The only indisputable fact about the Kirk assassin was that he had access to a bad ass rifle and knew how to use it. Like many shooters, he was a gun nut with psychological issues.
You claiming that he was "a leftist" is exactly the tribalism you complain about.
As much as i hate it this does prove the other commenters point. They guy was at the very least indisputably not right wing. Leftist? Maybe not too political of a take for me but he was no maganut at the time of the act.
You are literally doing what you're describing, man! Do you not see that you are also engulfed in tribalism?!
You grasp on to any little shred of factoid (who cares if true or not) to put anyone you don't like as "the other tribe".. "Oh he donated $1 to Biden! Fucking leftist!". "Oh a report says his mom said he's a leftist?! I fucking knew it!".
It's sad. It's even sadder if you can't see it in yourself.
These questions are almost always more complex and nuanced than simply left or right. I agree with you on the second part to a degree—insomuch as the modern media landscape pushes people to quickly label shooters and tends to disincentivize any sort of nuance—but might you be doing the same here?
The charging document[0] said that his mother claimed "that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left – becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented." There's also a text message he sent, which said "since trump got into office [my dad] has been pretty diehard maga." That's it. Acquaintances said "he wasn't too fond of Trump or Charlie [Kirk]," but we still haven't seen much that explains the specifics of why beyond the gay and trans rights angle. A former high school classmate said "[w]hen I knew him and his family, they were like diehard Trump" and that he was politically conservative and supported Trump "ahead of the 2020 election."[1]
As for what changed and why, we don't know. Did he stop supporting Trump because of gay and trans rights? Did he still believe in other conservative ideas? Simply labeling him as a leftist implies a cohesive ideology, but ideology is rarely so simple or straightforward even for normal people who don't decide to commit political assassinations.
Beyond that, a lot of even ideologically-motivated shooters have some awfully peculiar and non-cohesive ideologies. If the suspect agrees with 80% of a particular tribe's most common views, but that last 20% consists of some truly batshit ideas that have very little if any support, are they still a member of that tribe? Would that tribe even want them? Would they themselves want to be part of that tribe? Plenty of conservatives who believed fully in the movement's ideas broke with Trump in 2016 solely on the basis of his personal character.
They can also grab onto ideas from other tribes, to the point where investigators wind up crawling through something that's less a cohesive political ideology and more a smorgasbord of ideas they pinned together. I mean, hell, you've got to have a screw or two loose to think a political assassination is going to somehow lessen--let alone stop--anti-gay and/or anti-trans sentiment. Run that idea past pretty much any left-leaning politician, activist, or political junkie, and they'll tell you you're a moron, likely right before giving the FBI a call.
The only indisputable fact about the Kirk assassin was that he had access to a bad ass rifle and knew how to use it. Like many shooters, he was a gun nut with psychological issues.
You claiming that he was "a leftist" is exactly the tribalism you complain about.
As much as i hate it this does prove the other commenters point. They guy was at the very least indisputably not right wing. Leftist? Maybe not too political of a take for me but he was no maganut at the time of the act.
You mean other than the extreme right wing nick Fuentes mems he wrote on the bullets? Smdh
4 replies →
[flagged]
For someone complaining about tribalism, it seems odd that you focus so much on which of two political sides we should put a shooter.
5 replies →
You are literally doing what you're describing, man! Do you not see that you are also engulfed in tribalism?!
You grasp on to any little shred of factoid (who cares if true or not) to put anyone you don't like as "the other tribe".. "Oh he donated $1 to Biden! Fucking leftist!". "Oh a report says his mom said he's a leftist?! I fucking knew it!".
It's sad. It's even sadder if you can't see it in yourself.
1 reply →
These questions are almost always more complex and nuanced than simply left or right. I agree with you on the second part to a degree—insomuch as the modern media landscape pushes people to quickly label shooters and tends to disincentivize any sort of nuance—but might you be doing the same here?
The charging document[0] said that his mother claimed "that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left – becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented." There's also a text message he sent, which said "since trump got into office [my dad] has been pretty diehard maga." That's it. Acquaintances said "he wasn't too fond of Trump or Charlie [Kirk]," but we still haven't seen much that explains the specifics of why beyond the gay and trans rights angle. A former high school classmate said "[w]hen I knew him and his family, they were like diehard Trump" and that he was politically conservative and supported Trump "ahead of the 2020 election."[1]
As for what changed and why, we don't know. Did he stop supporting Trump because of gay and trans rights? Did he still believe in other conservative ideas? Simply labeling him as a leftist implies a cohesive ideology, but ideology is rarely so simple or straightforward even for normal people who don't decide to commit political assassinations.
Beyond that, a lot of even ideologically-motivated shooters have some awfully peculiar and non-cohesive ideologies. If the suspect agrees with 80% of a particular tribe's most common views, but that last 20% consists of some truly batshit ideas that have very little if any support, are they still a member of that tribe? Would that tribe even want them? Would they themselves want to be part of that tribe? Plenty of conservatives who believed fully in the movement's ideas broke with Trump in 2016 solely on the basis of his personal character.
They can also grab onto ideas from other tribes, to the point where investigators wind up crawling through something that's less a cohesive political ideology and more a smorgasbord of ideas they pinned together. I mean, hell, you've got to have a screw or two loose to think a political assassination is going to somehow lessen--let alone stop--anti-gay and/or anti-trans sentiment. Run that idea past pretty much any left-leaning politician, activist, or political junkie, and they'll tell you you're a moron, likely right before giving the FBI a call.
0. https://static.foxnews.com/foxnews.com/content/uploads/2025/...
1. https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/12/us/tyler-robinson-charlie-kir...
1 reply →