By Peter Brown
it’s a classic case of the echo chamber backfiring spectacularly. President Trump’s immediate pivot to blaming the “radical left” for Charlie Kirk’s murder on September 10, 2025, lit a powder keg of outrage that rippled far beyond the U.S., and now, with the suspect’s identity revealed, the silence from those who amplified it is deafening. It’s almost comical how quickly the narrative crumbled, leaving a trail of egg-soaked faces in its wake.
For context, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah native and registered Republican, was arrested on September 12 and charged with aggravated murder, among other felonies. Authorities say he confessed to a family member that Kirk was “full of hate and spreading hate,” and the bullet casings found near the scene were engraved with quirky, “extremely online” references – like “Bella ciao” (an antifascist song popularised in video games and memes), gaming nods, and taunts aimed at fascists – more akin to ironic 4chan trolling than any coherent left-wing manifesto. Far from the “transgender and antifascist” boogeyman some early speculation painted, Robinson appears to be a fringe right-winger, possibly a “Groyper” type (those alt-right trolls who mix irony with extremism), radicalised in online spaces that overlap with MAGA fringes rather than progressive circles.
Trump’s Oval Office speech on the 10th, vowing to crack down on left-wing “rhetoric” that he claimed incited the killing, was echoed enthusiastically by the GOP machine. Figures like Rep. Anna Paulina Luna and Elon Musk piled on with posts blaming Democrats and the “party of murder,” while right-wing outlets from Fox to Sky News Australia framed it as proof of leftist terror. Globally, it fueled a frenzy – even here in Australia, where Senator Ralph Babet (the United Australia Party’s firebrand) jumped in with a venomous X post on September 11, calling for the “public hanging of these far Left terrorists.”
It’s a textbook display of how misinformation spreads like wildfire in polarised bubbles, turning tragedy into tribal ammo before the facts even hit the ground.
Now that Robinson’s background has come to light – complete with reports of him being a Trump supporter from a conservative, gun-owning household – the backpedaling is underway, but it’s muted. Trump himself has shifted to just calling for the death penalty without revisiting his initial blame game, and on X, the #BlameTheLeft tags have evaporated, replaced by awkward pivots to “lone wolf” theories or demands for swift justice. Democrats, who condemned the violence from the jump without finger-pointing, look prescient in their calls for unity, while the right’s selective outrage (remember how some downplayed the June 2025 murders of Democratic lawmakers Melissa Hortman and her husband?) rings even hollower now.
They do look foolish – rushing to judgment based on zero evidence, only to have reality slap them with a Republican suspect. But in this climate, “stupid” might just mean “strategically quiet until the next outrage cycle.” It’s a reminder of how dangerous knee-jerk tribalism is.
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President Brown-Rump cannot help himself, exposing his political perversions in an irrational unfactual absurd outburst of Bowellery. Must the USA under the whipping of this oafish offal pile become Adolfian? So many, far too many, USA loudmouths in and out of public life and media just yell brainlessly in righteous self fixations and self saturation. A superstition drenched hallelujahite crowd stirrer has gone, a crime any way one perceives it, so why is there no cooler comment? A Murdoch-Trump world view would appal a bowel specialist. Trump has had a few months this time, and suffering another three plus years of drenching stenching wrenching wrong makes one angrily sad.
Can we get some help for Babet? He’s gone right over the edge.
God I’m glad I don’t live in the US. I don’t think you realize how stupid you look with Diaper Don in charge of the nuke codes. Why do I care-because our stupid gov’t is energized by how much Trump is getting away with in the USA they are emulating him here. Please make him stop.
Sigh. So the Republicans with IQs of less than 90 want public hangings, but would bleat when the gallows will be stacked with MAGA fruits.
[In Australia under Centrelink regulations anyone with an IQ below 70 is automatically eligible for disability benefits. I guess there will be a few MAGAs in that lot]
Twice I have told off and blocked these but jobs who swamp y social media feeds with constant shit, but claim my bias when i demand evidence before blocking them.
They can’t help themselves.
“IDF should shoot all Trans-Palestinians.
Ignoring the danger of those on their own side of the political spectrum while describing those on the left as violence-oriented. Saying it was OK for George Floyd to be murdered because he had past convictions. OK for a 10yo girl to be forced to carry a child which was the product of rape. (Kirk’s own daughter.)
Not a member of ANTIFA but starting to see the logic in their comments: “It’s ok to punch a Nazi”
Jen: People like Babet can’t be helped. He is so happy living in his delusional world, he will resist any and all treatment.
I wish people like him could be helped, but then it might involve some involuntary surgery like a lobotomy that is now considered unethical. 🙂