Who Killed Charlie Kirk, the Left or the Right?

Today, authorities announced that 22-year-old Tyler Robinson was arrested for the murder of Charlie Kirk. As I said yesterday in my post about Kirk, within hours of his death, he was transformed into a political totem as groups across the political spectrum sought to define him as a symbol to benefit their own political goals. Immediately upon Robinson's arrest, a similar process began as parties attempted to define him as politically aligned in a way beneficial to their own interests. Conservatives were eager to portray him as a leftist, partly to justify a broad attack on the political left that cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump has promised and for which many of them are drooling. Those on the left, on the other hand, were eager to demonstrate that Robinson was anything but left-leaning, partly to ward off the feared attacks. Online, Robinson is being accused of being everything from a far-left adherent of Antifa to a far-right follower of Nick Fuentes, commonly known as Groypers. What is the truth? Presumably, Robinson will be able to speak for himself at some point. But now, all we have is speculation. So here is my speculation.

What we can say about Robinson is that he is a white, apparently straight, Mormon male from St. George, Utah. While he is registered to vote, he is not formally affiliated with either major party. His mother bragged about his perfect high school grades and high college entrance examination score, but Robinson only appears to have attended college for one semester in 2021. Things that he is not are a racial minority, transgender, or a Democrat, all things that were suggested during the manhunt.

Most of what we know about Robinson's politics comes from Utah Governor Spencer Cox. Speaking at a press conference this morning, Cox explained that a family member of Robinson's had reached out to a family friend who, in turn, had contacted the Washington County Sheriff's office with information that Robinson had either confessed or implied that he had killed Kirk. Based on remarks by Trump, the family member was Robinson's father, and the family friend was their minister. Spencer said that family members had indicated that Robinson had become more "political" in recent years, though Spencer did not indicate what type of political leanings Robinson had demonstrated. Spencer also recounted a conversation between Robinson and a family member in which Robinson and the family member discussed why they didn't like Kirk and the viewpoints that he had. Spencer said that the "family member also stated that Kirk was full of hate and spreading hate." While this is a minor point, I want to emphasize it because many news outlets are reporting that Tyler Robinson made this remark. However, if we are to assume that Spencer is accurate in his remarks, at least two members of the Robinson family disliked Kirk's viewpoints.

Spencer then disclosed inscriptions that were found on bullet casings. Yesterday, a leaked report had claimed that the bullet casings had writing that supported "transgender and anti-fascist ideology" on them. Later statements from government sources cautioned that this allegation had not been confirmed. In today's press conference, Spencer read the inscriptions. The first was "Notices Bulges OwO What's this?" This is the caption of a meme that is used to troll others and references unexpectedly learning that a love interest is a male. It was originally aimed at "furries" but can also be used to troll a straight male by suggesting that a woman in whom he is interested is actually transgender. The second inscription was "Hey Fascists! Catch!" followed by the up arrow symbol, the right arrow symbol, and three down arrows. This is a reference to the Eagle 500kg Bomb from the video game Helldivers 2. This is a satirical game in which a player nukes fascist aliens despite the player being a fascist. Third was, "Oh Bella, ciao, bella, ciao Bella ciao ciao ciao." which is the chorus of a song dedicated to Italian resistance groups who fought the Nazis during World War II. The last inscription was "If you read this, you are gay LMAO", clearly using "gay" as a slur.

Today, the Internet is full of people analyzing these expressions as if they were the Da Vinci Code. One deduction that can be made is that Robinson was extremely online. One has to be buried pretty deeply into meme culture to know most of these. Many, including Governor Cox, are focusing on "Hey Fascists! Catch!" It just happens to suggest that it was written by someone from the political left. However, those on the left generally frown upon jokes about being gay or transgender and, in context, the fascist inscription means the opposite of what is assumed. Therefore, at best, the inscriptions are a political mixed bag.

Most of the recent mass shooters have left manifestos laden with memes and Internet subculture references. Those who study such things repeatedly warn that nothing involving such writing should be taken at face value. Those embroiled in cultures of trolling will likely troll when they produce such documents. The same warning is probably valid in the case of these shell casings. Is Robinson seriously signaling his political alignment, simply trolling the public, or attempting to provide a misleading trail for investigators to follow? We simply don't know at this point. It is also worth noting that many extremely online young people do not have coherent political views. This is particularly true for those who have had their political awakening in the meme world. Someone can easily be on the left on some issues and on the right on others. In a world in which we have a President who claims to be strongly anti-socialist but also has a policy of taking ownership positions in private corporations, politics can be confusing.

Another tantalizing clue about Robinson's political views has come to light. A photo from his mother's Facebook page showing him in his Halloween costume dressed as a "guy from a meme" and wearing what appears to be a "Gopnik" outfit. Gopnik memes are popular with the Groyper followers of Nick Fuentes. This would be a pretty strong indication of Robinson's political leanings except that it is from 2018. A young male such as Robinson can go through a lot of changes between the ages of 15 and 22. 

An obvious question is why a right-winger would want to shoot Charlie Kirk. This requires some understanding of far-right groups. Kirk, and his Turning Point USA organization, is closely aligned with Trump and the Republican Party. Nick Fuentes and his Groypers are to the right of them. Fuentes and Kirk competed for the same audience of young males. For years, Groypers have attempted to disrupt Turning Point events. As writer Robert Downen, who has followed what he calls the "Groyper War," says, the Fuentes-Kirk feud is "how a generation of angry young men took their first step into the fascist rabbit hole. For many, it was as simple as starting to question why Charlie Kirk wouldn't say XYZ about ABC." Another interesting development occurred late yesterday when Nick Fuentes, who had not said a word about Kirk since the shooting, suddenly hosted a live podcast during which he said, "To all my followers, if you take up arms, I disavow you. I disown you. In the strongest possible terms. That is not what we're about." To many, this appeared as if Fuentes was attempting to get out in front of news that the shooter was one of his followers. The last thing Fuentes wants, of course, is angry Kirk supporters taking aim at him.

While there is a case to be made that Robinson is almost a textbook example of a Groyper, it is also true that, strange as it may seem, the step from Nick Fuentes to a movement like Antifa is not that large or necessarily unusual. One thing to understand is that in the United States, Antifa is a movement rather than an organization. Antifa does not hold monthly membership meetings or elect officers or anything of that sort. Rather, local groups that share philosophies with the broader Antifa movement may describe themselves, or more often be described by others, as Antifa. It is unlikely that in Robinson's neighborhood of Utah there is much Antifa presence. He may have participated in online communities that loosely adhered to Antifa's ideas. But that's all speculation on my part. It's also possible that Robinson approached online communities more like a buffet than a sit-down restaurant and he picked and chose from a number of different political ideologies. This is all something that hopefully will come out in the future.

At the moment, it is clear that Trump and his MAGA movement are eager to cast Robinson as a doctrinaire leftist so that they can crush the broader left-liberal movement. Given Trump's penchant for inventing his own reality and punishing those who don't immediately adhere to it, few Republicans are likely to want to be the messengers of contrary information. I will note two things from today's press conference. While Utah Governor Cox said that Robinson had become more political lately, he did not say in which political direction. I think that a question about Robinson's specific political attitudes would have been asked by investigators, and Cox likely knows the answer. I am fairly certain that had Robinson been described as a supporter of George Soros and Bernie Sanders, Cox would have mentioned it. Instead, he was quiet in this regard. Second, when asked about the bullet casing inscriptions later in the press conference, Cox said that the statement about fascism speaks for itself. That suggests to me that Cox is leaning into the idea that Robinson was on the left. The upshot is that we will have to take everything with a grain of salt for a while.

Update: David Shuster (former MSNBC reporter) is reporting on X the following: 

According to Utah officials + police interviews with his family, Tyler Robinson hated Charlie
Kirk because Kirk wasn't conservative enough. (Robinson reportedly admired Nick Fuentes). GOPer's now scrubbing X posts about dems faster than DOJ erases Trump name in Epstein
files.