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On the evening of September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University (Orem, Utah), Charlie Kirk, 31, conservative activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, was killed by a rifle shot fired from a distance. In the following hours police arrested a 22-year-old, Tyler Robinson, now charged with aggravated murder and other counts. Prosecutors in Utah have announced their intention to seek the death penalty. Filings point to DNA on the weapon, messages of an alleged confession sent to a partner, and attempts to destroy evidence. Next hearing: September 29.
The inscriptions on the ammunition and the language of the web
Among the elements that shocked the public were the words engraved on casings recovered near the scene: fragments of memes, pop references (“OwO what’s this?”), slogans and symbols that point both to video-game aesthetics (arrows reminiscent of Helldivers 2) and politicized phrases (“Hey fascist, catch!”, “Bella ciao”). It is the hybrid alphabet of performative radicalization: a crime staged for digital natives, speaking to a social-media audience before any orthodox politics. None of this lessens personal responsibility: the cultural frame explains; it does not absolve.
Who Charlie Kirk really was
Reducing Kirk to an “influencer” misses his trajectory. From 2012 with Turning Point USA, then Turning Point Action, and the daily talk show The Charlie Kirk Show, he became the most recognizable face of under-30 conservative mobilization in the United States. His formula—campus tours, unscripted Q&As with often hostile interlocutors, community-building and cadre-building—made Kirk an architect of youth political recruitment. Polarizing? Yes. Essential to pluralism? Also yes. Bringing an unpopular idea into hostile territory is, in a democracy, public service.
The climate: mourning, cynicism, and the obscenity of celebration
Alongside clear condemnations of violence, we saw posts mocking the murder, attempts at justification, and even theatrical “reenactments.” In one case, a student staged Kirk’s death in a viral video and faced disciplinary action; elsewhere, public and private employees faced professional consequences for “celebrating” the killing. Even a Hollywood star called Kirk a “hateful person,” with the predictable reputational boomerang. This isn’t a mere lapse in taste: it is a moral indicator of how a culture of selective mourning is eroding common ground.
Political hatred does not erupt from a vacuum; it is rehearsed in small transgressions that slowly erode taboos against dehumanizing language and, eventually, against violence itself. The Kirk killing exposed that ecology again: leaders across the spectrum urged restraint—Barack Obama, for instance, condemned the shooting and warned against the instant blame game—while parts of the online culture indulged cynicism or outright celebration, as seen in now-deleted messages from student leaders and minor celebrities. In parallel, European right-of-center leaders framed the murder as the endpoint of a permissive climate toward anti-conservative rancor. However one parses those claims, the civic task is the same: re-stigmatize political hatred before it metastasizes into physical harm.
Saviano and Odifreddi: when analogy becomes a weapon
In Italy’s debate, Roberto Saviano invoked the Reichstag: Kirk’s murder as a possible “pretext” for Donald Trump’s authoritarian drift. The analogy has two flaws: it inflates historical proportion and shifts the focus from condemning the act to speculating about its supposed “uses.” On TV, Piergiorgio Odifreddi argued that “hate attracts hate” and many distinguish “first-class and second-class dead”: translation, those who “speak harshly” shouldn’t be surprised by violence. The result in both cases is the same: normalizing the passage from objectionable words → physical retaliation. It’s a rhetorical shortcut a free society cannot afford.
Giorgia Meloni’s response blended condolence and line-drawing. On X she called it “an atrocious murder” and “a deep wound for democracy and for those who believe in freedom.” In subsequent remarks she accused segments of Italy’s left-leaning commentariat of double standards—citing Odifreddi’s provocation—and warned that a culture of unrestrained verbal aggression can ripen into physical violence. Whether one agrees with her diagnosis or not, the substance is clear: equal, non-selective protection of speech and equal, non-selective condemnation of political violence are preconditions for a functioning democracy.
The falsehoods (and half-truths) spread about Kirk and the case
- “He asked for it.” The most toxic storyline: it suggests tough speech authorizes a bullet. The rule of law rests on the immunity of speech from violence, not on speech bending to threats. Prosecutors have classified the act as aggravated murder. Period.
- Misidentifications and conspiracism. In the early hours: wrong suspect sketches, partisan labels later disproved by public records, even “creative” answers from AI systems that amplified false names. Elementary lesson: verify before you amplify.
- “Kirk incited violence.” One may criticize his positions and tone. But there is no evidence that his words encouraged criminal acts. Kirk’s public signature was debate—and he was killed during a debate. Reducing him to a “hate-speaker who reaped what he sowed” isn’t reporting; it’s a posthumous justification.
Fuentes, the “enemy within,” and the prudence we need
Paradoxically, a useful signal came from Nick Fuentes, a right-wing antagonist of Kirk, who urged his followers to avoid reprisals, even “disowning” anyone who picked up a weapon. When a mimetic spiral looms, the minimum responsibility is to defuse it. It’s a cross-party reminder: no political side benefits from triggering violence.
Two lessons that really matter
- Political violence now has a pop grammar. Memes, inside jokes, corrosive irony: an aesthetic that stages crime and blurs ideological attribution. Investigators must decode this; reporters must resist its seduction by virality.
- The infosphere is an accelerant. Between “spontaneous” disinformation and external interference, the public immune system is under stress. The remedy: facts first, then opinion. Always.
An honest profile
Kirk was divisive, often provocative. He chose cultural battles that split audiences. But he also did something that counts more than a thousand editorials: he showed up where he wasn’t welcome, heard hostile objections, and answered. Bringing conservatism to the young, organizing consent, building cadres: all of this is pluralism. Those who see his death as a warning to “keep quiet” aim at the wrong target. The warning points the other way: protecting unpopular speech is the first duty of a free society.
Campuses, safety, and the heckler’s veto
Universities are not safe spaces from ideas; they are safe spaces for ideas. The duty of campus administrators is twofold: guarantee robust security for high-profile events and guarantee that no speaker is silenced by threats—the classic heckler’s veto. If institutions outsource security to the loudest objector, the lesson to students is catastrophic: menace works. The only credible answer is visible, even-handed protection paired with strict penalties for disruptions that cross into intimidation or force.
How the coverage should change
Media, too, face a choice. The hour after a political killing is a magnet for certainty theater: instant motives, instant labels, instant villains. Responsible outlets should make a countercultural move—slow down. Separate what is documented from what is inferred; avoid laundering online rumor through the prestige of a headline; resist the temptation to convert a human tragedy into an allegory for preferred narratives. The cost of getting it wrong isn’t just reputational; it is civic, because early frames harden into memory.
What remains to be done
First, judicial firmness. Political murder is a constitutional wound before it is a crime against a person. The response must be swift, visible, and grounded in the rule of law.
Second, informational hygiene. Platforms and media should raise standards in the first hours, when errors do the most damage and last the longest.
Third, cultural responsibility. Dismantle the logic of “if you talk like that, don’t be surprised”: it’s just the elegant version of “you asked for it.” There are no first-class and second-class dead. When someone starts to think there are, that is where the West begins to lose itself.