The Washington Post published a deep dive on Tyler Robinson's life and political views prior to the shooting of Charlie Kirk. What they found is that Robinson seemed to have a fairly bland a pox on both their houses view of the two political parties for quite a while. That changed when he started dating his roommate, who was very vocal about trans rights and his disgust at the re-election of President Trump.
But because this is the Post, the story is framed as a rebuttal to Trump and Republicans.
This examination draws on interviews with 21 people who knew Robinson, as well as hundreds of messages he exchanged online over the past five years.
President Donald Trump and his inner circle have claimed that Robinson was radicalized by left-wing extremists. Prosecutors allege Robinson targeted Kirk for his “political expression,” but there is no publicly known videotaped statement or lengthy missive to better understand the high-profile killing.
Having denied the obvious, the story then goes into detail which demonstrates that Robinson was in fact radicalized by a left-wing extremist, his boyfriend.
Some people said they noticed changes in Robinson over roughly the past year. His mother told police that he had become more “more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented” and had started dating a roommate who was undergoing a gender transition. Friends confirmed the pair’s romantic involvement and said the roommate was distressed about anti-trans sentiment. After the presidential election, according to one person who was close to him at the time, Robinson began to voice concern for the rights of transgender people and to express disapproval of the new administration, though the person said he was not strident in those views.
All of that is stuff we've known for months at this point. What's interesting about the Post story is some of the details about how that change in Robinson happened. It started when he moved into an apartment with two other guys. That apartment was regularly a scene where Robinson's friends would gather to play Magic: The Gathering.
Friends regularly came to the apartment to play the card game Magic: The Gathering, according to Discord messages and four men who took part.
They described Robinson as a generally quiet presence who came across as libertarian or conservative — a fairly typical person in their southern Utah world. He had a revolver, according to two people who remembered him showing it off. One of them said he liked to practice shooting on public lands near the Arizona border.
“He loved his guns, he loved his beer, he hated the government. That’s the impression that I got,” said another of the regular Magic players.
But things started to change when Robinson started becoming openly affectionate with one of his roommates.
Two of the Magic players said they thought Robinson was straight until he and that roommate grew openly affectionate, cuddling and kissing in the apartment. The roommate posted Halloween pictures with Robinson on a private Instagram account, writing, according to a screenshot, “My bf is the best, luv u.”
Around that same time, the roommate quietly began coming out to some people as transgender, according to three friends. Two others said they were not aware that the roommate was transitioning...
The roommate viewed Trump’s election as a loss for trans rights and was distraught, according to the person. More than once, the person said, he saw Robinson cradling his sobbing roommate in his arms.
In February, the roommate erupted at a friend who was visiting from out of town and came to the apartment for a Magic game, according to two people who were there. As the visitor began to say something about transgender athletes, the roommate interrupted him from another room and shouted repeatedly to “shut up” as Robinson sat silently on a nearby couch, the two people said. The group went quiet before play eventually resumed.
Pretty soon, Robinson himself was echoing those same views.
The person who spent a significant amount of time at the apartment in that period said that after Robinson started dating his roommate, Robinson began criticizing conservatives for fearmongering on trans issues. Robinson also complained about right-wing figures in the news, including Trump, whose tariffs he believed would tank the economy, the person said.
When the third roommate moved out, the regular meet-ups at Robinson's apartment eventually stopped. People heard less and less from Robinson. And as one friend of his told the Post, "And then he killed Charlie Kirk."
After the shooting, Robinson asked a few of his friends online what they'd heard about the shooting. When the FBI put out photos of a suspect, it was his parents who decided the images looked like their son. They asked him to come to the house to talk. He reportedly confessed to his father and that night turned himself in to police.
This being the Washington Post, they end the story with the claim that his friends aren't sure what he meant when he engraved "Hey fascist, catch" on one of the bullet casings.
Despite that, the Post story makes a pretty convincing case that Robinson did this because he became emotionally involved with a trans person who was emotionally invested in hating conservatives and shouting down anyone who disagreed. Robinson adopted those views as his own and then, it seems, acted on them. He wasn't a trans shooter but he was a shooter motivated by trans politics and one trans person he'd become very close with.
I guess we'll eventually get a denial of some or all of this during his trial. Some people would rather believe this is a mystery or a conspiracy, but it doesn't seem that difficult to understand.
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