Charlie Kirk was assassinated on the campus of Utah Valley University by student Tyler Robinson. The battle of dumb and dumber in this edition of leopards eating each others’ faces wasn’t on my bingo card. This is a red on red crime.
The shooter Tyler Robinson was MAGA. His entire family is MAGA. He grew up MAGA. The shooter was raised by Republicans in a faithful Mormon household. He grew up with guns. And now, if you follow TikTok, read Anil Dash on Bluesky, or listen to Hawk Podcasts, you know Tyler Robinson the assassin is a Groyper.
Being a Groyper
A groyper is subset on the Right that follows Nick Fuentes, a proud Nazi and racist provacateur. He’s very anti semitic. He’s very racist.
Groypers are deeply rooted in their anti semitism and in their belief that most of MAGA and Republicans overall are not conservative enough. Groypers believe many MAGA are actually traitors to the United States, because they place the interests of Israel ahead of the interests of the United States.
Nick Fuentes and his followers do not like Charlie Kirk. Nick Fuentes is religious, and he’s very pro young white man. Fuentes loathes JD Vance. He continually criticizes Israel, and he promotes a lot of things. It’s important to listen to Fuentes if you want to slip inside the minds of racist gun owners.
Nick Fuentes and Charlie Kirk had personal grievances. Charlie Kirk was a staunch supporter of Israel and he supported what Israel was doing in the Gaza Strip to Palestinian civilians.
Some commentators on the Right have latched onto the fact that one of the bullets had the etching “Take that Anti Fascist”. Fascism to groypers is placing the interests of Israel ahead of the United States.
MAGA is never going to accept the fact that this shooter was one of theirs. That’s never going to happen.
Radicalised in college
It’s easy to find right wing media saying, “Well, he went to college. He was radicalized to the left in college.” FACT: Tyler Robinson went to college in Utah with a bunch of white people from Utah, a state that Donald Trump won three times, one of the most Republican MAGA havens in America.
But to Right Wing Media, these facts don’t matter. Conflict matters. The Blame Game matters. From the White House comes the clarion call for retribution against the Left. Yet the Left had nothing to do with the killing of Charlie Kirk. Black people had nothing to do with killing Charlie Kirk. Yet the day after the killing, five historically black colleges and universities had to be shut down because of the bomb threats and the threats of violence that they were receiving because of the killing of Charlie Kirk.
What Charlie Kirk Meant to MAGA
I don’t think that most people on the Left have any real concept of what Charlie Kirk meant to the Right and what he represented to the Right.
I do believe there will be a wave of retaliation for the killing of Charlie Kirk. And the retributions will be just like the SS perfected when scorching whole villages for the actions of one Resistance fighter.
In My Family
For decades, members of my family, my cousins, my offspring, have voted Republican. It’s handy enough because you don’t have to process a lot of information, just pull the lever and vote Republican all the way down the ballot.
If you have to think about the issues, your brain shoots off into a million different directions and that’s not good so the best thing is to keep things simple and vote Republican. You think you’re doing something good because it’s normal and your friends agree.
After a few decades of listening to the same commentators and reading the emails from Trump and buying the merch, you don’t have your own Identity. You have the identity of the cult. You’re not allowed to have your own–and you don’t want to.
MAGA’s will comes first and so information never fully connects. Until other things happen like MAGA assassinating MAGA. There are stressful times in the family home of the young white male shooter. I reckon the family is very scared, in their own way. The minister came over to talk to the shooter after he told his dad that he shot Charlie Kirk.
So the family is looking for leadership. They’re not getting that leadership from the top of the political movement they follow. When reporters asked Trump how he feels after the shooting, he mentioned Charlie was like his son. And then Trump nonchalantly pointed to the construction material around the White House. He wanted people to see that he was building a ballroom! Trump wanted the attention right back on himself. After all, Charlie Kirk obviously can’t deliver the youth vote for MAGA anymore. There’s no need to talk about Charlie Kirk anymore.
So divert your eyes to Donald Trump, the man with no empathy. This is what you should expect when you do business with the world’s best con man and a world class malignant narcissist.
You play stupid games, you win stupid prizes. In this era of deep polarisation in America.
Sources:
Post by @anildash.com on Bluesky, September 15, 2025
Peter Baker, In an era of Deep Polarization, Unity Is Not Trump’s Mission, The New York Times, September 14, 2025.
Will Somers, Racist ‘Groypers’ Step up Attacks on Campus Conservative Groups in The Daily Beast, December 11, 2019