Vance’s call also included a vow to target some of the biggest funders of liberal causes as conservatives stepped up their targeting of private individuals for their comments about the killing. It marked an escalation in a campaign that some warned invoked some of the darkest chapters of American history.
“The government involvement in this does inch this closer to looking like McCarthyism,” said Adam Goldstein of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, referring to the 1950s campaign to root out communists that led to false allegations and ruined careers. “It was not a shining moment for free expression.”
Campaign broadens to those who quote Kirk critically
Republican-controlled states such as Florida, Oklahoma and Texas have launched investigations of teachers accused of inappropriate statements after last week’s assassination. The U.S. military has invited members of the public to report those who “celebrate or mock” the killing and said some troops have already been removed for their comments.
At the same time, the Trump administration has vowed to target what it contends is a “vast” liberal network that inspired the shooter, even as authorities maintain it appears he acted alone and the investigation is ongoing.
The campaign has broadened to include even those whose statements were critical of Kirk without celebrating his assassination.
The Washington Post fired Karen Attiah, an opinion columnist, for posts on the day of the shooting that lamented how “white America” was not ready to solve gun violence and that quoted Kirk denigrating the intelligence of prominent Black women such as Michelle Obama.
PEN America, a press freedom group, warned in a statement that firings like Attiah’s “risk creating a chilling effect.”
Goldstein worried there were many cases of people targeted for simply quoting Kirk or failing to mourn his passing adequately. “That’s one of the key symptoms of cancel culture,” he said. “Trying to paint everyone with the same brush.”
Conservatives coined the term cancel culture for what they claimed was persecution of those on the right for their views, especially related to the COVID-19 pandemic and Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol, leading to campaigns to get regular people fired.
It was a significant cause for President Donald Trum p, who pledged to end it during his campaign last year. But after the Kirk killing, he and his administration have instead leaned into it from the right.
A hero to conservatives, a provocateur to many Democrats
A father of two and a Christian conservative, Kirk was a hero to many Trump Republicans for his fiery warnings about the dangers of Democrats and ability to organize young voters. But Kirk also was a provocateur and supporter of Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss who left a long record of partisan quips that enraged many on the left.
“According to Kirk, empathy is a made-up new-age term, so keep the jokes coming. It’s what he would have wanted,” read one post on X that Melvin Villaver Jr., a Clemson University music professor, re-posted the day of the killing, according to a screenshot circulated by college Republicans demanding his firing. Clemson eventually fired one staffer and suspended Villaver and another professor after intense pressure from elected South Carolina Republican officials.
Other targeted posters, such as Army Lt. Col. Christopher Ladnier, simply quoted Kirk on the day of his assassination. This included Kirk calling the Civil Rights Act a “beast” that “has now turned into an anti-white weapon,” his criticism of Martin Luther King Jr. and his statement that some gun deaths are the cost of a robust Second Amendment.
Ladnier, who has been targeted by conservative activists online, said in a Facebook message to The Associated Press that he would respond “when/if” his chain of command takes action.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott approvingly posted a video of a Texas Tech University student who was arrested Friday after a confrontation at a campus vigil for Kirk, writing: “This is what happened to the person who was mocking Charlie Kirk’s assassination at Texas Tech.”
Some people targeted have been victims of mistaken identity.
A school district in rural Elkhorn, Wisconsin, reported receiving more than 800 messages after one conservative influencer mistakenly identified an associate principal at an elementary school as celebrating Kirk’s death.