Tipsheet

Independent Journalist Nails What's Led to the Left's Frenzy for Political Violence

Matt Vespa
Matt Vespa  |  September 19, 2025 7:00 AM

Charlie Kirk was assassinated on September 10 at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, for having political conversations. That’s it. He was doing his trademark Q&A sessions, which were often heated but remained true to their mission, which was to maintain an open dialogue with those with whom we may disagree. Conversations are good, even if they’re not always the most pleasant. He was shot and killed by suspect Tyler Robinson, who was captured two days later, for exercising his First Amendment rights.

Since then, we’ve been subjected to an avalanche of ghoulish liberals celebrating his death. Some in the legacy media have tried to lie about this, going so far as to say no one is celebrating Kirk’s death online. Really? Is that why there’s been a trove of liberals losing their jobs or being placed on leave? The worst are the folks who think Robinson was a Kirk supporter. Independent reporter Michael Shellenberger had a lengthy post about how this happened, specifically how the left’s penchant to dehumanize conservatives has led to the rise in political violence. The polling points that out—liberals are six times more likely to endorse or support political violence. The Democrats have a problem, but it’s also a monster of their own making: 

…the environment that led to Kirk’s death was created by the Left in its decades-long demonization and dehumanization of conservatives. For 80 years, schools, universities, and the media have used Hitler, Nazism, and fascism as symbols of ultimate evil. To call someone a “Nazi,” “fascist,” or “far-Right,” is therefore to imply that they are part of this evil, and like the historical Nazis, must be eliminated. Over the last 10 years, not just the radical Left but the mainstream news media, including the New York Times, and mainstream Democrats like Newsom, repeatedly characterized Trump and his supporters as Hitler-adjacent fascists. The New Republic openly depicted Trump as Hitler. 

[…] 

This was all part of a deliberate dehumanization campaign. Kirk, Trump, and other conservatives, Democrats argued, are white supremacists and misogynists who “hate” black people and women, who are committing “trans genocide,” and who are destroying “our democracy.” For progressives who truly believe this rhetoric, killing such individuals would be as justified as killing Hitler and his supporters 80 years ago. After all, this act would not only save the lives of black and trans people, but would also save the entire country from an authoritarian fascist dictatorship.

The same leftists who had for decades produced studies, books, movies, essays, songs, and poems about how the Nazis dehumanized their enemies dehumanized, without hesitation, MAGA conservatives. They falsely claimed Trump had praised white supremacists in Charlottesville in 2017. And reporters who had for decades covered Trump’s rise to wealth and power in 2016 reported as truth the outlandish conspiracy theory that Trump was a Manchurian candidate controlled by Russian president Vladimir Putin – another alleged Hitler-like fascist. 

Why did the Left spread so much hatred of Kirk and other conservatives? Why did they engage in so much dehumanization for so long? 

In large part because Kirk challenged Left-wing mythology on gender, race, and modern feminism. One cannot change one’s sex through drugs, surgery, or magical thinking, Kirk and other conservatives noted. There is no epidemic of police officers killing black men; in fact, the numbers declined dramatically from the 1970s to the birth of Black Lives Matter. Black Americans commit crimes at numbers clearly disproportionate to their share of the population. And some research does suggest that liberal, secular women report more mental health issues and lower life satisfaction than conservative, religious women, who are more likely to be married and to have children. 

The Left cannot tolerate these challenges to its worldview, so it resorts to censorship and silencing. 

[…] 

The logical conclusion of the Left’s intolerance is that those who continue to speak about reality, if they cannot be censored, should be eliminated. 

Sure, some in the legacy media and liberal spheres have spoken out against the celebrations over Kirk’s assassination, but it’s not enough. It doesn’t absolve them of the generations-long campaign to portray those with differing views as the personification of evil. They won’t apologize, and Shellenberger is open that he’s not holding his breath on this either: 

We have little confidence that the Left will apologize or change its behavior for many of the same reasons the Left dehumanized Kirk in the first place. The mainstream view of the Left today, as represented by everyone from Democrats in Congress to the New York Times to NPR and PBS, is that Western civilization itself is corrupt and evil. The Democratic Party over the last roughly 12 years has lost any semblance of being a liberal party and has become an overtly illiberal, radical-Left one. 

From the Left’s reaction to the assassination, more Americans and people around the world will see that the Left hated, and still hates, Kirk precisely because he loved Western civilization and fought to conserve it. 

If any Democrats and progressives really want to end political violence, they would stop encouraging fanaticism and instead embrace dialogue and debate. They would go beyond simply writing articles and instead go to colleges and universities and start having honest conversations about race, sex, gender, and other issues essential to discussing openly if we are to move forward as a country. They would stop accusing their political opponents of spreading “hate” or “misinformation,” and instead listen to what they actually have to say. “That’s what is so important to our country, is to find our disagreements respectfully because when people stop talking,” said Kirk, “that’s when violence happens.”

And they're still trying to kill us: