BASKING RIDGE, New Jersey — After years of complaints from the right about “cancel culture” from the left, some conservatives seek to upend the lives and careers of those who disparaged conservative activist Charlie Kirk after his death. They went after companies, educators, news outlets, political rivals and others they judge as promoting hate speech.
A campaign by public officials and others on the right led to the firing or punishment of teachers, an Office Depot employee, government workers, a TV pundit and the expectation of more dismissals coming.
Over the weekend, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted on social media that American Airlines grounded pilots who he said celebrated Kirk’s assassination. “This behavior is disgusting and they should be fired,” Duffy said.
As elected officials and conservative influencers lionize Kirk as a warrior for free expression who championed provocative opinions, they also weaponize the tactics they view as used to malign their movement — the calls for firings, the ostracism, the pressure to watch what you say.
The aftermath of Kirk’s killing is increasingly a test of public tolerance over political differences in a nation that to many appears to be dangerously splintered by politics and a sense of moral outrage that social media helps fuel.
Republicans push not only to punish the alleged killer but those whose words they believe contributed to the death or dishonored it. At the same time, some liberals on social media criticized those, such as actress Kristin Chenoweth, who expressed sympathy online over Kirk’s death.
“This pattern that we’ve seen for decades seems to be happening much more now and at this moment than it ever has before,” said Adam Goldstein of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He dates the urge to persecute people for their private views on tragedies at least to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. “If there was ever time to support the better angels of our nature, it’s now.”
From the moment conservative activist Charlie Kirk was felled by an assassin, partisans began fighting over which side was to blame.
Goldstein noted it’s unpopular speech, like people praising the assassination, that stands as the greatest test of acceptance of the First Amendment — especially when government officials get involved. “The only time you’re really supporting free speech is when it’s unpopular,” he said. “There’s no one out there trying to stop people from loving puppies and bunnies.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, said the suspect in custody clearly identifies with the political left and expressed dislike of Kirk before the shooting. But he and other authorities also said the suspect was not known to have been politically engaged.
Kirk, seen as an architect of President Donald Trump’s 2024 election win, helped expand the Republican outreach to younger voters. That means many conservatives see remarks by liberals as fomenting violence, rather than as political expression.
“I think President Trump sees this as an attack on his political movement,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said on NBC as he noted the two assassination attempts against Trump as well as Kirk’s killing. “This is unique and different. This is an attack on a movement by using violence. And that’s the way most Republicans see this.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., called on social media for the firings of an assistant dean at Middle Tennessee State University and professors at Austin Peay State University and Cumberland University. All three lost their jobs for comments deemed inappropriate for expressing a lack of sympathy, or even for expressing pleasure, over Kirk’s shooting. One said Kirk “spoke his fate into existence.”
Because conservatives previously felt canceled by liberals for their views, Trump on his first day back in office signed an executive order prohibiting everyone in the federal government from engaging in conduct that would “unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”
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In February at the Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance assailed European countries for censoring political speech.
Vance also criticized the preceding Biden administration for encouraging “private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned out to be an obvious truth” regarding the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Under Donald Trump’s leadership,” Vance said at the time, “we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.”
Still, the Trump administration also cracked down on immigrants and academics for their speech.
Goldstein noted Trump’s State Department warned it would revoke the visas of any foreigners who celebrated Kirk’s assassination.
There’s a bipartisan sense that social media fuels violence and misinformation in dangerous ways.
“I can’t emphasize enough the damage that social media and the internet is doing to all of us,” Cox said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said, “the most powerful companies in the history of the world have figured out how to hack our brains get us addicted to outrage.”
But many Republican lawmakers also targeted traditional news media that criticized Trump.
On Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., blamed news outlets for having guests on who called Trump a “facist” or compared him to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Such statements were born out of Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss, his pardoning of Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol rioters and a range of policy differences. Among them, his deportations, deployment of the National Guard, mass firings of federal employees and his scorn for the historic limits on the power of the presidency.
But for Britt, those expressions were unfair, inaccurate and triggered violence.
“There must be consequences with regards to people spewing that type of hate and celebration in the face of this,” Britt said. “And I believe that there will be.”
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