A stew of hypertoxic rhetoric has surged through social media and American discourse after the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, inflaming a political environment that was already deeply polarized.
The most concerning messages, experts told NBC News, are proclamations from far-right activists, Republican politicians and conservative influencers about a coming civil war and the need for retribution or payback against the left for Kirk’s killing. The phrase “civil war” has spiked on social media and in google searches.
“The Left is the party of murder,” Elon Musk posted on X to his 226 million followers, shortly after the shooting and before the gunman’s identity was known. He separately posted, “If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is fight or die,” without saying who “they” were.
While there had not been any known acts of violence connected to the Kirk killing as of Friday afternoon, the shooting sent a wave of fear across much of the U.S. political landscape. Many politicians are adding security in response to an uptick in death threats, and some canceled events and said they would be holding off on public appearances. The Democratic National Committee headquarters received bomb threats on Thursday and Friday, which authorities said turned out not to be credible.
On Friday, authorities said they arrested Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident, in connection with Kirk’s killing. Authorities also said he left behind bullet casings engraved with messages that included “Hey fascist! Catch! ↑→↓↓↓” in an apparent reference to a video game, among other references to obscure internet memes.
Hours after Robinson’s arrest, with his motive still unclear, former Trump adviser and right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon called for mass arrests and for taking a “blowtorch” to colleges and universities.
A spokesperson for Bannon responded to NBC News’ request for comment with an expletive. Musk did not respond to a request for comment.
The inflammatory language took off on Wednesday, immediately after the shooting. On social media platforms such as X, Truth Social and TikTok, as well as on Fox News, some personalities called for national law enforcement to target Democrats. Others compared Democrats to animals, demanded National Guard troops in more cities, declared themselves to have been “radicalized,” called for other forms of vengeance and repeatedly invoked the language of war as they reacted to Kirk’s killing.
The rush to judgment about the shooter’s motives, before a suspect was identified, went all the way up to President Donald Trump. In an Oval Office address on Wednesday evening, he blamed “radical left” rhetoric and said his administration would pursue anyone whose language he believes may have contributed to Kirk’s killing.
“This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now,” Trump said. “My administration will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence including the organizations that fund it and support it.”
Other Republican politicians also pointed the finger at the left for the incident. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., echoed “war” rhetoric percolating on the far right after the incident: “The left and their policies are leading America into a civil war. They want it,” he wrote in one X post, adding: “The gloves are off.” Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., wrote on X. “EVERY DAMN ONE OF YOU WHO CALLED US FASCISTS DID THIS,” she added. “YOU ARE THE HATE you claim to fight. Your words caused this. Your hate caused this.” Neither of their offices responded to requests for comment.
High-profile influencers on the right pushed similar rhetoric. Libs of TikTok, an account on X with more than 4 million followers, posted, “THIS IS WAR.” Enrique Tarrio, the onetime Proud Boys leader who was sentenced to 22 years in prison for seditious conspiracy related to the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack and then granted clemency this year by Trump, posted on X: “I’m labeling half the country murderers because that’s exactly what they are.” And he shared a post from another user who said: “FOR THE LIBS, WE’RE COMING FOR YOU!!! ITS WAR!!”
In an interview with NBC News on Thursday, Tarrio said that although he believed the country is deeply divided, he did not support an actual civil war, mass arrests or other violence against political opponents. Instead, he said he would pursue other tactics against social media users who were celebrating Kirk’s death — including trying to get them fired from their jobs or publicly shamed.
“I’ve always been an advocate against cancel culture, but at this point, fighting dirty is the only way to win, you know?” Tarrio said.
Others on the right also highlighted comments from the left celebrating Kirk’s death, with some companies firing staffers who had been found to have posted insensitive statements online. MSNBC commentator Matthew Dowd was fired from the network after he said that Kirk pushed hate speech, and that “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.” In a statement on Bluesky on Wednesday afternoon, Dowd said he did not intend to blame Kirk for the shooting. (NBCUniversal is the parent company of MSNBC and NBC News.)
A website seeking to collect examples of people celebrating Kirk’s killing in order to get them fired from their jobs sprung up quickly, and by Friday, it said it had received more than 20,000 submissions. “This is the largest firing operation in history,” the website stated.
A.J. Bauer, an assistant professor of journalism at the University of Alabama who studies conservative media, said such language threatens to inflame a nation on the edge because some people on the far right may interpret it as permission to carry out attacks on those they perceive as disloyal.
“In my view, this increases the likelihood of vigilante violence against people who are not supporters of the right,” he said. “I think it’s a very dangerous time to not be an ardent supporter of right-wing politics in the United States.”
Kirk emerged in recent years as one of the leading voices of a Republican Party reshaped by Trump. Kirk built a massive audience through a willingness to argue extreme and provocative positions online and in frequent on-campus appearances. Kirk has called a trans person “an abomination to God,” said prominent Black women including Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson had taken white people’s jobs and “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously,” and that the U.S. “made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.” His political arm, Turning Point Action, participated in “Stop the Steal” efforts after Trump lost the 2020 election, and he continued defending Trump’s post-election strategy at least through 2023, calling the 2020 election “rigged,” though Kirk last year began to back off Trump’s stolen-election claims.
Kirk also encouraged open debate, once saying, “When people stop talking that’s when you get violence.”
Some conservatives closely identified with him speaking his mind and hailed his strategy of reaching out to college students. Those on the left found many of his positions polarizing and deeply offensive.
The response to Kirk’s death is playing out in a fractured media environment where people across the political spectrum have grasped for explanations. Polling has found increasing gaps between the left and right, particularly on hot-button issues such as diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, leaving even local leaders to struggle against the negative effects of polarization. Those divisions have been routinely stoked by U.S. rivals, most notably Russia.
Fox News host Jesse Watters asserted in a broadcast hours after the killing that a war was already in progress: “They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it?” He did not say specifically who “they” were.
Watters went on to warn “rats” about their language.
“Everybody’s accountable, and we’re watching what they’re saying on television and who’s saying what: the politicians, the media and all these rats out there. This can never happen again,” he said. Fox News also did not respond to a request for comment.
As the right trumpeted retribution, some on the left showed little sympathy for Kirk and implied that his own rhetoric had led to his killing.
Hasan Piker, a leftist streamer on Twitch with 2.9 million followers, expressed horror at the killing, but also partly blamed Kirk for his own death. “He has played a formative role in his own demise by playing a part in a media landscape, in a media environment, that normalizes this death and destruction,” he said on a livestream shortly after the shooting. He did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Aside from Piker, though, such comments were generally limited to accounts with small followings and did not come from people with platforms as large as Musk’s or Bannon’s. High-profile Democrats condemned political violence, with some seeking to draw a distinction between their reaction and how conservatives responded when people on the left have been targeted with political violence.
Daniel Karell, an assistant professor of sociology at Yale University who has studied the relationship between online rhetoric and real-world action, said it matters that powerful figures such as Musk are pushing warlike rhetoric in a crowded media ecosystem.
“When it’s an elite figure or somebody with standing or respect or status in a group, they have a greater effect on realigning norms or standards or persuading people than just a random person from that group,” he said.
The rise of social media, where engaging content is algorithmically incentivized, has given extreme statements greater prominence. Some of the posts calling for civil war received millions of views on X, the platform that Musk owns.
“Considering the volume of extreme speech online, it’s almost surprising how rare these events are,” Karell said.