In a jarring turn of events, Charlie Kirk is dead. Kirk was shot with a single bullet to the neck at 12:23 PM on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, while engaged in a Q&A at Utah Valley University. Between law enforcement’s delay in presenting evidence, misreporting by the Wall Street Journal, and propaganda-fueled bots, there is an immense amount of misinformation regarding Kirk’s assassination. Beyond the facts, do far-right individuals like Kirk deserve empathy, especially when their agendas actively promote violence against others?
Kirk: What Happened?
As a media personality, Charlie Kirk is grouped with similar far-right types such as Alex Jones, Tucker Carlson, Ben Shapiro, Nick Fuentes, and Steven Crowder. He was a professional grifter, using rage-bait content to increase views – like all conservative personalities, Kirk capitalized on outrage culture since angry viewers boost views regardless of journalism quality or facts.
Charlie Kirk, as an individual, was not a remarkable person. What did Kirk contribute to the world? Like his peers, Kirk provided nothing meaningful to society and actively worked to make the world a hateful place. But since so many people are persuaded by hate alone, Kirk rose as a prominent voice within MAGA.
On the 10th, Kirk was in the midst of a very mediocre rally. Like all conservative events, there was hardly any security – as Kirk himself said, “I think [gun casualties are] worth it. It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect other God given rights. That’s a prudent deal. It is rational.”
A spectator in the crowd asked Kirk about recent comments Kirk had made that transgender people are more likely to commit mass violence than their cisgender peers. Just as that spectator began to point out the flaws in Kirk’s baseless lies, Kirk was shot by a sniper round from a nearby rooftop. The crowd started freaking out, and Utah Valley University’s campus went on lockdown. By 2:40 PM, Kirk had died from his injuries.
It wasn’t until September 12th that Kirk’s assumed assassin, Tyler Robinson, was taken into custody, coordinated by the FBI and local law enforcement. Everything after that gets… fuzzy.
Almost immediately, The Wall Street Journal reported on a bulletin released by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regarding the bolt-action rifle and ammunition conveniently left in the woods after the shooting. Despite explicit guidance by the Bureau to read the bulletin with caution due to the lack of substantial evidence, the WSJ wrote that Robinson’s bullet casings had engravings of “expressions of transgender and antifascist ideology.” The WSJ has come under fire due to this journalistic negligence, being forced to amend the article when Utah Governor Cox publicly stated the casings made zero mention of “transgender ideology.” One of the casings does make mention of fascism, but more on that later.
Conservative conspiracy theorists have been pushing their latest favorite narrative: transgender people are mentally unstable, emotionally dysregulated, and present an unprecedented risk to violence. This narrative was largely disregarded until last month when transgender woman Robin Westman committed a shooting in a Minneapolis Catholic school, which the Trump administration has used to consider an illegal ban to bar all transgender people from owning firearms.
Kirk himself had been a fan of the theory – this conversation was essentially his final words before Robinson fired. Kirk and conservative personalities don’t care about reality, purposely ignoring established research that proves cisgender men exactly like Kirk make up the overwhelming majority of mass shooters compared to the fraction of a percent that transgender people have committed.
Tyler Robinson is NOT transgender. He is a straight cisgender male who grew up in a very traditional, conservative family. It is currently believed that Robinson’s partner IS transgender, but they had zero part in Robinson’s crime and were horrified by Robinson’s actions. …And even if they hadn’t, who cares, and why does it matter? Everyone knows a transgender person (whether you’re aware of it or not), but it doesn’t make you more likely to be a murderer.
Currently, mainstream media is hyperfixated on whether Tyler Robinson was an ANTIFA leftist. He wasn’t, and the media’s inability to understand that is part of the problem.
The reason mainstream media is so befuddled by Robinson is that the bullet casings, notes, and online presence he’s left look anti-fascist and left on the surface. Some of the bullet engravings included statements like:
- *Notices bulges* OwO What’s this? (This is actually the bullet that shot and killed Kirk.)
- Hey fascist! Catch this! ↑ → ↓ ↓ ↓ (Game maneuver used in Helldivers 2, a multiplayer shooter with its own problematic fanbase.)
- Oh Bella, ciao, bella, ciao Bella ciao ciao ciao. (An Italian anti-fascist song that has been co-opted by the alt-right.)
- If you read this, you are gay LMAO.
Traditional journalists who have reported thus far lack deep knowledge of the internet and its subcultures. Tyler Robinson was not a leftist, liberal, nor an ANTIFA. He was a groyper.
Groypers are most noted by their use of “ironic meme culture.” Pepe the Frog, toxic gaming culture, and using racial slurs for “comedic shock value” – groypers encapsulate everything terrible about middle school boys before they grow a conscience. At some point Robinson was a huge Nick Fuente fan. But groypers are conservative. They are exceedingly far right and use meme culture to disguise their values, similar to how the KKK did (they called their leaders “imperial wizards” and “exalted cyclops”). And groypers intentionally use anti-fascist and leftist slogans to confuse onlookers.
A select few media outlets are covering this reality, but it’s not the common story being told.
Instead, Trump and his allies hope to use mass confusion to tighten their grip on a crumbling democracy. Matt Forney, in response to Kirk’s assassination, called it America’s “Reichstag moment.” For readers unaware of the Reichstag, it’s attributed as the crucial moment when the Nazi Party took control of Germany by utilizing the recent crisis to their advantage. Every American, regardless of political affiliation, has an opinion on Charlie Kirk’s murder – but conservatives are outraged that the American left lacks empathy, some of whom are even celebrating Kirk’s demise. Workers of various fields have been fired for anti-Kirk statements, and tourists have been denied entry into the United States for expressing negative views of Kirk.
Do Fascists Deserve Empathy?
Short answer, no.
The long answer is that conservatives have created an empathy paradox. Conservatives condemn liberals, leftists, and anyone else who fails to offer heartfelt condolences to Kirk, but Kirk and his peers are empathy black holes. Kirk regularly advocated for violence against minorities, especially transgender people. Conservatives weaponize the ideas behind empathy to throw in our faces, trying to paint themselves as more humane, kind, and righteous than leftists. After all, if the left is supposed to embody human rights, social justice, and solidarity, isn’t it hypocritical for us to celebrate any human’s death?
Extending empathy for those who cause great harm to others is not a rational or ethical choice. Honestly, Republicans today make me think they would condemn a Jewish person in 1945 for celebrating the death of Adolf Hitler. Terrible people who deny the humanity of others do not deserve empathy.
Kirk’s death is hardly the first time that conservatives have pulled this charade. The same song and dance was performed when Americans failed to feel sorry for Trump’s so-called assassination attempt. At the same time, conservatives were publicly gleeful when someone broke into Nancy Pelosi’s home to batter her husband; they’ve expressed adoration of actual mass murderers like Kyle Rittenhouse; and mere months ago, conservatives were ecstatic about the idea of Latinos being fed to wild alligators at their latest detention center. In response to others lacking sympathy for Kirk, conservatives send death threats and hateful rhetoric.
As a general rule, American conservatives are unable to recognize their own hypocrisy. They aren’t able to look past their own noses – I currently work in social services, and the overwhelming majority of individuals I see are hard Trump followers and express disgust at welfare, minorities, or anything akin to a “handout.” They lack the capacity to realize they’re using welfare services that only exist because of liberals and leftists.
One answer for why conservatives act this way is their latest “empathy is a sin” ideology, which was pushed by JD Vance and Elon Musk. Everything about the Republican Party goes against human nature to be kind and contradicts the New Testament’s fundamental teachings by Jesus to be compassionate. They don’t want to be compassionate or Christians; American conservatives want to be Spanish Crusaders under the delusional guise of religion – they want blood, not God.
Equating leftist ideals (ex. universal healthcare, affordable housing, no hate crimes, etc.) to conservative ideals (ex. race-based detainment, death penalties, corporate tax cuts, etc.) is misleading. In a previous article, I wrote how “moderate” isn’t always better: not too long ago, one extreme advocated for race-based lynching while the other wanted integration, equal civil rights, and the capacity to live freely. Only one of those is humane.
There is a separate conversation about having grief for those around Kirk. Yes, he was a father, a son, a “someone” to people. The majority of unempathetic leftists lack empathy for Kirk directly, not his wife or children.
Conservatives like Charlie Kirk campaign for the deaths and torment of those unlike them. Kirk and his followers advocate for a world where gender-affirming care is entirely impossible and gender-diverse individuals are imprisoned or killed. A world where young girls are forced to carry the babies of their abusers, regardless of whether they can physically, emotionally, or financially survive. A world where queer people are stoned for expressing same-sex attraction. A world where the disabled are murdered for the simple act of living, a world where only “pure-blooded” white Americans live contentedly and undeveloped countries with people of color are left to be exploited. We are already expected to be civil with those who do us harm. We lack empathy for Charlie Kirk and those like him because his agenda lacks empathy for us.
Refusing to hold empathy for a powerful figure like Kirk is not cruelty; it’s a refusal to normalize his harm. Charlie Kirk was a terrible person and will be forgotten one day as the hateful person he was.
Do conservatives and the far right deserve empathy? People have the right to offer and withhold empathy, BUT expecting empathy for those who built careers on hatred and denying empathy to others is hypocritical and manipulative. Empathy is not a shield that protects oppressive ideologies from critique. Empathy centers on those most harmed, not those who caused harm.