Slate is a left-wing site which explains why part of their reaction to Charlie Kirk's murder is an article suggesting the right's response to it looks "ominous."
While the shooter’s identity and political beliefs remained unknown in the hours after the shooting, that didn’t stop many on the right from framing Kirk’s killing as an indictment of the left.
“No more mercy for leftists,” wrote the Malaysian MAGA influencer Ian Miles Cheong. “They want you dead. They truly want to kill you and desecrate your body and erase your memory.”
“THIS IS WAR,” wrote Chaya Raichik, the person behind the Libs of TikTok account.
“The Left is the party of murder,” Elon Musk wrote.
“The Left wants us dead,” wrote C.J. Pearson, a Gen Z conservative influencer. “This is not hyperbole. This is now the ONLY logical conclusion that any sane human being can reach after a repeated pattern of demonstrated behavior and violence.”...
Scott Presler, the conservative organizer, wondered aloud: “How do you coexist with people that want to murder you?” In response, the anti-transgender activist Riley Gaines responded: “And they’ll kill you in the name of ‘tolerance.’”
“The rubicon has been crossed,” wrote Dana Loesch, the former spokesperson for the National Rifle Association.
I think what's happening here is that no one at Slate feels anything about the murder of Charlie Kirk, except maybe some glee that they are concealing to preserve their own jobs. And so when confronted with real, emotional responses to his murder they find it surprising and disconcerting.
But is it threatening?
I'm sure you can find some threats out there but Slate has really stripped away the relevant context here in a way that is designed to make the right seemed unhinged and the left seem normal (or at least more normal). The problem with that is you don't have to look very far at all to find people on the left who are celebrating Kirk's death.
“I support Charlie Kirk’s killer. He did us a favor, I would have killed him myself”
— Cam Higby 🇺🇸 (@camhigby) September 11, 2025
Seattle protestor says at candle lit vigil for Charlie Kirk, the day he died. pic.twitter.com/kLUxSidQ2b
These are people who went out of their way to let a bunch of grieving people know they supported a political assassination. And if you look around, there are lots of people like this on the left. TikTok is full of people reacting to the news with dancing and fist pumps.
PURE EVIL: Moments after Charlie Kirk was assassinated in broad daylight, radical leftists on TikTok began celebrating.
— I Meme Therefore I Am 🇺🇸 (@ImMeme0) September 10, 2025
Charlie was a son, a husband, and a father. His life was taken—and they’re cheering.
These are the same people who preach “love and tolerance.”
They live… pic.twitter.com/xYqLAgIb4N
On Bluesky, there are lots of people arguing about who should be next. Trump, Ben Shapiro, JK Rowling and Elon Musk are among those mentioned.
URGENT. Did you see this?
— A Gene Robinson (@AlBuffalo2nite) September 11, 2025
After Charlie Kirk, on the sky app there are people asking for the next person to be targeted. These include JK Rowling, Matt Walsh, Trump, Ben Shapiro, Libs of TikTok, Elon Musk, and Andy Ngo.
The receipts. 🧾 pic.twitter.com/NDH8GyMJHu
And on Reddit:
Redditors on r/ToiletPaperUSA are celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination. pic.twitter.com/VMycSladVZ
— Reddit Lies (@reddit_lies) September 10, 2025
Those suggesting political assassination was wrong were being heavily downvoted.
Redditors on r/ToiletPaperUSA are celebrating Charlie Kirk's assassination. pic.twitter.com/VMycSladVZ
— Reddit Lies (@reddit_lies) September 10, 2025
Anyone not a fan of murder is finding they don't really fit in. (Actually watch this one because she's more sane than she looks.)
I'm seeing a lot of this on TikTok, the assassination of Charlie Kirk and the horrible reaction by many on the left celebrating his death is going to end up turning millions more young adults away from the Democratic party. pic.twitter.com/kmGl5Lca0g
— Vince Langman (@LangmanVince) September 11, 2025
So, that's the context here. There are always crazy people on both sides of the aisle willing to do crazy, vile things. But the left is increasingly celebrating these murders.
And it's not the first time we've seen this. Many celebrated Luigi Mangione as a folk hero. Lots of campus protesters over the last couple years have celebrated the 10/7 attack on Israel and, more recently, the murder of two young people working for the Israeli Embassy in Washington, DC (murdered by another left-wing activist). They celebrated when "Big Balls" got beaten bloody by a mob of teens in DC. For months, they cheered for arson and vandalism against Elon Musk. They mourned the fact that the would-be assassin in Butler, PA didn't kill President Trump. And now a not insubstantial number of them are celebrating the assassination of someone whose entire focus was talking to people who disagreed with him.
That's the context in which people like Scott Presler are asking “How do you coexist with people that want to murder you?”
And yes, I think some people are both afraid and angry that there is a mob of people who quite literally want to see them dead and have made it clear they will celebrate anyone who makes it happen. That's not to say that everyone on the left is in that camp, but a shocking number of them are and they are proud of themselves for their murderous hate.
The assassination of Charlie Kirk does feel like a turning point in this discourse. If this turns out to be what it already appears to be, i.e. a murder motivated by politics, then a Rubicon has been crossed. Why? Because Kirk was the guy on the right who, more than anyone, was doing this the right way. Even Ezra Klein can see that.
You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true: Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him. He was one of the era’s most effective practitioners of persuasion. When the left thought its hold on the hearts and minds of college students was nearly absolute, Kirk showed up again and again to break it. Slowly, then all at once, he did. College-age voters shifted sharply right in the 2024 election.
I did not know Kirk, and I am not the right person to eulogize him. But I envied what he built. A taste for disagreement is a virtue in a democracy. Liberalism could use more of his moxie and fearlessness. In the inaugural episode of his podcast, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California hosted Kirk, admitting that his son was a huge fan. What a testament to Kirk’s project.
To be clear, I'm not saying the right's response should be violence or threats. I agree with my co-blogger David that we can't go down that road for everyone's sake. But something did change yesterday. It appears at this moment that the left targeted and killed the guy on the right who made a willingness to talk to people across the aisle his main focus. If talk is going to be met with murder then we're not living in a sane world anymore.
Charlie, who was willing to talk to anyone, was the off-ramp. https://t.co/j6wg6CSALj
— Sean Davis (@seanmdav) September 11, 2025
The extremists on the left are still a minority. There were lots of elected officials on the left from Gavin Newsom to Nancy Pelosi who immediately condemned the violence and who aren't celebrating this at all. But the mob of people on the left who do celebrate violence has been growing and that is what is ominous here in this moment. The time for pretending this isn't a problem ended yesterday.
