serious? Probably not. But it is a highly inappropriate reaction to someone’s death, especially in an office.

    Reply

    • Report her to HR? Nah, they would probably ding you. Maybe one-time for a 5150? Again, “probably not”, might boomerang back. BTW, is she single? I love a challenge. Have her DM me.

      Seriously, though, holy crap. Sorry you have to deal with that B.S.

    • Did she have the same happy response when the Jews were attacked and murdered in Denver and DC? They are causing the genocide, along with supporters Kirk and Trump (Hitler), so deserve the same medicine, no? Go Team Left.

    • She is Jewish, views on Israel unknown. Has discussed experiences with Tinder dates. Female engineer in <5% female workplace.

    • Not quite as joyful as so many millions of Americans when the OJ Simpson verdict came out.

  4. I was just looking at The NPR for their alleged fair and balanced reporting on Charlie Kirk, and saw that the school shooting continues at Evergreen High in Colorado. I’ve been there a few times, nice little mountain town. I can’t imagine it happening to my son or daughter or anybody. When is this madness going to end?

    Reply

    • @#AT

      > When is this madness going to end?

      Found a message in a bottle today.

      —

      From: Atlantis
      Date: 4025 BC

      Never forget your poets, foolish modern people–Homer (the Greek, not the Simpson), Virgil, Dylan (Thomas, not Bob), and Raymond Douglas Davies.

      Girls will be boys and boys will be girls
      It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
      Except for Lola
      Lo-Lo-Lo-Lo-Lola

      — “Lola”, The Kinks

      ^@^@^@…NO CARRIER

  5. Rest in peace Charley Kirk. In his 31 years he managed to accomplish more than 99.999% of population can accomplish in their entire lifespan. I noticed him early and liked him. He was not 100% consistent but nobody is perfect. God takes the best of us early for himself.

    Reply

    • Perplexed: you are so on target with this comment! Thank you!

      I can add very little and hope others here will read and appreciate your comment, particularly those who knew nothing or little about Charlie Kirk (and it appears from my reading here that most knew almost nothing about him). I also hope that some may do a bit of reading and listening to what Charlie Kirk said and accomplished in his sadly short life (please see soooo much video of him on X and other venues). Many others have commented in the past 24 hours that he was destined to run for President eventually and would have won…I would definitely agree, but I am biased. He was super smart (despite not attending college), super articulate and SUPER nice!! What a sad day for America and the world.

      RIP Charlie Kirk!

    • Barry,

      Wow, are both you and Lil M.O. in FL this week? Good to see the happy couple here.

      Angry? Thanks to liberal marijuana laws in my state, medicinal gummy bears render me incapable of anger, or much range of motion.

      Don’t worry, be happy, and pass the dutchy from the right-hand side.

    • ‘Sup B. How did you get Phil’s web address? Remember when I rolled by the WH and your posse wouldn’t let ME in? And remember your own words about how blacks are perceived? I said:

      “I get a phone call from a strange number. I say ‘hello’? It’s the president. I said ‘Mr. Obama, how’d you get my number?’. He said ‘Come on, Shaq, I’m the President’.”

      If Phil wants to talk to you, man, he’ll call YOU. (And we know that is you pretending to be Lil M.O. here, to try to talk to Phil.) Now step off, and stop trying to make everybody so damn angry.

  7. I never heard of Charlie Kirk before today. Based on the little I’ve learned about him it seems he was exceptionally capable of achieving his goals.

    I’ve not felt so far out of the loop in a long time. The NY Times headline describes him as a “Charismatic Right-Wing Activist”. Fox News seems to assume you already know who he is, but if you scroll far enough he’s described as an “eternal optimist”, “young conservative powerhouse”, and “transformative figure.” None of this explains why this guy was so well known, and evidently so well liked by some and so disliked by others. Is he prominent on social media?

    Today reminded me of Chuck Klosterman’s 2017 Essay “Something Else”, on the subject of celebrity deaths in the social media era. Since this blog often shares excerpts for its readers, I’d like to do the same here:

    On any given day, the only news I cannot escape is the avalanche of histrionic emotion concerning whatever famous (or semi-famous) person recently stopped living. When David Bowie died in January 2016, the level of communal online mourning was so massive (and so prolonged) that I wondered if we’d reached the apex of social media as a means for memorializing the passing of celebrities. “We can’t do this for everybody,” I thought to myself. “We will run out of poignant hyperboles.” But then Prince died in April, and the escalation advanced.

    … From here on out, there’s never going to be a downturn in the number of high-profile corpses arguably worth remembering, particularly in a media landscape driven not by institutions but by any private citizen who cares enough to argue. Perversely and predictably, recognizing the death of a celebrity on Facebook has become a form of lifestyle branding: Expressing sadness over the passing of an obscure calypso musician is public proof that you care about obscure calypso music. Posting the posthumous photo of a forgotten sitcom star is proof that you were one of the few who did not forget, because that sitcom has now been integrated with your own formative experience. If everyone in your news feed is mourning the passing of Garry Shandling or Joe Garagiola or Leonard Cohen, you can absolutely throw your unvarnished emotions into the mix, even if you hadn’t really thought about the individual for twenty-five years. I mean, who could possibly question your motives? A man is dead.

    Reply

  8. I had never heard of Charlie Kirk until this news.

    What I find interesting is that, unlike other high-profile televised shootings, nobody is talking about gun control this time around. Same thing happened when Trump got shot.

    So why aren’t liberals jumping all over the news right now demanding stricter gun laws like they do after similar incidents? Could it be because they are actually happy to see Charlie gone?

    Reply

    • George, a couple little secrets to share with you (keep them on the down low, please):

      1) You are correct, most of us are gleeful that Charlie has been Eliminated (I’m guessing you understand?).
      2) None of us care about “gun” violence per se. We all know that no gun has ever killed anyone (I’m guessing you understand this too?). But we Leftists, based on literally decades of experience, understand that blaming violence on guns helps deflect from the Real perpetrators of violence in our society (chief among them black males, who murder people at a rate of 52.3 per 100k vs. 6.1 for white males), who comprise a large chunk of our voters. Comprende?

    • George, if you haven’t already, take a look on X at the ghoulish postings by Leftists celebrating Kirk’s murder. One guy on MSNBC was actually fired for his comments (surprising, actually!). If you don’t have an X account, just sign up for one using a pseudonym and “follow” some of the folks with large followings (e.g. Musk), who re-post stuff that is relevant to current events.

      X has literally become the new “news”…NYT and other traditional news providers have ceded any moral authority over “news” in the past 5-10 year following the Covid censorship and other scams (particularly NYT).

    • @BO Me again. Hey, while I’m thinking about it, could you return that Shaq-Fu 2D video game and the Shaq-Fu: Da Return CD I lent you during the Chinese trade policy round table meet-ups? They are a little over due. We know you are ever so happy in your $11 million palace on the Vineyard, how come you haven’t had me over for so long, old man? I’ll drop by on the yacht. Ta ta for now. Out.

      P.S.

      How come PhilG’s moderators haven’t shown you to the curb?

  10. Gun control isn’t going to help with anything like this shooting if the current reports are true that the murder weapon is a bolt action Mauser .30-06 hunting rifle. Indeed that is a far better weapon to go sniping with than the ones folks are getting their panties in a wad about.

    Reply

    • And if the shooter turns out to be a leftist, isn’t that like the undertaker making his own business? (Hint: they want all our guns, Anonymous, and for us not to hunt.)

    • A minutemen with a Kentucky “jaeger” rifle black powder muzzleloader would make that shot. The rifle was a hunting rifle and it had superior ballistics to “weapons of war”, ie smothbore black powder muzzleloaders that British troops were armed with.
      This not to diminish tragedy of what happened and an enormous loss that Charlie Kirk’s wife, children, family, friends and all of us suffered. This was a clear act of usual left’s political terror and it must be dealt with adequate enforcement tools. It has been going for a while, with sever attempts on Trump.

  11. Philip — What do you make of this?

    https://x.com/i/grok/share/wAWeNt4M2nKwn98Cn0YckZ1Wf

    “23% of Americans overall agree that “true American patriots may have to resort to violence to save our country” (up from 15% in 2021). Breakdown by party: 33% of Republicans (vs. 13% of Democrats and 22% of independents).”

    As a quick sanity check, suppose you tuned into shows/podcasts across people from the left and right (before the Kirk shooting).

    Which hosts were talking about needing to use violence? Which hosts were talking wistfully about civil war? Which hosts were more likely to send Christmas cards of themselves posing with rifles?

    It’s not Rachel Maddow.

    Reply

  12. David, so good of you to highlight that Right-Wing Violence is the core issue we need to confront aggressively here in America! I think a lot of folks don’t fully appreciate that sad fact.

    Just recall a few short years ago when the worst-of-the-worst Right-Wing groups (Black Lives Matter) was Rioting and Burning down dozens of cities, which resulted in the deaths of many innocent people–at least 25 by my count (I’m pretty good at mathematics as Phil can attest). They also literally looted and burned retail stores in their own neighborhoods. Who in the world on the Left would do that?

    My Joey seconds the comments above by his mentor Barack Hussein Obama: Stay Angry!

    Sincerely,
    Dr. Jill Biden.

    Reply

    • > Right-Wing Violence is the core issue we need to confront aggressively

      Um, Jill, isn’t aggressive confrontation a form of violence? Oh, I’m sorry, I forgot you were the straw man/woman/questioning “Dr.” here. Carry on.

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