The Reichstag Blueprint—Unmasking the Real Hate Speech

 

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In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination on September 10, 2025, at Utah Valley University, America stands at a crossroads reminiscent of the 1933 Reichstag fire—a moment Hitler exploited to dismantle democracy. Amid the grief and chaos, the most dangerous hate speech is not from the suspected killer, Tyler Robinson, but from a single X post by “dissident-right” influencer Matt Forney.
This post, still live as of 09:45 AM EDT on September 19, is a grotesque betrayal of American values, and its tolerance exposes a moral crisis demanding urgent action.

On the day of Kirk’s death, Forney posted:

“Charlie Kirk being assassinated is the American Reichstag fire. It is time for a complete crackdown on the left. Every Democratic politician must be arrested and the party banned under RICO. Every libtard commentator must be shut down. Stochastic terrorism. They caused this.”

Though this hardly registered in the media reports in the US, The Guardian wrote: 

"White supremacist Matt Forney, in a post that has been viewed over one million times, compared Kirk’s death to the Reichstag fire of 1933 (the arson attack on the German parliament building by a Dutch communist, which Hitler used to justify his aggressive crackdown against communists). “It is time for a complete crackdown on the left,” said Forney. “Every Democratic politician must be arrested and the party banned under RICO … they caused this.”...Overnight, a blacklist website was set up to name and shame people who were perceived as “celebrating” Kirk’s death on social media. The website is called “Charlie’s Murderers”.

This is not just rhetoric—it is a blueprint for authoritarianism. Forney explicitly calls for America to emulate Hitler's tactic of using the Reichstag fire (whether set by Marinus van der Lubbe or exploited by the Nazis, per Richard J. Evans, 2003) to suspend civil liberties and purge opposition. This appears to be happening.  Calling for arresting all Democrats and banning their party is not only historically resonant—it’s incitement fit for Hamm and Spaaij’s (2017) definition of mass media provocation to unpredictable violence. That no major outlet has condemned it, while the post remains undisturbed, shatters the sacred American rule: thou shalt not emulate Nazis.

A Rash of Hate Speech and Incitement to Violence from the Right:

Forney's particular framing is the most atrocious, but others managed to get the same point across in words only slightly less chilling.

Steve Bannon: “Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war. We are at war in this country. We are.”

Elon Musk: “If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die,”

Jesse Watters: (Fox host) “They are at war with us, whether we want to accept it or not. What are we gonna do about it?...Everybody’s accountable … the politicians, the media, and all these rats out there. This can never happen again. It ends now. This is a turning point and we know which direction we’re going.” 

Matt Walsh: (Podcaster)“We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell...This is existential. A fight for our own existence and the existence of our country.”

And, of course, Trump  stated that "the radical left [is] directly responsible for the terrorism we are seeing in our country today,” and vowed to “find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence," which he immediately and without evidence blamed "the radical left... and organizations who fund it and support it." (All quotes here)

  The Real Charlie Kirk: A Catalyst, Not a Martyr

Kirk, co-founder of Turning Point USA, wasn’t the saint now canonized. His Professor Watchlist emboldened intimidation and death threats against academics, while his $300k salary (up from $27k in 2016, ProPublica) fueled alt-right mobilization. His polarizing rhetoric fueled division, yet this is now erased as he’s painted a First Amendment victim of the “Left.”

Scrubbing the Truth: DOJ Data Deletions

In an act as chilling as any rhetoric, the Department of Justice quietly deleted a January 2024 NIJ report documenting over 227 far-right terror attacks and 520+ deaths since 1990, versus just 42 far-left attacks and 78 deaths. This report vanished mere days after Trump publicly insisted, against all prior evidence, that “most crime is from the left.” The DOJ offered no explanation, and journalists revealed that nearly 1,000 additional pages—many referencing hate crimes, police accountability, and state-level data—were removed earlier this year under Trump's executive orders.

The result: The public is left defenseless against coordinated revisionism, losing empirical anchors at the very moment the administration pushes to federalize policing in major “blue cities” and amplify fear with unverifiable, politicized crime claims.

Blaming the “Radical Left” Before the Truth

Before Robinson’s arrest on September 12, Trump (like Forney and countless other right wing provocateurs) rushed to blame the “radical left.” Forney’s post set the tone, immediately echoed by Trump’s September 10 speech. This preemptive scapegoating flatly mirrors Hitler’s own “communist conspiracy” narrative, exploiting fear for political gain.

Tyler Robinson: A Disturbed Local, Not a Leftist Pawn

Robinson, 22, came from a conservative Mormon family, with no party affiliation and no voting record. Governor Cox admitted, “I prayed it would not be one of us.I prayed it would be someone who drovve in from another state or came from another country [i.e. immigrant] but those prayers were not answered.” It was  not an outsider, and despite the hysteria being normalized about radical left wing groups, there is not a shred of evidence at this time to suggest any left wing network. . The Right’s desperate “radicalization” narrative, clinging to the irrelevance of a trans relationship (as if no only"left wing radicals"  can be found in such relationships) , ignores the simple likelihood of psychological crisis, not ideological subversion.

Mast’s Bill, Musk, and America’s Moral Compass

Rep. Brian Mast’s bill would allow Secretary Rubio to strip passports for vague “material support” accusations—a “thought policing” power that civil liberties groups warn is ripe for abuse. Musk’s social media smears and Forney’s Nazi analogy reinforce the danger—yet the only true hate speech in this episode is the call to imitative Hitlerian tactics, and it is ignored by both X and the media.

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BANNING "ANTIFA:

In the days following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, President Trump announced his plan to officially designate “Antifa” a terrorist organization—despite the movement being, by all expert accounts, a loosely affiliated, diffuse set of activists and philosophies rather than a structured group with leaders, membership, or a national presence. Legal and counterterror experts note there is no mechanism for designating domestic groups like Antifa as terrorist organizations, and that such a move raises grave First Amendment concerns. “Antifa” has become a right-wing boogeyman—a term elastically applied to a wide spectrum of left-leaning protestors, especially since 2020, despite no credible evidence of coordinated, group-directed terrorism or murder. According to the Anti-Defamation League and Center for Strategic and International Studies, there are zero Antifa-related murders on record in the US for 2025 (or in the preceding years). The current moral panic has roots in post-2016 right-wing media, but escalated following George Floyd protests and now is weaponized as a pretext for broad, indiscriminate crackdowns. This label, far more useful as a catch-all justification for repression than as a descriptor of any real threat, is likely to be applied in an elastic and political manner.

 

America’s Reichstag Moment?

Forney’s post is the true danger—inciting systemic crackdown, tolerated by X and ignored by a press cowed by Trump’s attacks, lawsuits and threats,  as unexplained mass data scrubbing of accurate crime stats goes unchallenged for now.. This moment is not about leftist terror, but about whether America will recognize—and resist—the real authoritarian threat now openly at its gates.

Endnotes:[1] Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. New York: Penguin Press, 2003. This book provides a detailed historical analysis of the rise of the Nazi Party, including the Reichstag fire of February 27, 1933, and its exploitation by Adolf Hitler to suspend civil liberties through the Enabling Act of March 23, 1933. Evans argues that while Marinus van der Lubbe was likely the arsonist, the Nazi leadership’s response was a calculated move to consolidate power, a precedent echoed in the current discussion

[2] Hamm, Mark S., and Ramon Spaaij. The Age of Lone Wolf Terrorism. New York: Columbia University Press, 2017. This study defines “stochastic terrorism” (the term Forney used in his X post) as the use of mass media to provoke random, ideologically motivated violence that is statistically predictable but individually unpredictable. The authors’ framework is applied to Matt Forney’s X post, which calls for a broad crackdown, potentially inciting such acts without direct commands.

[3] ProPublica. “Turning Point USA’s Finances and Charlie Kirk’s Pay Raise Under Scrutiny.” ProPublica, 2020. This investigative report details how Charlie Kirk’s salary at Turning Point USA increased from $27,000 in 2016 to nearly $300,000, alongside revelations of misleading financial practices, providing context for his role and influence as a polarizing figure. 

[4] Newsweek, DOJ Deletes Study Alleging Rise In Far-Right Terrorism In US, Sep 2025

[5] Al Jazeera, Trump plans to designate antifa a terrorist organization, Sep 2025

[6] NYT, Can Trump Actually Designate Antifa a Terrorist Group? Sep 2025

[7] Slate, Better Know an RNC White Supremacist: Matt Forney, July 2016  

[8] The Guardian, Far Right commentators echo Trump in calling for 'vengeance and retribution' for Charlie Kirk's death, Sept. 11, 2025