New Republic analysis: Crackdown on critics after Charlie Kirk assassination found legally toothless

Charlie Kirk’s assassination—and the days immediately following it—transformed the ultraconservative agitator from a tertiary figure in MAGA’s youth culture war into an avatar for the right’s ultimate vision for America. He became a patron saint for persecuted patriots everywhere, his name invoked as a zealous call to arms before his body was even buried.

“Let me tell you something I’ve not shared with anybody. The last message that Charlie Kirk gave to me before he joined his creator in heaven … he said that we have to dismantle and take on the radical left organizations in this country that are fomenting violence. That was the last message that he sent me, before that assassin stole him from all of us,” White House adviser Stephen Miller hollered on Fox News two days after Kirk was shot. “I don’t care how.… We are going to do what it takes to dismantle the organizations and the entities that … are trying to inspire terrorism.”

“You want us to live in fear? We will not live in fear. But you will live in exile,” Miller concluded.

This threat became the right’s rhetorical marching order for the next year. What followed was a frantic, McCarthyist campaign that led to:

• Hundreds of people getting fired or disciplined for exercising their First Amendment rights
• A renewed federal attack on the so-called “radical left”
• The whitewashing of Kirk as a normal guy who simply wanted to discuss tough subjects with everyday Americans, with civility and in good faith

All of which looks starkly different 365 days later.

The Purge

In just the two months following Kirk’s death last September, more than 600 people were punished in some way by their employers for their online comments about Kirk.

Notable cases include:

• Brittney Brown, a Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission biologist, was fired after the conservative Libs of TikTok X account sent a repost of hers to her boss. It read: “They care exactly as much [about the shooting of Kirk] as charlie kirk cared about children being shot in their classrooms, which is to say, not at all.”
• Darren Michael, an Austin Peay State University professor, was fired after posting an old article on something Kirk himself had said: “Charlie Kirk Says Gun Deaths ‘Unfortunately’ Worth it to Keep 2nd Amendment.”
• Karen Attiah, a Washington Post journalist, was fired for criticizing gun violence and posting a racist quote of Kirk’s.
• Larry Bushart, a retired Tennessee police officer, was thrown in jail for reposting a quote from Trump saying America needed to “get over” the 2024 Perry High School mass shooting. “Seems relevant today …” Bushart commented.

Legal Reckoning

Each of these cases failed to hold up to legal scrutiny:

| Individual | Outcome | |------------|---------| | Brittney Brown | Awarded $485,000 in a settlement | | Darren Michael | Awarded $500,000 | | Karen Attiah | Private arbitrator ordered the Post to rehire her, with back pay dating to her termination | | Larry Bushart | Awarded $835,000 |

According to Forbes, victims of this witch hunt have been awarded a total of at least $2 million as of May.

This was perhaps the most vexing outcome of Kirk’s assassination. Lawmakers and pseudo-intellectuals targeted their fellow Americans for expressing opinions about a man who—at least on paper—championed the First Amendment at any and all cost. While not everyone who was punished received hundreds of thousands of dollars in vindication (apologies to MSNBC’s Matthew Dowd), the numerous legal rejections of the witch hunt revealed just how toothless the entire campaign was from the start.

Then there was the Miller narrative—the notion that the radical left of America was directly responsible for Kirk’s death and should be hunted down and rooted out of society.