Hypocritical Conservatives Are Using Charlie Kirk's Horrific Murder to Cynically Smear the Left

Have they forgotten all the Trump supporters who have killed, attacked, and threatened both prominent Democrats and opponents of this president in recent years? I haven't – and I have a list of them.

Melissa Hortman on Feb. 11, 2020. Photo by Anthony Souffle/The Minnesota Star Tribune via Getty Images

On Wednesday, we witnessed the horrific killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk while he was speaking at Utah Valley University. It was a shocking and unforgivable act of violence. At the time of writing, the shooter is still at large, and the motive for the murder is unknown.

But that hasn’t stopped Kirk’s fellow conservatives and far-right influencers from weaponizing his tragic death to attack Democrats and blame ‘the left’ for all of the political violence in the United States.

Donald Trump gave an incendiary televised address in which he railed only against “radical left-wing political violence.” Elon Musk claimed, “The Left is the party of murder.” His fellow ‘Silicon Valley bro’ Shaun Maguire said “the Left lectured us for the last decade about the dangers of violence from the Right” but “the danger was actually on the Left.” Katie Miller, wife of far-right Stephen, accused liberals of having “blood on your hands.”

Such rhetoric from the right is as dishonest as it is dangerous.

Here are the actual facts for those with conveniently short memories.

• The man who targeted and killed Democratic state lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark in their home in Minnesota in June was a Trump supporter.

• The man charged with the attempted assassination of Pennsylvania’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, in April was a Trump supporter.

• The man convicted of orchestrating a series of hootings at the homes of four Democratic elected officials in New Mexico in 2022 was a Trump supporter.

• The man who tried to kidnap then Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and assaulted her husband, Paul, in 2022 was a Trump supporter.

• The men who wanted to hang Mike Pence on Jan 6, 2021, were Trump supporters.

• The man who killed the son of Obama-appointed District Judge Esther Salas in 2020 was a Trump supporter.

• The men who were convicted of trying to kidnap Michigan’s Democratic governor, Gretchen Whitmer, in 2020 were Trump supporters.

• The man who sent pipe bombs to the homes of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, and other top Democrats in 2018 was a Trump supporter.

• The man who killed left-wing activist Heather Heyer after driving his car into a crowd of counter-protesters in Charlottesville in 2017 was a Trump supporter.

There is no equivalent or even similar list of Obama or Biden supporters who have carried out murders, attempted murders, or violent attacks against Republicans or conservatives in recent years. In fact, according to statistics compiled by the ADL’s Center on Extremism, 2024 was the third year in a row in which all of the extremist-related killings in the United States were carried out by… right-wingers.

So conservatives can engage in as much faux outrage as they like over the supposed threat from ‘the left,’ but the facts, as they themselves often like to say, don’t care about their feelings.