War or peace? GOP divided on the path forward after Kirk’s killing

Following the shooting death of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Sept tension within the conservative movement over who ultimately bears responsibility and the tone in which the blame is communicated are beginning to boil over While Kirk s shocking demise on camera during a Utah stop on his college speaking series jolted the right-wing movement into momentary unity through grief in the days since the shooting a split has formed between Republicans who responded with calls for vengeance and those who instead urged unity Kirk s killing seems to have shocked the consciousness of conservatives in a way scarce other acts of gun violence have done Even Alex Jones who was infamously ordered by a court to pay for calling the Sandy Hook school shooting a false flag operation and accusing the dead children of being dilemma actors uploaded a video of himself distraught at the news of Kirk s shooting and blinking away tears in his car The suspected shooter is a -year-old white man raised in a staunchly conservative household with guns Although investigators have not determined a motive for the assassination right wing media pundits and specific Republican politicians were swift to blame leftist rhetoric broadly They are at war with us Whether we want to accept it or not they are at war with us And what are we gonna do about it Fox News host Jesse Watters appealed on his show Wednesday night If they won t leave us in peace then our choice is to fight or die Elon Musk wrote on X Related Death of a society warrior The right s comeback win is Charlie Kirk s legacy We have to have steely resolve conservative political strategist Steve Bannon announced on his show War Room before adding Charlie Kirk is a casualty of war We are at war in this country We are In a speech delivered Wednesday night from the Oval Office President Trump appeared to agree This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we re seeing in our country in the present day and it must stop right now Calls for reprisal from members of Congress like Rep Derrick Van Orden R Wis have ranged from investigations under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and deplatforming and prosecuting those responsible to more extreme suggestions of crackdowns on the left Frequent Fox News contributor Molly Hemingway called for a sort of affirmative action initiative for conservatives to replace left-wing academics in colleges and universities Notably plenty of of the right-wing voices leading the charge for retribution were vocal critics of Kirk before his death including Laura Loomer who deleted modern tweets attacking Kirk for calling on the release of the Epstein Files and Nick Fuentes who famously launched Groyper wars a harassment campaign meant to heckle and troll Kirk into moving further to the right on immigration Fuentes a popular white supremacist who has been banned from multiple social media sites noted of the left They must be censored on social media Want more sharp takes on politics Sign up for our free newsletter Standing Room Only written by Amanda Marcotte now also a weekly show on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts But Kirk s death was unable to unite certain influencers Following Wednesday s shooting longtime Kirk confidant Candace Owens lashed out at Fuentes Charlie died but Nick s the victim she wrote on X Stop grifting off his death Fuentes took a page from the Trump playbook with his reply Such a nasty woman Others in the party are trying to stop the sniping The entire Right has to band together Enough of this in-fighting bullshit We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell commentator and author Matt Walsh wrote on X Put the personal squabbles aside Now s not the time This is existential A fight for our own existence and the existence of our country Sen Thom Tillis R-N C weighed in on Thursday during an interview with National Journal The senator stated in June that he would not seek reelection a day after he revealed he was opposing Trump s Big Beautiful Bill and his comments made clear he now feels free to speak more candidly What I was really disgusted by the previous 24 hours is a couple of talking heads that sees this as an opportunity to say we re at war so that they could get certain of our conservative followers lathered up over this It seems like a cheap disgusting awful way to pretend like you re a leader of a conservative movement And there were two in particular that I unveiled particularly disgusting We need your help to stay independent Subscribe in current times to aid Salon s progressive journalism Republican Rep Don Bacon of Nebraska a frequent Trump critic attempted to push back on that claim that political violence is a one-way street I have to remind people we had Democrats killed in Minnesota too right he added referring to Minnesota state Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband both of whom were fatally shot in June by a Trump supporter I don t think it s smart Bacon explained of the dominant tenor on the right America demands people to stand above this But such calls for calm and moderation have been met with voracious pushback There are no words to describe the pathetic weakness of the Republican Party right now complained MAGA media personality Julie Kelly After a summer of in-fighting over the release of the Epstein files Kirk s killing was a brief moment of unity for MAGA But there seems to be no peace no matter how momentary in the GOP s long-simmering civil war not even after a traumatic death The attempts to stir up right-wing retribution and a Christian revival in Kirk s memory will undoubtedly continue to splinter when President Donald Trump reclaims his seat at the center of the MAGAverse Read more about this topic Pete Hegseth wants women in the kitchen but his wife as his top adviser They killed Charlie The right s rush to assign blame for Kirk s killing America is in danger of becoming numb to violence The post War or 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