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      ‘What have we become?’: shock across US political parties after Charlie Kirk shooting

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      Charlie Kirk’s death by an assassin’s bullet on a university campus in Utah on Wednesday has left the United States, a country already grappling with mounting political anger and polarization, in a state of profound shock bordering on despair.Kirk, a rising star of Donald Trump’s make America great again (Maga) movement, was struck in the neck by a single shot as he addressed a large student crowd at Utah Valley University. The event had been billed as the grand opening of his 15-stop “America Comeback Tour”, but instead will be marked as the place where he uttered his last words.The 31-year-old leader of the rightwing student group Turning Point USA was about 20 minutes into a Q&A, ironically engaging with a question on mass shootings in America, when the shot rang out. Within seconds, hundreds of students had scattered screaming from the campus lawn.Within minutes of that, gruesome videos began to proliferate through social media, apparently undeterred by any algorithm. They showed Kirk being hit, slumping to his left side and profusely bleeding.Long before Kirk was pronounced dead at 4.40pm – poignantly in a post from his champion, the US president, on Truth Social – the wave of profound shock was breaking over both sides of the US’s political divide.“This is horrific. I am stunned,” said the Republican senator from Texas Ted Cruz, who described Kirk on Twitter/X as a “good friend” since the young activist’s teenage years.Kirk was unashamedly far to the right of the US political spectrum and had expressed openly bigoted views and engaged in homophobic and Islamophobic rhetoric. He recently tweeted: “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”He mixed evangelical Christian beliefs with rightwing politics into a combustible brew. During an appearance with Trump in Georgia last fall, he claimed that Democrats “stand for everything God hates”, adding: “This is a Christian state. I’d like to see it stay that way.”But mourning for Kirk crossed the political aisle.Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe who has been unrestrained at times in his criticism of Kirk’s political posturing, called the shooting “tragic and sickening”. He added: “Violence targeting political public figures is violence against American democracy itself and the freedom of every American to express their views.”Tommy Vietor, a former staffer in Barack Obama’s White House, issued an even darker warning. Political violence, he said, was a “cancer that will feed off itself and spread … it will rip this country apart”.The political violence that Vietor identified is etched into the US’s psyche. The country has had to absorb the assassinations of four sitting presidents including Abraham Lincoln and John F Kennedy, as well as the tragic trilogy of 1960s shootings of Kennedy, his brother Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr.Those grim historic landmarks were brought slamming back into public consciousness by the assassination attempt on Trump at a presidential campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July 2024. Trump survived that incident by a hair’s breadth, which he has since claimed to be an act of God’s will. A second would-be assassin later waited for Trump on a Florida golf course before being discovered in the nick of time by his security detail.At the same time America has been rocked by the killing on the streets of Manhattan of a top healthcare executive, and in June an attack in Minnesota saw a gunman brutally shoot a local lawmaker dead in her own home.Kirk’s death – though the precise motive behind his killing remains so far unknown – leaves the US standing on the edge of a new abyss, over which a black cloud now looms over the safety of its public figures and the sanctity of its public debate.“What the actual hell have we become?” asked the Catholic writer Emily Zanotti, speaking for many. In a comment under her X feed, another poster said: “We have met the enemy, and he is us.”Dylan Housman, editor-in-chief of the rightwing news outlet the Daily Caller, also expressed foreboding. “We can’t live in a country where things like this happen,” he said.For months now the temperature of the US’s political discourse has been rising. As JB Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, put it following the Kirk shooting: “Political violence unfortunately has been ratcheting up in this country.”In June a Democratic lawmaker in Minnesota, Melissa Hortman, and her husband Mark, were killed in a shooting. Federal and state judges have reported a plethora of threats, including deliveries of unsolicited pizzas to their homes in grotesque reference to the 2020 killing of Daniel Anderl, the son of a New Jersey district judge Esther Salas.Kirk’s killing takes this booming scourge of discourse-by-bullet to another level. The location of the shooting in itself indicates that there might be trouble ahead, as the TV political journalist Chuck Todd noted. “On a college campus, no less, a place where we should be celebrating speech, not trying to silence it.”The identity of the victim, too, raises the stakes dramatically. Kirk was the golden boy of the Maga movement, a Trump favorite.The president called Kirk “legendary” in his post announcing the death. The Turning Point leader was boosted to nationwide prominence when he was taken on as personal aide to Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr, during the 2016 presidential campaign.Kirk’s ascent within the Maga firmament was as fiery as the trademark pyrotechnical displays that opened his Turning Point “people’s conventions”. The speakers he attracted on stage were like a roll-call of Maga royalty – JD Vance, former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon, entrepreneur and presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, far-right congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and many more.By Wednesday night consternation had already begun to be aired about how the Trump administration, and the wider Maga movement, would respond to the loss of one of their dearly beloved own. “There are people who are fomenting [political violence] in this country,” Pritzker said. “The president’s rhetoric often foments it.”Later this month, Kirk had a stop on his Comeback Tour scheduled at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire. On 25 September he was scheduled to debate the progressive influencer, Hasan Piker.After Kirk’s shooting, Piker spoke out about his fears on his live stream. “This is a terrifying incident,” he said. “The reverberation of people seeking out vengeance in the aftermath of this violent, abhorrent incident is going to be genuinely worrisome.” More

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      Charlie Kirk’s death shows political violence is now a feature of US life

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      The shooting of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk at an event in Utah marks another example of ongoing political violence in the US, now a feature of American life.Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday that Kirk had died, saying: “No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie.”Kirk, on campus at Utah Valley University as part of a speaking tour called “American Comeback”. was asked a question by an audience member about mass shootings, including how many involved trans shooters, when he was shot in the neck.The political leanings and goals of the shooter, who is not in custody, are not yet known. Kirk is one of the highest profile allies of the US president, and his organization, Turning Point USA, has helped turn out voters for Trump and other Republicans. He is also known for his inflammatory, often racist and xenophobic commentary, particularly on college campuses.The shooting comes as a series of incidents over the past year show an increased level of violence related to political disagreements or intended to achieve political goals.Trump faced two assassination attempts in 2024. Last December, a shooter targeted and killed the head of United Healthcare. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro’s home was burned in an arson attack in April. Judges and elected officials report increased threats and harassment. Several instances of violence have stemmed from opposition to the Gaza war. In June, a man dressed as a police officer shot and killed a Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband, and wounded another state lawmaker and his wife. A gunman attacked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in August, killing a police officer.Surveys have shown increased acceptance of using violence for political aims across party spectrums. Robert Pape, who directs the Chicago Project on Security and Threats, wrote in the New York Times that a survey his team conducted in May was its “most worrisome yet”. “About 40 percent of Democrats supported the use of force to remove Mr. Trump from the presidency, and about 25 percent of Republicans supported the use of the military to stop protests against Mr. Trump’s agenda. These numbers more than doubled since last fall, when we asked similar questions,” he wrote.“We’re becoming more and more of a powder keg,” Pape told the Guardian on Wednesday. Pape calls the current moment an “era of violent populism”.Condemnations of the shooting came from across the political spectrum. Pape has long argued that politicians need to speak out against violence, especially if it’s aligned with their own team.These condemnations are “extremely helpful here as we go forward. It won’t stop everything, but it helps to stop the snowball,” he said.Hasan Piker, the progressive streamer who was scheduled to debate Kirk later this month, said on his livestream on Wednesday that it was a “terrifying incident”.“The reverberation of people seeking out vengeance in the aftermath of this violent, abhorrent incident is going to be genuinely worrisome,” he said.The aftermath of Kirk’s death could include increased violence and retaliation, with some rightwing figures already calling for retribution.Libs of TikTok, the rightwing X account, put simply: “THIS IS WAR.” More

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      Trump ally Charlie Kirk fatally shot during event at Utah Valley University

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      Charlie Kirk, the powerful rightwing activist, Trump ally and executive director of Turning Point USA (TPUSA), has died after being shot in the neck on Wednesday while speaking at a university campus event in Utah.In video posts circulating on social media, Kirk, 31, can be seen being struck by a bullet while speaking and sitting beneath a tent in the Utah Valley University (UVU) courtyard in Orem, Utah. Kirk was there as part of The American Comeback Tour, which is hosted by the TPUSA chapter at UVU. Video footage also shows students on campus running away from the sound of gunfire.In a post on X on Wednesday afternoon, the university said the campus was closed.A spokesperson for Utah Valley University told the New York Times that Kirk was struck by a suspect who had fired from a building about 200 yards away.Ellen Treanor, a university spokesperson, said: “A suspect was in custody, but they are no longer a suspect.” There is no suspect in custody.“The incident is currently being investigated by four agencies: Orem police, UVU police, FBI and Utah department of public safety,” Treanor added.In an internal email to staff members that was posted online on Wednesday evening, the Turning Point USA COO, Justin Streiff, said: “It is with a heavy heart that we, the Turning Point USA leadership team, write to notify you that earlier this afternoon Charlie went to his eternal reward with Jesus Christ in Heaven … However, in the meantime, Turning Point USA and Turning Point Action will be closed for business until Monday, the 15th – likely longer.”Writing on Truth Social on Wednesday evening, Donald Trump mourned Kirk’s death, saying: “The Great, and even Legendary, Charlie Kirk, is dead. No one understood or had the Heart of the Youth in the United States of America better than Charlie. He was loved and admired by ALL, especially me, and now, he is no longer with us. Melania and my Sympathies go out to his beautiful wife Erika, and family. Charlie, we love you!”The president echoed similar sentiments to ABC correspondent Jonathan Karl. Trump told Karl: “It’s horrific. It’s one of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen. He was a great guy … He was an incredible guy. Nobody like him.”Eyewitnesses told the Guardian that Kirk was being questioned about mass shootings when he was shot in the neck.A Deseret News reporter, Emma Pitts, who was at the event, said that Kirk was on his second question and that it was “regarding mass shootings”.“The person he was debating had asked about if he knew how many mass shootings had involved a transgender shooter to which Kirk responded,” Pitts said. Then, “he asked how many mass shootings had [there] been in the last couple of years” and “before he could even answer, we heard a gunshot and we just saw Charlie Kirk’s neck turn to the side and it appeared that he had been shot in the neck”.“There was blood, immediately a lot of blood,” Pitts said. “After the shots were fired, everyone immediately took to the ground … we were just trying to stay hidden.”Then, Pitts said, “everyone started running away”.Videos circulating on social media showed an attender asking Kirk: “Do you know how many transgender Americans have been mass shooters over the last 10 years?” In response, Kirk says: “Too many,” as the crowd clapped.In a follow-up question, the attender asks: “Do you know how many mass shooters there have been in America over the last 10 years?” Kirk replies: “Counting or not counting gang violence?” Seconds later, Kirk could be seen struck in the neck as he falls back in his chair.Eva Terry, another Deseret News reporter who was at the event, said the direction of the shot looked like it “came from the middle to the right side of the audience”.Describing the suspect, Terry said that he looked like “an older gentleman, probably in his late 50s to 60s, wearing what looks like a worker’s uniform”.In response to Kirk’s death, the Utah governor, Spencer Cox, wrote on X: “I just got off the phone with President Trump. Working with the FBI and Utah law enforcement, we will bring to justice the individual responsible for this tragedy. Abby and I are heartbroken. We are praying for Charlie’s wife, daughter, and son.”The US vice-president, JD Vance, also tweeted, saying: “Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord.”Utah senator Mike Lee wrote: “Charlie Kirk was an American patriot … This murder was a cowardly act of violence, an attack on champions of freedom like Charlie, the students who gathered for civil debate, and all Americans who peacefully strive to save our nation. The terrorists will not win. Charlie will. Please join me in praying for his wife Erika and their children. May justice be swift.”Shortly before gunfire rang out, Kirk tweeted: “WE. ARE. SO. BACK. Utah Valley University is FIRED UP and READY for the first stop back on the American Comeback Tour.” More

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      How the Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files became a vehicle for QAnon

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      The release of the “Epstein client list” has long been the holy grail for the Maga movement. Supposedly, this list, once released, would incriminate a veritable who’s who of liberal elites complicit in Jeffrey Epstein’s child sex-trafficking operation and expose the moral rot at the heart of the Democratic establishment.The mystery surrounding the Epstein files also became a vehicle for QAnon conspiracy theorists to push their ideas about a “deep state” cover-up of a network of global pedophiles into the broader tent of the Maga movement.During his campaign, Donald Trump promised on several occasions to declassify the Epstein files, which would include the “list”. Before they joined the government, Trump’s FBI chief, Kash Patel, and deputy FBI chief, Dan Bongino, spent years on podcasts and TV appearances winking at QAnon and Epstein conspiracy theorists and demanding the files’ release, even suggesting that the Biden administration was withholding them to protect its own.Then, on the heels of the Fourth of July holiday weekend, the justice department quietly dropped a bombshell in the form of a memo. A “systematic review” of the Epstein files by justice department officials “revealed no incriminating ‘client list’,” the memo stated, nor did they find evidence that Epstein blackmailed powerful figures. The memo also affirmed that Epstein died by suicide in his Brooklyn jail cell while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges in 2019.Since the memo’s release, Maga has been in turmoil – and some of Trump’s most loyal foot soldiers have been in open revolt against his administration, accusing it of now being part of a cover-up and calling for the resignation of the attorney general, Pam Bondi, over her handling of the Epstein files.On Truth Social, Trump offered a stern rebuke to his detractors, claiming that the Epstein files were actually a hoax, because they were written by “Obama, Crooked Hillary, Comey, Brennan, and the Losers and Criminals of the Biden Administration”.But not everyone’s buying it.“This is the worst response I’ve ever seen from President Trump,” said the rightwing commentator Benny Johnson. The disgraced former general Michael Flynn, considered a hero by the QAnon movement, wrote: “@realdonaldtrump please understand the EPSTEIN AFFAIR IS NOT GOING AWAY.” The rightwing commentator Matt Walsh called Trump’s statement “extremely obtuse”, adding: “We don’t accept obvious bullshit from our political leaders.”Maga’s obsession with the Epstein files is an indication of how the core ideas associated with the fringe QAnon conspiracy – that a shadowy cabal of government elites is working to cover up a global child sex-trafficking operation – have taken root in the broader pro-Trump movement.QAnon took a long tradition of antisemitic, “deep state” and “satanic panic” conspiracy theories, put them on steroids with a pro-Trump flavor, and assigned the enigmatic Q, supposedly a government official with top secret clearance and a penchant for posting on 8chan, at the helm of the movement.“The unique thing about QAnon is that you had an anonymous poster on an anonymous chatroom putting out clues for people to try to solve,” said Joseph Uscinski, a political science professor at the University of Miami specializing in the study of conspiracy theories.When QAnon emerged in 2017, allegations against Epstein had been swirling for over a decade.Epstein’s arrest in 2019 on federal charges was a boon for QAnon. The movement quickly sought to incorporate information about the case into their propaganda. The case also surfaced a trove of digital media that QAnon sleuths could pore over looking for “clues” – such as photographs of Epstein with various public figures (including many with Trump), Epstein’s flight logs and aerial images of his private island.“Epstein engaged in crimes, but I think there’s a whole fantasy lore surrounding it that goes far beyond any available evidence,” said Uscinski.Jon Lewis, a research fellow at George Washington University’s program on extremism, told the Guardian that as “QAnon and Maga have become increasingly intertwined in recent years, we have seen the embrace of increasingly fringe conspiracies and extremist narratives like ‘Pizzagate’ and ‘Save the Children’ by mainstream political figures.”These narratives turned out to be useful for Trump and his allies, who harnessed simmering suspicion of establishment figures and cast the former reality star as the only person brave enough to take on “the deep state”.“As Trump and other prominent Republican figures amplified QAnon content and used it as a political cudgel against Democratic politicians like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, they were providing legitimacy and approval to the very same conspiracy theorists who are now decrying Pam Bondi and the justice department,” said Lewis.Tensions over the Epstein files have been building since February, when Bondi went on Fox News and said Epstein’s client list was sitting on her desk “right now for review.” A week later, at a press event at the White House, Bondi handed out binders that she promised contained “declassified” Epstein records to two dozen Maga influencers. The influencers quickly realized there was basically no new information in them. In response to the ensuing backlash, Bondi said that the FBI had failed to disclose a tranche of Epstein files, and that she had ordered Patel to compile them.Months later, in June, Elon Musk – amid the dramatic feud with his former friend Trump – claimed without evidence that the reason the Epstein files hadn’t been released in full was because the president was implicated in them. (Musk has since deleted the post.)The scale of the current Maga meltdown “certainly shows the significance of Epstein conspiracies within the broader QAnon pantheon”, said Lewis, and “should lay bare just how deeply the disease of the QAnon movement has seeped into a Republican party which has welcomed its most conspiratorial, antisemitic, reactionary fringe into Congress and the executive branch with open arms”.The backlash Trump is facing is a leopards-eating-faces moment for the administration.“This was a conspiracy that Donald Trump, Pam Bondi and these Maga extremists have been fanning the flames of for the last several years, and now the chickens are coming home to roost,” the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, told reporters Monday.Uscinski noted that’s “the interesting thing that happens when you use conspiracy theories to get into power”.“Because conspiracy theories should be aimed at the people in power, right? They accuse powerful people of doing something wicked behind the scenes,” he added.In Trump’s case, he “spent the last 10 years building a coalition of largely conspiracy-minded people in the US”, said Uscinski. “So in order for him to keep these people engaged and donating and going to his speeches, and voting for him and voting for Republicans, he has to keep pressing the conspiracy theories.”But experts are skeptical that this current Maga meltdown will have any lasting impact.Trump’s overall approval rating hasn’t fluctuated dramatically over the past week. In fact, it’s almost at exactly the same place it was at the same point in his first administration.“[Trump’s supporters] are disgruntled, they’re upset and they’re going to express that on social media. But they’re not going to abandon him, because he’s the only game in town for them,” said Uscinski.He compared the current moment to the backlash Trump faced back in 2021. After courting favor from anti-vaxxers, Trump was booed when he announced during a live Bill O’Reilly interview that he had received his Covid-19 booster shot and urged Americans to get theirs.Despite the importance of the Epstein files to the Maga and QAnon movements, Lewis thinks that “it’s unlikely this outrage will last”.“The culture war will move on to its next target … and the rage machine will follow with conspiracies and vitriol,” said Lewis. “It’s much easier to be angry at an immigrant than to wonder whether you’ve been lied to for the last eight years.” More