Liberals Try, and Fail, to MAGAfy Charlie Kirk’s Assassin

In the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, there have been widespread efforts to downplay, or outright lie about, the motivations of his assassin, Tyler Robinson. Prior to ABC suspending late-night talk show host and political commentator Jimmy Kimmel, he had this to say:

“We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang trying to characterize this kid who killed Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Heather Cox Richardson, a liberal blogger with a large following, made similar comments connecting Robinson to the “far right,” claiming that he had targeted Kirk for not being right-wing enough. A cursory scan of social media in the days after the assassination revealed several people claiming to buy into this lie, with much made of the fact that Robinson comes from a conservative, pro-gun family.

This is all nonsense, of course: Robinson has stated that he assassinated Kirk because he “had enough of his hatred,” and he had begun a relationship with his transgender roommate. His mother has stated that he had become more leftist in the past year. In the past week, we have been treated to a barrage of similar liberal rhetoric claiming how hateful, racist, and Nazi-esque Kirk was. Nicer liberals have been generous enough to say that doesn’t mean he should have been murdered, while others have said he had it coming.

Loosely labelling political opponents as bigots is a time-honored liberal tradition, and typically when liberals cannot blame their political opponents for violence, they simply pivot back to generically blaming guns. In this case, though, they are trying to have their cake and eat it too: several of them clearly don’t mind that Kirk is gone, but they want to absolve their side of any responsibility, so they attempt to make the shooter a conservative as well. It is unclear how many people who repeated this lie actually believe it, and how many are trying to mislead the public for political purposes.

Like most things in politics, this invented theory will likely be forgotten without anyone involved admitting they were wrong, or that they made it up. Democrats are well-aware that they have their share of supporters who take their apocalyptic rhetoric against conservatives to heart. They just don’t want to be held responsible when something like this happens.