Charlie Kirk’s death is tearing MAGA apart

The shooting death of Charlie Kirk was supposed to be a galvanizing moment for the MAGA movement. Mere hours after an assassin’s bullet tore through the neck of the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) founder on Sept. 10 on the campus of Utah Valley University, right-wing leaders and media figures, including President Donald Trump, were declaring Kirk “a martyr” and insisting his death was the opportunity to destroy the left once and for all. His memorial a week and a half later was an enormous event, filling an Arizona stadium while speakers proclaimed that “Charlie Kirk died for all of you!” and predicting that his killing would “awaken a generation and save a nation.” Vice President JD Vance spoke, observing, “This is not a funeral but a revival.”

Now, a little more than two months later, the predicted wave of new recruits to the MAGA cause has not manifested. Trump’s approval ratings have declined a couple points, hitting a new low in his second term. In the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, large numbers of people were fired or harassed, as conservatives targeted private citizens for perceived insults of their slain hero. But after the public outcry that followed ABC’s attempted termination of late show host Jimmy Kimmel for a mild joke related to the shooting, the campaign to use Kirk’s death as an excuse to silence dissent largely fizzled out. As Russell Payne reported for Salon in October, groups that formed to target progressives for abuse after Kirk’s death have already started to fold.

But even in the early days, there were signs that Kirk’s death was not leading to the authoritarian takeover his fans had envisioned. Less predictable, though, is what came next. Far from unifying the MAGA movement, Kirk’s death opened the door to increasingly ugly infighting, as various right-wing influencers vie to fill the power vacuum left by the TPUSA leader. Conservative media figures like Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens and Ben Shapiro have been sniping at each other online, flinging accusations of dark conspiracies and anti-semitism, some of which even appear to be true. The immediate cause of the strife is a growing divide over U.S. support for Israel, but there’s little doubt that the feuds are fueled by unchecked ambition: To exploit Kirk’s death to get more followers — and more power — in the toxic MAGA media ecosystem.

While Kirk was never the mega-celebrity the right now pretends he was, it does seem he was powerful enough within MAGA to keep a lid on the burgeoning desire that exists in some circles to embrace overt anti-semitism and even Nazi sympathies. He was the frequent hate target of Nick Fuentes, a Hitler-praising far-right influencer with an alarmingly large following, who viewed Kirk as a major obstacle to his schemes to remake MAGA in his own proudly fascist image. Turns out he was right about that; now that Kirk’s gone, Fuentes’ star is rising. Last month, he sat down for a tongue bath of an interview with Carlson, which the former Fox News host justified by bluntly declaring Fuentes’ popularity demanded it. That led to Shapiro and GOP Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, among others, to openly condemn Carlson. Shapiro dubbed Carlson “the most virulent super-spreader of vile ideas in America.”

The Fuentes vision is being taken up in bits and pieces by the Trump administration. Last week, ProPublica exposed how a White House lawyer with a self-described “Nazi streak” had been working to protect accused sex trafficker Andrew Tate from a federal investigation. On Thursday, the Washington Post reported that, under the leadership of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, the Coast Guard will stop classifying swastikas and nooses as hate symbols.

Shapiro isn’t just facing tension with Carlson. He’s also competing with Owens, his former Daily Wire employee, whose open flirtation with anti-semitism eventually forced him to fire her last year. She struck out on her own and has been building her audience, rapidly surpassing Shapiro in podcast rankings. In the past month, she’s garnered over twice the YouTube views as Shapiro, who has been losing viewers at a steady pace in recent weeks.

The key to Owens’ success seems to be the very anti-semitism that got her fired from the Daily Wire. She’s been fueling, in her usual oblique “just asking questions” fashion, an elaborate conspiracy theory suggesting that the Israeli government orchestrated Kirk’s murder to keep him from speaking out against the war in Gaza. She’s also been asking pointed questions that suggest Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, was complicit. While Owens mostly sticks to raised eyebrows and claims that something isn’t adding up with the official story — which is that a lone gunman shot Kirk for still somewhat obscure reasons — plenty of far-right people online are openly declaring that it was a Jewish conspiracy.

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There’s no polling yet on how widespread this conspiracy theory has become. But there are troubling signs that it’s getting a huge amount of traction among everyday Republican voters. On a recent episode of the “Focus Group” podcast, which featured a panel of loyal Trump voters, multiple participants echoed the claim that Israel’s government and/or Jewish Americans ordered Kirk’s killing.

Whenever people on the right criticize Owens or Carlson for pushing these conspiracy theories or anti-semitic rhetoric, they accuse their detractors of being “Zionists” who want to draw the U.S. into “a forever war with Iran.” This is stolen valor, of course, as they’re cynically appropriating the moral authority of progressives who object to the Gaza war on humanitarian grounds. But as progressives have shown, one can object to Israel’s genocidal assault on Palestinians without engaging in anti-semitic conspiracy theories. And one certainly doesn’t have to elevate Fuentes, who openly argues that Jews are engaged in a conspiracy to destroy “Western civilization” — the same conspiracy theory Nazis used to justify the Holocaust.

Fuentes appears to believe that all this infighting will destroy MAGA, creating an opportunity for his ascendance as the right’s new — and unapologetically fascist — leader. On Nov. 14, he triumphantly declared, “MAGA was sufficient for 2016, but it isn’t anymore. Now we need something stronger.” Three days later, he posted a video bragging about his soaring view counts, declaring his intention to “infiltrate politics” and promising to back Republican candidates who embrace his ideology.

The fighting has started to spill out into all corners. One especially stupid feud has sprung up between radio personality Mark Levin and ex-Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who refused to condemn Carlson for his flirtations with anti-semitism. Levin objected, and their tiff is growing increasingly heated as they bicker online. On Thursday, Kelly called Levin a “lying POS.” He responded by calling her “a grifter” with “the mouth of lowlife” and a “limited vocabulary.”

After Kirk’s death, TPUSA swiftly anointed his wife, Erika Kirk, as the organization’s new leader. At the time, I predicted she’d fail because her previous role was always as his brand-polishing faux-housewife. There’s no evidence she’s a talented organizer in her own right. But I couldn’t predict how bizarre her flailing would be, especially after she publicly hugged Vance in a way that stoked widespread rumors that the two are more than friends.

Charlie Kirk was never the great youth ambassador as depicted in the posthumous tributes and on Fox News. But his widow’s missteps have revealed that he did, in fact, share Trump’s odd talent for holding together the cantankerous MAGA coalition.

Now that Kirk is gone and Trump’s health isn’t looking good, internal strife is tearing up the MAGA movement. Fuentes was premature in tweeting “MAGA is dead” earlier this month. That obituary has been written many times, and it’s always been premature. But it’s not wrong that the movement is starting to look a little sickly.