Round-up: The arsonist-in-chief. Did someone on the right kill Kirk? And FBI failures.

Analysis of the week's events

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The arsonist-in-chief

When a shocking national event occurs, it’s generally the job of the president to try to unify and calm the nation. That is… not how Donald Trump does things.

Since the assassination of MAGA media megastar Charlie Kirk earlier this week, Trump and his closest aides have been quick to vow vengeance on “the left”. In comments to reporters, Trump has said that “we just have to beat the hell out of” the “radical left lunatics”, blamed the “rhetoric” of “the radical left” for Kirk’s killing, and promised to “solve” the “problem” that they pose.

Then there was this lengthy reflection from Stephen Miller, arguably Trump’s most influential aide and the architect of his domestic policy:

Phew. A reminder: We still have absolutely no idea who killed Charlie Kirk or why.

In his remarks, Trump also condemned political violence in general terms. But when he went on to list specific examples, each and every one was an example of violence committed against a figure on the right.

He completely failed to mention the murder of two Minnesota lawmakers earlier this year, the pipe bomb plot against Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, or the murder of a police officer by an anti-vax extremist outside the Centers for Disease Control several weeks ago. In fact, Trump has not said a single word in public about that latter incident. The victim, David Rose, like Charlie Kirk, was also a young father.

This fits a long-term pattern with Trump. He constantly minimizes or excuses violence committed against anyone on the left, or by anyone associated with his own political movement. After a hammer-wielding maniac tried to murder Nancy Pelosi and beat her husband half to death, he made jokes about it.

It’s important to understand, then, that the condemnations of “political violence” coming from Trump right now do not mean that he condemns political violence. He condemns it when it is committed against his own side. But when it targets “the left”, he welcomes and celebrates it. That isn’t some slander - it’s just a completely straight factual description of his record.

And that’s what makes this moment so uniquely dangerous. Trump leads an angry and hate-filled political movement, many of whose members are heavily armed and currently crying for vengeance. Rather than trying to calm them and provide steady leadership - as, for instance, Republican Senator Thom Thillis has, to his credit - Trump is pouring fuel onto the fire. He is openly calling on his supporters to “beat the hell” out of “the left”.

I’d be surprised if some of them don’t listen.

Did someone on the right kill Kirk?

Speculation about the possible murderer of Kirk has so far mostly focused on someone who disliked his politics from the left. But there’s another possibility - that he was killed by someone to his right.

To understand why this is a possibility, you have to understand where Kirk fit into right-wing politics.

Kirk’s MAGA politics were extreme by the standards of right-wing politics a decade or so ago. But within MAGA, Kirk was something of a moderate. He has been relentlessly assailed from his right by white nationalists and so-called “groypers”, an alt-right movement led by the influencer Nick Fuentes. Fuentes accused Kirk - and MAGA in general - of not being sufficiently racist or homophobic. In doing so, he built a social media following of hundreds of thousands, mostly young men.

There is no absolutely no love lost between Fuentes and the Trump White House, or more establishment MAGA figures. Fuentes has openly engaged in Holocaust denial and nostalgia for segregation, and most mainstream MAGA figures see him as toxic and unhelpful. He has been fiercely critical of Trump for being insufficiently radical, even suggesting that he will tell his followers not to vote GOP in the 2028 election.

So could a disaffected white nationalist have killed Kirk? It’s a possibility that seems at least as worth entertaining as the idea that he was killed by someone on the left. Groypers have targeted Kirk for years, accusing him of being an elitist more concerned with cultivating ties to the rich and powerful than providing real leadership to the far right. In 2019, Fuentes’ followers led a coordinated campaign to disrupt Kirk’s events on college campuses, an incident known as the “Groyper Wars”.

We still don’t know who killed Kirk. But things may turn out not to be so simple as many people seem to assume.

FBI failures

But one thing has been worrying me: if someone on the right did kill Kirk, will we ever find out the truth?