As more details and reactions across the political sphere emerge in the following days and weeks about Charlie Kirk’s gruesome public assassination during an event at Utah Valley University, one thing is clear already: the Trump administration is maneuvering to use this to target its political opponents and clear the way for his reactionary agenda. For those who are fighting against the Far Right’s attempts to curtail our democratic rights and attack the living conditions of millions of working people in the United States, we must be clear that our best defense against the weaponization of Kirk’s death is collective action from below.
After the 31 year-old far-right influencer was shot in broad daylight, much of the country held its breath to hear what Donald Trump’s reaction would be to the death of one his closest allies and supporters, the ultra-reactionary Christian nationalist who gave a voice (and scapegoats) to a sector of angry young men identifying with the Far Right. His first muted reaction seemed to reflect the mood of much of the rest of the country: shock.
However, within hours, even without any information about the shooter or their motivations, Trump shifted course to use Kirk’s murder to blame the Left for such acts of very public violence. Speaking from the White House, Trump called Kirk a “martyr for truth and freedom” who was targeted by the “radical left” for his “American values”:
For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now. My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it […]
From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania last year which killed a husband and father to the attacks on ICE agents to the vicious murder of a healthcare executive in the streets of New York to the shooting of House Majority leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died.
Trump is using the shock and horror at this event to paint over the violence and hate spewed by people like Kirk and his supporters as justification for the Far Right’s vicious attacks against immigrants, its anti-trans policies, its attempts to criminalize all criticism of racism and capitalism, and to neutralize its opposition. Trump paints “political violence” as the actions of the Left, saying nothing of the violence committed by the Far Right, such as the recent murder of Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband, or the daily violence carried out by ICE agents against immigrants across the country.
It’s not a coincidence that Trump’s statement conflates protests against ICE raids with Kirk’s killing. We’ve already seen Trump weaponize the use of student protests against genocide in order to target immigrants and those who criticize U.S. imperialist intervention, and it’s clear that Trump construes the “radical left” as anyone who opposes his agenda for what it is: a reactionary, xenophobic assault on the rights of workers and oppressed people everywhere.
The proof can already be seen in how his supporters and fellow far-right figures are amplifying Trump’s promise to crack down on his political adversaries. X is plastered with attempts to doxx anyone who criticizes Kirk. Trump adviser Laura Loomer threatened that “The best way President Trump can reinforce Charlie’s legacy is by cracking down on the Left with the full force of the government. Every single Left wing group that funds violent protests needs to be shut down and prosecuted.”
The response to Kirk’s killing could serve as an accelerant in a scenario marked by the Trump administration’s escalation of repression against those who stand in the way of his political vision, from pressure to crack down on pro-Palestine activism and the defense of LGBTQ+ rights in schools and universities to the deployment of the National Guard to quell protests against mass deportations. Kirk’s killing could pave the way for the government to go further in the measures it has already employed — from executive orders to deploying armed forces — to not only force its most unpopular policies through, but to hamstring the struggle of the working class and oppressed to defend their hard-won rights.
Trump and his allies will use the boogeyman of “radical left political violence” to justify its own political, state-sanctioned violence against working people and the oppressed. This doesn’t mean we can back down in our opposition to the Far Right, imperialism, and for the rights of working people. There is an alternative, one that we have already begun to see signs of in cities across the country — most recently in the tens of thousands of people who took to the streets in Washington D.C. to protest the deployment of federal agents on its streets to terrorize its immigrant and Black and Brown communities. We have seen it in the mobilization of communities and unions to defend their immigrant neighbors and coworkers, as well as in the fight of staff and students at universities to reject the persecution of free speech and outrage against genocide. Trump and the Far Right may cover their threats with the promise of stability and “order,” but we cannot give an inch in the fight against an agenda that we know is catastrophic for the rights and aspirations of the working class.
