In Phoenix, mourners gathered outside the headquarters of Turning Point USA, the influential media and political advocacy venture Kirk founded and ran. At Arizona State University, one of the many college campuses where Turning Point was active, students had mixed feelings about Kirk, some citing his previous statements that justified gun deaths as a reason not to feel too bad about the murder.
Most of Arizona’s notable political figures have condemned the killing in clear terms and voiced their sympathy for the Kirk family. But some right-wing figures have gone beyond that and are already trying to use Kirk’s death as fuel to light a violent fire against a broad swath of people considered their political opponents — the “left,” Democrats, “leftists” — despite no confirmation of the assassin’s motive.
In fact, there is some evidence that the alleged shooter, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, trafficked in far-right groyper memes. Generally, groypers are a group of extremely online, far-right young men led by antisemite Nick Fuentes, who attacked Kirk from the right.
State Rep. Nick Kupper, a Republican representing a large swath of west of Phoenix, was one of the most vitriolic and inflammatory social media users, retweeting one post that went so far as to say, “The democrat party is a national security threat.”
Kupper also used dehumanizing language to attack Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego, who condemned Kirk’s killing.
“Beyond politics Charlie Kirk was someone’s father, husband and son. Remember that first, before engaging in whataboutism,” Gallego tweeted. “His family will never be the same. Political violence has to stop by all sides.”
Kupper’s response to this humanistic statement: “One side is committing the violence you waste of human flesh!”
One side is committing the violence you waste of human flesh! https://t.co/MIsiFcGWeh
— Nick Kupper (@realnickkupper) September 10, 2025
That is not true. In Minnesota earlier this year, a gunman killed the Speaker of the Minnesota House, Melissa Hortman, along with her husband. The killer reportedly voted for Trump in 2024 and is a hardliner against abortion.
Political violence is hardly confined to one side of the aisle, and while some recent killings have been perpetrated by shooters with “leftist” ideologies, there is a long list of shootings perpetrated by individuals with right-wing sympathies. The same day Kirk was killed, a teen radicalized by antisemitism and white supremacy shot and wounded two students at a Colorado high school.
Republican state Rep. Nick Kupper claimed, falsely, that Democrats commit most political violence.
Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Getting defensive
Asked by text message if his tweet to Gallego was dehumanizing, Kupper was defensive.“Are you implying that I shouldn’t say what I think because I might be killed?” he responded, seemingly unaware that the dehumanizing language was more of a threat to Gallego than to him.
Kupper also claimed to Phoenix New Times that the Minnesota killer was a Democrat, which is not true, and said leftists commit more violence than right-wingers.
“Statistically, conservatives don’t tend to commit these violent acts over words,” Kupper said. “Forget parties. The ideology is the issue. One ideology has been doing the majority of the killing over the other ideology’s words in the last few years.”
When asked for a source, Kupper did not provide one. According to statistics kept by the Anti-Defamation League, which tracks extremism and antisemitism, right-wing extremism accounted for 75% of domestic extremist-related killings in the U.S. from 2013 to 2022. Left-wing extremism, in which the ADL includes anarchists and Black nationalists, accounted for 4% of killings.
Though not a politician, the husband of Republican state Rep. Rachel Keshel unleashed a chilling, fascistic attack on all left-leaning people in a similar vein.
“The left are not Americans. They are demon-possessed, hate-filled sycophants for a cause of evil, and I am done mincing words and playing nice,” Seth Keshel, a former Army captain of military intelligence and Afghanistan veteran, wrote. “You are dealing with a nest of evil so thick it wouldn’t go away if the Republican Party won every presidential election from here on out and gained trifectas in all 50 states. It’s not going to simply go away, because it has been fed toxicity, evil, and suggestively violent ideas for decades now.”
Echoing her husband, Keshel tweeted to former President Barack Obama that he was the reason the shooter killed Kirk.
“YOU sir motivated this insane person. Your entire legacy was dividing America by race, religion, and any other way you could,” wrote Keshel, who represents a rural swatch of southern Arizona. “This is an example of the fruit of your horrible stain on our great country. You should be rotting in a prison cell.”
YOU sir motivated this insane person. Your entire legacy was dividing America by race, religion, and any other way you could. This is an example of the fruit of your horrible stain on our great country. You should be rotting in a prison cell. https://t.co/jyZwgxoEdE
— AZ Representative Rachel (Jones) Keshel (@RJ4arizona) September 10, 2025
Keshel did not respond to a message from New Times asking her to explain how Obama was to blame or to a question about whether she agreed with her husband.
The violent undertone of these statements was summed up in a post from Tyler Bowyer, the chief operating officer of Turning Point and a close friend of Kirk’s, and retweeted by far-right GOP state Sen. Jake Hoffman:
“This is a War.”
State Rep. Quang Nguyen of Prescott Valley implied, without evidence, that Democrats were to blame for Charlie Kirk's death.
Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
Who are ‘they’?
Several legislators attempted to use Kirk’s assassination to perpetuate an “us v. them” conflict, though they regularly failed to identify exactly who “they” and "them" are. Republican Warren Petersen, the president of the Arizona Senate and a candidate for attorney general, was among them.“They could not handle losing the debate and the next generation of voters,” he tweeted.
They could not handle losing the debate and the next generation of voters.
— Warren Petersen (@votewarren) September 11, 2025
Petersen did not respond to a request to clarify his tweet.
State Rep. Quang Nguyen, a Republican from Prescott, made a similar statement that implied all political violence is committed by left-leaning Americans — which, again, is not true.
“FACT: We have the guns. They have all the shooters,” Nguyen tweeted, without any basis of actual fact. “FACT: They don’t shoot to intimidate us. They shoot to kill and they finally did it.”
FACT: We have the guns. They have all the shooters
— Quang Nguyen (@QuangNguyenAZ) September 10, 2025
FACT: They don’t shoot to intimidate us. They shoot to kill and they finally did it.
Nguyen did not respond to a New Times question about who “they” are supposed to be. The urge to demonize a wide, if undefined, swath of people was particularly notable from Nguyen, a Vietnamese refugee who was recently the subject of a racist cartoon published by an outlet owned by extremist former state lawmaker David Stringer.
One post from far-right commentator Matt Walsh, retweeted by GOP state Sen. Janae Shamp, got a bit more specific, but only a bit.
“The entire Right has to band together. Enough of this in-fighting bullshit. We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell,” Walsh wrote. “They’re killing us in our churches. They tried to kill our president. They killed Charlie, one of our greatest advocates. Put the personal squabbles aside. Now’s not the time.”
If the claim is that heightened rhetoric inspired Kirk’s killer to violence, what kind of rhetoric is “demonic forces from the pit of Hell” supposed to be?
Just says after going on a bigoted rant about Muslims, Republican state Rep. John Gillette called Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives "evil."
Gage Skidmore/Flickr/CC BY-SA 2.0
‘Pure evil’
Several Arizona Republicans reposted a video of a disagreement on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives, holding it up as evidence that Democrats are evil.Exactly what happened on the House floor wasn’t entirely clear from the video clips. According to the Wall Street Journal, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson called for a moment of silence for Kirk, after which the chamber was quiet for some time. Then, Colorado GOP Rep. Lauren Boebert asked Johnson to lead the House in prayer. Rep. Jahana Hayes, a Democrat from Connecticut, objected and noted that school shootings often go unacknowledged. At that point, shouts were traded and GOP Rep. Anna Paulina Luna yelled at Democrats that they had caused Kirk’s death.
Republican state Rep. John Gillette, who recently made bigoted remarks about Muslims, tweeted in response to the video, “This is the evil we are up against.”
This is the evil we are up against. https://t.co/55HJSbTQ2I
— Rep. John Gillette AZ House LD30 (@AzRepGillette) September 10, 2025
In a phone call with New Times, Gillette said he didn’t know about the Democrat referencing school shootings.
“To not denounce a school shooting and not to bring that to light? Yeah, that’s evil as well,” seemingly in agreement with Hayes. “If there’s a school shooting, everyone needs to be given the details so we know. To ignore the school shooting would be pure evil.”
Still, Gillette said protesting a prayer was also “pure evil” and Hayes could have remained silent. He also implied Hayes was the spokesperson for all Democrats.
“All it takes is one,” he said. “That one person represents the Democrat voice. That is pure evil.”
State Rep. Leo Biasiucci said much the same in a tweet reposing the video. “Pure evil," he wrote. “The devil is real.”
Pure evil. The devil is real. https://t.co/E1hFSBeybj
— Rep. Leo Biasiucci (@Leo4AzSenate) September 11, 2025
Biasiucci did not respond to an inquiry about his missive.
U.S. Rep. Andy Biggs, a Gilbert Republican running for his party’s nominee for governor, tried to take advantage of the squabble for his own anti-left messaging.
“Democrats refused to pause and pray for Charlie Kirk,” he tweeted. “When they show you who they are and what they stand for, believe them.”
Biggs notably voted against demanding the release of files from the investigation of notorious sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, despite having called for their publication until it became clear President Donald Trump was named in the files.
