It was 12:20 p.m. on September 10, 2025, when a single shot echoed across the campus of Utah Valley University. Charlie Kirk, 31 years old, founder of Turning Point USA and one of the most polarizing figures of the American right, collapsed during a Q&A session on the topic of mass shootings - struck by the very violence he was just talking about. Luke Pitman, a student who was only a few meters away, remembers the moment: "We thought it was confetti. Then everyone started ducking. And then I look over at Charlie Kirk and see blood coming from his neck." The bitter irony of this moment was destined to become a symbol of an America lost in a vortex of hate, vengeance and political radicalization.
The reaction of the Trump administration followed a script reminiscent of a solemn state production. Vice President JD Vance personally stood on the tarmac in Salt Lake City, surrounded by uniformed military personnel, as Kirk's casket was loaded onto Air Force Two. Tyler Bower of Turning Point documented the scene for social media - an image that went around the world. The transport to Arizona, where Kirk lived with his family, was styled into a national affair. Trump himself, who had spent hours on the phone with Kirk's widow Erika the day before, described her as "absolutely devastated" and announced his participation in the funeral: "They asked me to come, and I think I have the obligation to be there."
The Green Bay Packers held a moment of silence before their game against the Washington Commanders, accompanied by an anti-violence message from the NFL: "The National Football League asks you to join us in a moment of silent reflection after the murder of Charlie Kirk. The NFL condemns all violence in our communities. It takes all of us to stop hate." The ceremony segued seamlessly into a commemoration for the victims of September 11 - a parallel that many considered tasteless.
Meanwhile, a different scene unfolded in the European Parliament. Charlie Weimers of the far-right Sweden Democrats and other members of the right-wing to far-right spectrum had requested a moment of silence for Kirk. Parliament President Roberta Metsola rejected the request with cool professionalism - such motions had to be made at the beginning of the agenda, not in the middle. The reaction was predictable: angry pounding on desks, loud protests, outraged shouts. But Metsola remained unmoved. Europe had understood what America did not want to face: Charlie Kirk was not a hero to be commemorated. He was an arsonist whose rhetoric had destroyed countless lives.
The list of his public statements reads like a compendium of hate. Kirk demanded that homosexual people "be stoned to death." He claimed that most people were afraid when they saw a Black pilot in the cockpit. Taylor Swift, in his opinion, should reject feminism and submit to her future husband. No one should be allowed to retire. Leftists should not be allowed to move into Republican states. It had been British colonialism that "made the world decent."
The man who attacked Paul Pelosi should, in his opinion, be released on bail. Freedom of religion should be abolished. Several Black politicians had "stolen the seats of whites." Martin Luther King Jr. had been "a terrible person." The racist conspiracy theory of the "Great Replacement" was reality. Hydroxychloroquine cured COVID-19. Vaccine mandates were "medical apartheid." Deaths from firearms were acceptable to preserve the Second Amendment.
Women were by nature under the control of their husbands. Parents should prevent their daughters from taking contraceptives. George Floyd had deserved his death, while the Capitol rioters of January 6 were innocent. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been a "huge mistake." He encouraged parents to protest mask mandates. The election of a Muslim in New York was a tragedy because Muslims had committed September 11. Muslims came to America only to destabilize Western civilization. Palestine "does not exist" and those who support it are like the KKK.
This litany of hate was not the product of private conversations or leaked recordings. Kirk proclaimed these views proudly and publicly, before millions of followers, on university campuses across the country. He turned contempt for human beings into a business model, division into a career.
The investigation into his death is in full swing. FBI Director Kash Patel, who personally traveled to the crime scene in Utah, was seen on the evening of September 11 standing near the tent where Kirk had spoken before thousands. The FBI has offered a reward of $100,000 and released surveillance images of a suspect - a man wearing sunglasses, a black cap and a black long-sleeved shirt. Authorities have recovered a high-powered bolt-action rifle near the crime scene. The ammunition bore inscriptions, the contents of which investigators have so far kept under wraps. More than 200 tips have already been received.
See our article at: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/die-schuesse-von-orem-verifiziertes-video-des-taeters-und-fahndungsbilder-fbi-sucht-weiter-nach-dem-moerder-von-charlie-kirk/
The suspect apparently wears a shirt from a veterans' organization, but the FBI has not contacted them. In the police manhunt photos, the man is seen wearing a black long-sleeved shirt with a US flag, eagle and the slogan "Land of the Free, Home of the Brave." Researching this took 30 minutes. Joe VanFonda, the executive director of the Disabled Veterans National Foundation in Maryland, said his organization had received several calls from people who recognized the shirt. It was not available for sale but sent as a thank-you gift to supporters. Thousands had been sent out, but the black long-sleeved version had only been distributed in smaller numbers since 2023. Most donors were over 60. VanFonda, himself a former Marine, stressed that his foundation was nonpolitical and stayed out of all debates. He confirmed that no one from official authorities had contacted him so far.
But while America mourns Kirk, while Trump calls him "legendary" and glorifies him as a "martyr for truth and freedom," while flags fly at half-mast and sports stadiums hold moments of silence, an uncomfortable truth forces itself into view: the overwhelming majority of political violence in the United States in recent years came from Kirk's own side, from Trump supporters.
In June 2025, a Trump supporter murdered Democratic Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark in their home in Minnesota. In April, a Trump supporter planned an assassination attempt on Pennsylvania's Democratic Governor Josh Shapiro. In 2022, a Trump supporter organized a series of shootings at the homes of four Democratic officials in New Mexico. That same year, a Trump supporter tried to kidnap then-Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and instead brutally attacked her husband Paul. On January 6, 2021, Trump supporters chanted that they wanted to hang Mike Pence - their own vice president who had refused to overturn the election.
In 2020, a Trump supporter murdered the son of Judge Esther Salas, who had been appointed by Obama. That same year, several Trump supporters were convicted for attempting to kidnap Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer. In 2018, a Trump supporter sent pipe bombs to the homes of Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and other leading Democrats. In 2017, a Trump supporter drove his car into a crowd of counterdemonstrators in Charlottesville, killing left-wing activist Heather Heyer.
This shocking chronology shows a clear pattern: political violence in America in recent years has almost exclusively gone in one direction - from right to left, from Trump supporters against their perceived enemies. Kirk's death breaks this pattern, and that is precisely what makes it so significant, so disturbing for a movement that had grown used to dealing out violence but not receiving it.
The irony becomes even bitterer when you look at the broader political context. Because there had been problems between Trump and Charlie Kirk as well. In June 2025, deep rifts opened up within the MAGA movement when Trump left the G7 summit in Canada early and called for the immediate evacuation of Tehran. Speculation about US military aid to Israel, including bunker-busting bombs, sparked the anger of isolationists within his own ranks. Steve Bannon warned urgently that a war would "not only blow up the coalition but also torpedo the central project - the deportations." Tucker Carlson went even further and said on the "War Room" podcast: "You are not going to convince me that the Iranians are my enemies. This is Orwell. I am a free man." Trump's angry reaction on Truth Social - "Can someone please explain to crazy Tucker Carlson that IRAN MUST NOT HAVE NUCLEAR WEAPONS!" - revealed the movement's internal divisions. Marjorie Taylor Greene demonstratively sided with Carlson: "No war. No regime change. No 'America Last.' That is not crazy. That is what millions voted for."
Charlie Kirk himself had taken a clear position in this conflict: "Trump was the first president in my lifetime who did not start a new war. That was a promise." The conflict with Iran, Kirk said, was a line the base would not go along with. This warning, spoken by one of Trump's most loyal supporters, now seems almost prophetic. The movement he had helped build shattered over the very contradictions he embodied: America First versus interventionism, isolationism versus imperial ambitions.
Utah Valley University, with its nearly 47,000 students the largest public university in Utah, remains closed until September 14. "We are shocked and saddened by the tragic death of Charlie Kirk, a guest on our campus. Our hearts go out to his family," read a statement that sounded as sterile as it was meant. Many students had signed a petition against Kirk's appearance beforehand, even though police had recorded no specific threats.
Jason Chaffetz, a former Republican congressman from Utah, was among the approximately 2,000 attendees with his family. Kirk had just been asked about "transgender shootings, mass shootings" when the shot was fired. "As soon as that shot rang out, everyone hit the ground, and then everyone started running and screaming, as you can imagine," Chaffetz reported. "I cannot say that I saw blood. I cannot say that I saw him get hit, but as soon as the shot went off, he fell back to the left and everyone hit the ground."
Erika Kirk had tweeted a Bible verse on the morning of the attack: "Psalm 46:1 - God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Hours later, her husband was dead, and she was left alone with two small children. Trump described his long phone call with her: "She is devastated, she is absolutely devastated, as you can imagine." The children, as First Lady Melania Trump put it, "will grow up with stories instead of memories, with photographs instead of laughter, and silence where their father's voice should have been."
The international reactions were mixed. Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted: "Charlie Kirk was murdered because he spoke the truth and defended freedom. A lionhearted friend of Israel, he fought lies and stood tall for Judeo-Christian civilization." Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose father and uncle were both assassinated, wrote: "Once again a bullet has silenced the most eloquent truth-teller of an era." The AfD exploited the death of Charlie Kirk in a form of hypocrisy we have rarely seen. See our article at: https://kaizen-blog.org/en/heiliger-charlie-beatrix-von-storch-verklaert-einen-rechten-brandstifter/
But outside the right-wing outrage carousel, the reaction was more restrained. Stephen Colbert gave Kirk a brief mention at the start of his show, nothing more. Most mainstream media reported factually, without participating in the glorification. Europe watched with a mixture of horror and incomprehension - horror at the violence, incomprehension at the canonization of a man who had sown so much hate.
The truth is uncomfortable, but it must be spoken: Charlie Kirk was not a good person. That is putting it mildly. He was a merchant of hate, an architect of division, a man who profited from the demonization of minorities. His organization, Turning Point USA, radicalized an entire generation of young conservatives, teaching them that compromise was weakness, that the political opponent was the enemy, that America could only be saved through hardness and exclusion. But none of these reasons excuse the act, it is despicable and perfidious.
And yet he is now dead. A young father, struck down by a bullet while talking about violence. The human tragedy is real, regardless of who the victim was. His children will grow up without a father, his wife will have to go on without a husband. This reality must not be denied, even if it should not lead to canonization.
America stands at a crossroads. Kirk's death could be the moment when the country pauses and asks itself how it came to this. How a nation that sees itself as a beacon of democracy became a battlefield where political opponents no longer debate but murder each other. Or it could be the moment when the spiral continues to turn, when Kirk's death becomes a justification for new violence, when a murder becomes a cult of martyrdom that fuels further radicalization.
The decision lies with America. With a president who must choose between retribution and reconciliation. With a movement that must choose between escalation and reflection. With a country that must choose between civil war and healing.
Charlie Kirk never understood that behind every political ideology stand human beings - vulnerable, fallible, human. He saw only enemies, threats, targets. His death should remind America that this path leads in only one direction: into darkness. The question is whether America is willing to turn back before it is too late. The signs are not good, but hope, as we know, dies last. Even in a divided America.
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Unterm Strich denke ich, es hat nicht den falschen getroffen.
Was für mich persönlich am schlimmsten ist, ist diese Entwicklung, hin zu äußerster Aggression, in der jedes Mittel recht ist, den anderen zu beleidigen, zu verhöhnen, Lügen zu verbreiten, ihn seinerseits bis zum Unerträglichen zu reizen.
Ich komme selbst dabei an meine Grenzen. In den USA ist mit Trump eine Regierung entstanden, der ich alles zutraue. So zum Beispiel auch, dass mit Charlie Kirk auch ein Kritiker der Republikaner gestorben ist. Das lautesten Sprachrohr der USA wollte die Veröffentlichung der Epstein-Akten. Er war entschieden gegen Krieg, ob mit Iran, oder beginnend mit Venezuela, Grönland und Kanada sind bei Trump auch noch nicht vom Tisch, das alles ist für Trump nicht hinnehmbar und gefährdet die Einheit der Republikaner. Dazu kommt, dass mit dieser Person ein Märtyrer geschaffen wird und der Grund, alle Demokraten als „Links-Terroristen“ zu brandmarken. Die Symbolik dabei, dass der Schuss genau bei dieser Frage nach Massenschießereien fiel, verstärkt nur noch mein Misstrauen.
Ich hasse es, so zu denken. Ich spekuliere, ohne Fakten, aber ich bin, seit Trump an der Macht ist, so oft überrascht worden von „Undenkbarem“, das Wirklichkeit wurde, dass sich in mir ein tiefes Misstrauen gegenüber allem, was fanatisch rechtes Gedankengut angeht, entwickelt hat. Die Missgunst, Kaltblütigkeit und Menschenverachtung, die dahinter steht, lässt mich daran zweifeln, dass wir wieder zu einer homogenen, demokratischen Gemeinschaft finden werden.
Das sind ganz genau meine Gedanken.
Rein menschlich eine Tragödie. Mord ist niemals legitim.
Aber hier hat es Jemanden getroffen, der genau das propagiert hat. „Zum Erhalt des 2 Amendment werden Menschen sterben, das ist der Preis der Freiheit“
Und mit dieser Gewalt ist er gestorben, just in dem Moment, als er über Massenschießereien gesprochen hat.
Ich wiederholt mich, aber der Einzige, der davon profitiert ist Trump.
Ein Kritiker seines Iraneinsatzes, ein Kritiker seiner Invasionspläne, ein Verfechter der ungeschwärzten Epstein Files.
Trump steht unter Druck.
Ein solches Attentat lenkt perfekt ab. Für einige Wochen.
Es mobilisiert sogar Republikaner, die sich bis dato eher bedeckt hielten. Charlie Kirk ploppt überall als unschuldiger Held auf, dessen Mörder die Todesstrafe treffen soll.
Die Demokraten haben dadurch bichts gewonnen, im Gegenteil.
Das sollte man einfach im Kopf behalten.
Ich bin mir sicher, dass wir die Wahrheit dahinter nie Verfahren… wie bei Kennedy (die Aktrn wollte Trump ja auch vollständig frei geben und hat es nicht getan. Aber die Akten von Martin Luther King, trotz Einspruchs der Familie).
Hier wird (wurde vermutlich schon) ein Fall für die Öffentlichkeit konstruiert.
Wahrscheinlich wird der vermeintliche Täter bei der Verhaftung erschossen, damit nie raus kommt, dass er nicht der Täter war.
Ihr seid grandiose Rainer.
Aber ich fürchte, dass Ihr da an Eure Grenzen mit der Aufdeckung stossen werden.
Besilonders geschmacklos ist, dass das Gedenken an den 11. September und seine Opfer perfide genutzt wurde um Kirk ins Rampenlicht zu bringen.
Der Tag, 10. September, war sicher nicht zufällig gewählt
Das ist der beste Artikel, den ich seit Jahren gelesen habe. Es ist wirklich bedauerlich, dass es diese Form des tiefgründigen, unabhängigen Journalismus heute kaum noch gibt. Ich habe allergrößten Respekt vor eurer Arbeit und eurer Beharrlichkeit. Man sollte euch für einen Pulitzer-Preis nominieren. Ihr hättet ihn verdient.