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.
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
