Extremist Groups Hated Charlie Kirk. They’re Using His Death to Radicalize Others

For years, extremist groups, white nationalists, and militias like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers saw Charlie Kirk not as their ally, but as their enemy.

Though Kirk denigrated trans people, Muslims, unmarried women, and many minorities and advocated for an America with Christianity at the center of every aspect of life, he was, in their view, a moderate. For some, his staunch support of Israel’s government made Kirk a target rather than a friend.

But in the immediate aftermath of Kirk being fatally shot while speaking at a Turning Point USA event Wednesday at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, these same groups were quick to frame the incident as an attack on one of their own, portraying Kirk’s death as part of what they see as an ongoing war against white, Christian men. The same groups were relatively quiet on Friday after police announced they had arrested a 22-year-old from Utah for the killing who had no obvious ties to the left.

These groups, many of which have been relatively dormant since the mass arrests surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol, have used the outpouring of grief around Kirk’s death as a lightning rod, a signal that they need to mobilize and take action. Many of them, including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, have used Kirk’s death as a recruitment and radicalizing tool to convince his supporters to take a more extreme worldview.

“Nothing can stop what is coming,” Ryan Sánchez, the leader of the far-right National Network, who was caught on video giving a Nazi salute during last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, wrote on his Telegram channel. “We are mobilizing young Nationalists to defend our communities against the Radical Left—we need your help!”

The appeals appear to be at least somewhat working: Sánchez’s post was accompanied by a screenshot showing a $1,000 donation he received on Christian crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo.

“This is the beginning of a movement that may define our nation,” the donor wrote on the site. “Use it for good and purge the country of these insane ideologies.”

Another donor, who called himself “White Nationalist,” commented: “Time to take our country back fellas. Get to work!”

Sánchez, an acolyte of far-right influencer Nick Fuentes, has already mobilized. A video from a vigil for Kirk that Sánchez promoted in Huntington Beach, California, on Wednesday shows a group of men chanting: “White man fight back.” He shared another image of himself speaking at the vigil on his Telegram channel, with the caption: “DEATH TO THE LEFT.”

The video of the chanting in Huntington Beach was shared in many other extremist groups, including the Anti-Communist Combat HQ channel on Telegram, which is a hub for amplifying antisemitic, racist, and anti-LGBTQ rhetoric from groups including Active Clubs and the National Justice Party.

The channel’s operators highlighted just how useful a recruitment tool such events are. “Those guys chanting in this video will probably have a dozen conversations each that will bring the conservatives around them a little closer to us and that is infinitely more valuable than purity spiraling on Telegram,” they posted.

“This latest instance of political violence is definitely acting as a clarion call for them to step up and try and get back to their pre-J6 levels,” says Luke Baumgartner, a research fellow at George Washington University’s Program on Extremism. “The biggest danger that we'll likely see is not necessarily the ‘normies’ looking to join their ranks, but those that are already on the cusp, finally having their raison d'être to move from merely online chatter to IRL action against their enemies, both real and perceived.”

Within minutes of Kirk’s fatal shooting on Wednesday, far-right influencers and extremists claimed the US was “at war” and that the shooter, who was not identified until Friday morning, was a radical leftist. (A motive has not been determined.) These same figures turned their attention to those on the left they perceived to be celebrating Kirk’s death, launching a nonstop campaign to get those people fired. As WIRED reported Thursday, the effort also resulted in a lot of people receiving death threats, with one victim telling WIRED they were moving their family out of their home.

The Texas Nationalist Network, a white nationalist group, was among many who linked the murder of Kirk to that of Ukrainian woman Iryna Zarutska in Charlotte, North Carolina, last month, calling them “a turning point in the minds of many.”

While many groups are talking about recruiting and radicalizing “normies” into their extremist groups, others have unabashedly promoted further violence.

“Vigilante violence and retaliation will not solve this problem,” the operators of the Proud Boys Ohio channel on Telegram wrote on Wednesday. “Only massive, top-down, state violence against evildoers will solve this problem.”

The Texas Proud Boys channel shared an image of a knight holding a flaming cross with the caption “time to lock in,” followed by a video of Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and the caption: “Eye for an eye.” Other Proud Boy chapters around the US shared similar sentiments, and two Proud Boys showed up to an impromptu vigil for Kirk in Utah on Wednesday evening.

Enrique Tarrio, the onetime leader of the Proud Boys who had his 22-year sentence for seditious conspiracy with regards to the January 6 Capitol riot pardoned by Trump earlier this year, says the group is focused right now on outing those who he believes are publicly celebrating Kirk’s death. (Many within the Proud Boy movement have disavowed Tarrio and his leadership.)

“The Proud Boys are focusing our efforts into these threats and celebrations,” Tarrio tells WIRED. “We will not call for violence, but we will inform their employers of who they have on staff.” Many Proud Boy channels and accounts online are filled with members outing those they believe were celebrating Kirk’s death, sharing links to a website that has become the hub for this campaign.

“We’re not fucking around anymore,” Tarrio added.

Just hours after Kirk was shot, Oath Keepers founder Stewart Rhodes, who had his sentence for seditious conspiracy with regards to the January 6 Capitol riot commuted by Trump earlier this year, announced on Infowars that the shooting was the inspiration he needed to restart his militia organization.

“I'm going to be rebuilding the Oath Keepers, and we will be doing protection again,” said Rhodes. “If my security team had been at that event, if they had been up there on the high point, looking for potential threats, they would have saved Charlie Kirk from being shot.”

Rhodes added that he was already in the process of preparing a written proposal for the Trump administration about how it could activate militias across the country.

Rhodes is urging men between the ages of 17 and 45 to come together in their communities and form vigilante groups “to protect the people of the county, to secure their neighborhoods, their public transportation, to stop terrorist attacks.”

The morning after Rhodes’ broadcast, Jessica Watkins, a former Oath Keeper and convicted insurrectionist, wrote on X: “Charlie Kirk’s assassination pulled me out of retirement. More work must be done.”

While some researchers believe Tarrio and Rhodes are more interested in profiting from renewed interest in their movements, others are concerned about further political violence.

“To see two of the groups that led one of the most significant acts of political violence in American history returning to a violence-embracing pre-January 6th posture should give us all pause,” says Devin Burghart, executive director of the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights.